Was the lack of funding in the summer a sign?

After we won the league last year in the last seconds of an incredible season.....you would have thought that the board would say "let's push on and sign 2 or 3 more top class players".

We didn't.

Why?

Was it:

FFP? I don't buy that as an offer of £40m was on the table for Mario. We didn't take it...and at the time, apart from the sale of Aguero...no other player would bring in that kind of money.

Complacency? Maybe. The thought that what we had was enough with a few low-level tweaks would be enough to keep us at the top of the tree. However, this approach doesn't allow for what other teams do in the transfer market in improving their teams.

The Mancini Test? Did the board think it's time to test just how good Mancini is, especially after we have given him bundles of cash to sign players in the region of £250m? Make him work with the current team, look at FFP and add some lesser expensive players to the squad.

Just a basic fuck up by all concerned? We relaxed at all levels within the club, we brought in the 'Barca 2' to oversee the club as whole and decide whether they believe in Mancini and his tactics, signings etc.....all in advance of the 2013/14 season..where it's clear to all we have 4 maybe 5 players who don't deserve a squad number...and when you see what the other top teams have spent to bring in quality players........is the defining result and more so performance, that the 2 at the top will decide that the 'big push' will occur in the summer, when a managerial and player change will occur?

The whole club this season doesn't seem right.

Our performances have been nowhere near the level expected.

We rarely hear from Khaldoon anymore.

The squad has gone backwards.

Certain players haven't been just 'out of form' for periods...some have had no form.

Question - cat amongst the pigeons....has The Sheikh lost interest in the footballing side of things?

We have the Campus development..granted. However, do we think that Roberto Mancini, Brian Kidd and Platt are the right personnel to oversee and nurture such a 'long-term' project? I don't.

Therefore, in summary....the club, the personnel and the board doesn't seem right this season. The reason? Guess we'll never know.....but £100-250k players cannot put in that type of performance as they did today without something not being right at the core of our club.

Off day.....maybe, but its happened far too often this season for 'defending champions'.

Too often I see players not putting the effort in themsleves and expecting someone else to do the job. Yaya was a case in point for the 1st Soton goal a few weeks back.

I don't think the powers that be are testing Mancini because they want us to win as much as possible. They wouldn't test Bobby to see if he is up to it.

FFP hasn't got much to do with it. Having said that, I'm sure the players that came in are on much smaller wages than we have been offering before. But we spent about £50M anyway (Rodwell, £15M, Garcia £16M, Maicon, £3M, Sinclair £5.5M, Nastacic, £12M) and recouping about £20M for sales. We just bought badly with them money we had. If FFP was an issue, I'm sure we'd have sold Balotelli in the summer for the reported £40M offered.

It is just down to complacency form certain players, lazy bastarditis from others.

Once again, Mancini has shown that he can't manage effectively enough. We all know how Everton work, yet we keep losing to them. We don't have the right fighters playing for us. No way should we have played a back 3 and no way should Kolarov been in defence. But Bobby keeps boobing time and again.

Next.

Taking what you have said Dawg:

It's all down to Mancini?

I personally think he is at least 30% responsible for this. 50% is down to certain players. Kolorov played well last week, scored a good goal....against a weaker team, albeit. He is in and out of the team, sometimes at LB, sometimes as a WB. He doesn't choose that, Mancini does. He clearly lacks any defensive awareness..we know that. Sell? Maybe.

Garcia...we all said a few weeks ago, he looked OK and needed time. Playing in a defensive role and not the MF playmaker a la Yaya? Sorry, lost on me...Mancini played him there.

Dzeko....I know we have an injury to Aguero....and that Mancini bemoaned the sale of Balo. But that left us with 3 strikers, one of which is injured, leaving him no real options as Guidetti is back getting fit again. Mancini's problem again (as he could have sold Mario in the summer instead of being loyal to him and we as a club would have got some big money to bring in 1 or 2 more big players instead of the shit we bought).

So looking at it overall, I agree with PPLF....Mancini will be lucky if he is the manager next season, regardless of an FA Cup.

For me, the buck stops with him on the personnel, planning, decision making, tactics and motivational side. And so far, we've taken 2 steps back this season for whatever reason...and that's not acceptable for the current PL champions that have spent fortunes.

You can guarantee that if we had swapped managers with Everton then Utd wouldn't be 15 points clear and we wouldn't have half a team of players who play like they couldn't give a fuck
Dzeko in particular and Kolorov were a disgrace today
Felt sorry for kolo toure,one of the few to put a shift in but scapegoated by our fuckwitted manager.
He deserved better

Paulpowersleftfoot wrote:You can guarantee that if we had swapped managers with Everton then Utd wouldn't be 15 points clear and we wouldn't have half a team of players who play like they couldn't give a fuck
Dzeko in particular and Kolorov were a disgrace today
Felt sorry for kolo toure,one of the few to put a shift in but scapegoated by our fuckwitted manager.
He deserved better

Don't always agree with you..but you're spot on PPLF....apart from Gollum. I know what you mean, but I just can't see him at City.

Wouldn't want the odious twat either
But we would've been better off

As I've said on another thread, I'm sure Utd, as champions, will strengthen in the summer. They've already bought Zaha (don't know how good he is yet) and there is talk of Lewandowski and Baines. That will strengthen both their first team and their squad. They won't be sitting on their laurels.

I believe it's resting on their laurels

lol, i was thinking of shitting on our laurels!

United have Zaha, and strong links with Lewandowski, Baines, Bale and probably will get Wilshire within the next 2 years..
We're up against it, and the only way is to invest in some good quality. Real improvements, United showed today they can win at a canter with a 2nd team (to what they played last week, not necessarily weaker team), we showed with 3 players missing we struggle.

Utd can afford Bale at £70M, we cannot. If that is his price, Utd sell Nani, Valencia and Ashley Young for £35M and that's half the fee. Wages would easily be covered by those 3 leaving.

We had to spend big to catch up before FPP came in. We also needed to spend wisely last summer which we didn't do.

With FPP in place, Utd could just get stronger and stronger with their increased financial muscle.

Our only hope is the kids coming through....

If we had offered £50 million for Bale at the end of the summer window,Levy would've snatched our hands off
Instead we bought players for not much less than the £50 million who weakened the squad as a whole and the combined wages of Rodwell,Maicon,Wright,Sinclair & Garcia would've been more than enough to keep Bale and De Jong happy.

I reckon we'd have got Bale for £40M but, seriously, on last season's performances, would you have gone for him for that money and all your eggs in one basket?

Pace and width was always the plan B that was missing and I would've spent that on Bale and kept De Jong
Would've been much closer to retaining the title

Bale and NDJ???? I don't think we'd be behind Utd if we had those two for most of this season.

Point is.....we didn't buy Bale and we sold NDJ..... whether we should've, could've really is irrelevant now.

We can only go on the evidence on offer:

15 points behind United

Finished last in our group in the CL - therefore no EL

Knocked out of the League Cup early on

Played poorly for 70% of the season

Bought poorly last summer

Lost Yaya/Kolo/Razak again for some poxy tournament that nobody watches

Face Chelsea or the Rags in the Semi of the FA Cup (could be out of all comps)

The only 2 main players to be sold were NDJ and Mario = £26m.

We brought in 5 new players - of which, only 1 was anywhere near good enough to play consistently...Nasty.

However, of the 5, the one player who has played was a player we didn't really need ahead of other areas that needed strengthening.

All in all it's been an awful season and one that should have been avoided after winning the PL last season.

We knew we'd lose Yaya, Kolo and Razzak a long time ago. We have players showing no passion, no effort, no desire.That can't be right.