This is a very good article, and goes right to the heart of the problems at the club:-

http://www.theunitedpages.com/why-firemanmou/

Nothing surprises me with that article tbh. I have heard a few of those rumours.

Yeah, it seems there is something rotten at the heart of the club, and it will require time for any manager to try and rectify on the pitch, and hopefully we have the right one in Jose.

That article explains bad man management skills by previous incumbents, there is no rot within the club itself.

There may be some weak characters taking it easy and getting a nice pay day though.

That last sentence for sure.

I despise this sort of thing, where a group of attention seeking ***** write an article that just so happens to go along with the agenda people want to hear so they believe it. Same with the Rooney has been drinking stuff last season or the Di Maria was trying to convince Rojo to leave stuff or the Fergie hates Mourinho and is conspiring with the class of 92 to stop him from taking over except a few days have passed so we're now claiming the opposite etc.

Yep. It's just attention-seeking clickbait based almost entirely on guesswork and rumour. I wouldn't give any of it the time of day.

We do have a problem, though.

I'd love to see the actual sources for anything in that article. I suspect it is a collection of half-truths, three year old Daily Star articles and fanciful thinking more than anything else.

But one thing is clear - there is something clearly rotten with the group of players we have. It's hard to say where it comes from as the performances vary so much. LVG and Mourinho are not bad managers. LVG was perhaps behind the times and found it difficult to adapt to the Premier League, but Jose knows this league inside out. He will be fuming at what he is seeing and regardless of where we finish in the league this year I hope to see him kept on so he can clear out the rot.

There are elements of the article that are true, even if it does read like it was written by someone with brain damage.

Agree completely with you both. We should be concerned by the performances of our squad and I agree that we should give Mourinho more than one season to try and fix whatever is wrong but that doesn't mean we should listen to every idiot who claims to have the inside scoop.

Yeah, this isn't the first time I've heard some of those rumours.

Can't dismiss it all as bullshit though, it certainly answers some questions about this team. When was it that Rooney was supposed to have confronted Rashford? I remember one of our youth players tweeting something about this incident tbh.

I hadn't heard the Rooney/Rashford bust up story, not convinced by that one tbh.

Certainly the stuff about the players hating Van Gaal and Schweinsteiger being allowed to take the piss is fairly common knowledge though.

It might be a bit of a stretch to belive some of the things in that article, but I am dismissing it out of hand totally, as it does paint a picture that matches up fairly well with what we have seen over the period post Sir Alex

Well, yeah. It was reported on a few months ago by every single journalist. But that's how these blogs work, they take a few details that are generally accepted to be true, then they add in a few bits that sound plausible based on the previous details and fit the required narrative (in this case, the players are *****, previous examples include Rooney is a ****, Di Maria is a ****, Fergie is a ****, Van Gaal is a **** etc) and then they throw in a couple of attention seeking bits to grab maximum attention.

The depressing thing is it works. Every single time we go through a bad patch we get this nonsense. Oh well, I guess at least it proves we're still the biggest story in town. I haven't bothered to read the article but I have read some of the posts in here and in the football neutrals thread that I can't help but consider wide of the mark when it comes to pinpointing our problems. For example you have batdude be-moaning the fact we can't attract the best players to the club any longer and in the very same post he acknowledges the record-busting fee we paid for Pogba.

To me, it's quite simple and almost a mirror of the situation post Busby. You had a man that more or less became the club and dominated it so completely it took seven years after his retirement to clear the air and return the club to a force again. SAF has arguably meant even more to United than Busby and is proving just as hard to replace. And as for internal squabbles or boardroom politics, nothing the clickbaiters can report on now compares to the drinking culture among players that SAF had to contend with when he came to the club - or keeping his head down and the players focused during the Michael Knighton fiasco.

It's the same as it ever was. As Conte is proving with more or less the same slackers that downed tools last season, Koeman is proving at a Stones-less Everton, even Gaurdiola to an extent getting an apology off Ya Ya today and of course SAF proved - it doesn't matter what the problems are - get the right man in and he'll sort it out. The last two weren't right for different reasons. I happen to think Jose is the right man - though we may not see it this season - but he's acting like he hasn't shaken the monkey of last season off his back. I suppose that's understandable, but I think that may be clouding his judgement at the moment.

We can't keep blaming the board, SAF for not reinforcing the middle, LVG for getting rid of our strikers, a hard-core of players for slacking off/being disruptive. It's been three years since Fergie and we have the current winningnest manager in world football at our club now. Some of the responsibility must lie with him.

Apparently you're being linked with Diego Godin.

Didn't he and Fergie used to go to school together? You've been linked with him for so long it's hard to keep up.

Hold on a minute, you make a lot of very good points in your post, and I do agree re the Sir Matt comparison, that seems very relevant, and one that I did hope that we wouldn't repeat, (at least we haven't reappointed Sir Alex!) but alas we have to a certain degree, but how have I got dragged into this??

My point about the finances of the club, was more of a general one, not specifically talking about any one single player in particular.

Someone at work told me about this article yesterday.

One thing that shocks me is that i didnt know miki had asked for a transfer.

Surely any manager that comes into a club inherits other managers players, so we can'tblame that on everything.

And so once more City drop points, and we find ourselves potentially in a position to somewhat close the gap between us and them, anyone confident that we will do that by going to Wales and coming back with the three points??

It would also be nice to be closer to the team at the top of the table than the team who are currently in the highest placed relegation place.

To put it simply no

So today in 1986, we appointed plain old Alex Ferguson, and the rest as they say is history.

Hopefully we can do the anniversary of such an event proud, with a victory today.

Sir Alex Ferguson is without question the greatest club manager the game has ever seen, 49 trophies won 34 of them major trophies (including his Aberdeen time) 16 League Championships with 9 second place finishes, 9 FA Cups from 12 finals, 5 League Cups from 10 finals, 2 European Cup Winners Cups and 2 Champions League's from 4 Finals with over 1,250 games won as manager from over 2,150 games is a testament to this/

No manager in the history of football including the likes of Bob Paisley, Brian Clough, Bill Shankly, Rinus Michels etc has been so consistent and so successful and stayed at the top as long as Sir Alex did a true test for a manager, he was winning trophies pretty much none stop for 30 years his only bleak spell was from 87 to 90 when he was rebuilding the club. One stat that is never reported but shows the staggering level of success and consistency that Fergie achieved at United is that from 1989-90 until his departure at the end of 2012-13 was that Man. Utd went only one season without either winning or finishing Runners Up in a major competition and that was in 2001-02 when we finish 3rd in the League and reached the semi-finals of the Champions League, amazing achievement.

Yes Fergie was lucky in his early days that he was given time a luxury he wouldn't get today as he was in a more forgiving era but that doesn't take away from his successes.

I'm just so glad Sir Alex was our manager for so long and i was lucky enough to grow up with the greatest manager ever plying his trade at my club. I took it for granted at times that Sir Alex would be there forever winning trophies and United would be at the top of the tree, it is only now that he has gone that i fully appreciate it. 3 and half years since his departure as manager and we still haven't fully recovered and we are a million miles away from were we were under the great man.

No Rashford in the squad by the sounds of things, that doesn't bode well, looks like we might be hoping for a miracle today that Ibra has found his goalscoring boots.

Ibrahamovic has been a terrible signing for you he should be dropped if anyone, the money he is trousering as a retirement payday ensures he won't be

If there is no Rashford in the squad, then who do you suggest he be dropped for? As I can't quite see (unfortunately) José trying Martial up front in his place.