Manchester United banter 9

20 Sep 2026 15:03:13
I know this is going to sound outrageous, but the club is valued at around 6 billion. By reports there are 1 billion united fans across the world. If we could get 1 million of them to pledge 6 grand each we could buy the club. We could take ownership of this great club, and make it about the fans again. Kind of like the German model where the fans own the club.

Does anyone have any sort of knowledge in this kind of business model? If so I would be interested to hear from them.

I know there would be lots of problems, but I've been thinking about this a lot. We need new ownership and who better to make decisions than the fans, the people that actually have affection for this club, that don't want it for personal gain and to bleed it dry. That's all that's going to happen if a billionaire takes control.

20 Sep 2026 15:33:17
I think convincing any United fan to pay the Glazers £6, 000 for crippling the club with debt and turning the top club in the country into an also ran would be a difficult task. Not even to mention the chaos of having a million different owners battling to run things would inevitably result in.

20 Sep 2026 15:37:01
That would be an utter shambles, look at the arguments on this page!

Imagine there being millions and millions who all know best.

Clearly there would have to be elections to create management structures, who? how? where?

You can only win elections through making outlandish promises, look at our governments, but that is most certainly what you would get.

Democracy is all well and good, but it does give votes to an awful lot of stupid people.

Remember, you always end up with what you deserve after an election. Sadly, it is never what people really need or actually want.

20 Sep 2026 07:39:01
{Ed's Note - EHL2020 has posted a new article entitled, Rangers Recruitment: Patience Versus Immediate Demands

19 Sep 2026 23:31:46
The statistics related to miles covered, sprints etc etc have the club down between 14th and 19th place. It should be clear that the players are not working hard enough.

20 Sep 2026 07:38:19
It has been clear for some time now, even without stats. And it is wholly unacceptable.

20 Sep 2026 08:27:25
Morning

I asked AI to assess when I saw those stats yesterday and here is the assessment

Here's how it lines up:
• Amorim raised the fitness baseline
He spent over a year pushing intensity, adding specialist support, and improving conditioning. That work created a higher physical floor than the one he inherited.
• Carrick benefited from that foundation
When he took over in January 2026, the squad was already fitter than it had been 12–14 months earlier. This allowed him to switch to shorter, sharper sessions without having to rebuild basic capacity from scratch.
• The short-term effect was positive
The change in training approach under Carrick is widely credited with helping produce fresher, sharper performances in the second half of 2025/26, contributing to the strong finish and top-four place.
• Continuing the same approach into pre-season appears linked to the current drop
The early 2026/27 numbers (especially the very low rankings for sprints and high-speed runs) are consistent with a loss of high-intensity capacity. While we can't say with absolute certainty that the shorter/sharper pre-season is the only cause, it is a reasonable and well-supported explanation given the pattern.

Amorim built the fitness base → Carrick refined the load for short-term gains → the same lighter approach into the new pre-season has coincided with (and likely contributed to) the intensity drop now visible on the pitch.

20 Sep 2026 13:58:06
Very good posts and certainly makes sense to what I am seeing. There is a distinct lack of intensity, which leads to sloppy play, such as giving the ball away so cheaply and virtually never picking up the second ball. We appear too often to be on our heels and not on our toes.

I remember Fergi saying the training towards the end of the season does not need to full on and is more about maintaining a good level but we need to get to a good level.

We do have some good players but they are operating at a slower pace than our opponents hence, why we look so poor, especially in defence.

20 Sep 2026 14:15:39
Good posts.

It is similar to when RR to took over. He said that the players weren't fit enough. It looks exactly the same again!

I thought United would have improved under SJR. Implementing a structure, getting people in with the so called 'know how'. I understand that it will take time, but it is still somewhat amateurish.

19 Sep 2026 16:52:14
Arsenal being outplayed by Brighton, conceding 3. Maybe Brighton are a better team than some thought. With a defense made up of Dalot. Yori, Heaven and Marauoi fronted by Santos, it's perhaps hardly surprising that we conceded 3.

19 Sep 2026 17:08:44
I keep saying it there are no easy games in this league.

If you got the top 40 wealthiest teams in the world, ALL 20 EPL teams would be in it.

When teams that would be relegated have the capacity to spend more money than most of the sides that will make the UCL quarter finals, and do, then that highlights the kind of quality the bottom clubs can bring in. Let alone the mid-table and top sides.

The EPL spent 3X more money this summer then the second highest spending league in Europe.

Relegation level clubs are buying players who'd be getting to the latter stages of the Europa league and even players who'd be getting out of the UCL group stage at other European clubs.

19 Sep 2026 21:03:58
We were two up in 10 mins..the game should not have been lost.

Stop making excuses.

19 Sep 2026 21:47:52
Agree JBR and it was against their second string.

20 Sep 2026 04:55:55
That's a strange post Shappy considering when I mentioned funds last season you and Ken said funds had nothing to do with it and also disagreed that huge fan bases had anything to do with winning, (huge fan bases = money obviously) now seems as usual when the narrative suits you, it's different.

19 Sep 2026 14:02:23
Sir Jim Ratcliffe asked about Manchester United and if he has message for fans:

"We're here to talk about carbon dioxide and carbon capture."

On if he cares about women's football:

"I'm certainly not going to talk about that"

Oh, and immigrants.


Fair to say we've got someone just as bad as the Glazers?

19 Sep 2026 17:11:11
Opinions are like a-holes, everyone has one and most of them stink.

You don't become a billionaire by being a nice guy, so if we are going to be owned by a billionaire, we won't be owned by a particularly nice guy.

Pick your poison.

19 Sep 2026 13:27:57
Billionaire Man United owner says he has lost confidence in the UK.

It is ironic that he is talking about losing confidence in things when the whole fan base has lost confidence in him, Ineos, and his team.

19 Sep 2026 21:05:28
He isn't wrong about the UK though. It has been in a decline for longer than man utd.

20 Sep 2026 04:59:26
Exactly right about UK and the truth always hurts with certain people, but I have to say like I did when Ineos first appeared it would and will be a disaster, just look at there past record in sport, Cars, etc it's all tanking.

20 Sep 2026 07:33:09
Did he mention his past contribution to its decline with his support for Brexit or his current contribution to its decline with his support for that grifter Farage and his party?

20 Sep 2026 10:15:39
Bilko

Sir Jim Ratcliffe endorsed Labour (and specifically Keir Starmer) at the 2024 UK general election. He said he liked Starmer and believed he would do "a very sensible job" / "a very good job at running the country."

Thats a contribution to decline.

20 Sep 2026 10:24:14
It's not just brexit.
Poor governments ie poor management


Weak leadership
Self interest first

no real vision
no idea how to manage expectations
no idea how to run things properly
not willing to make necessary decisions
not willing to suffer short term pain for long term gain

In short the trajectories of the country and club seem very much aligned.

19 Sep 2026 13:12:42
Does anyone find the rule that requires a player who receives on field treatment after a non-yellow card foul by an opponent is required to go off for a minute so that the offending team has a man advantage to be ridiculous.

19 Sep 2026 13:47:34
It's unfair for genuine injuries, but when teams use dirty tactics to fake injuries to kill momentum or to allow for team instructions, I think there should be a disadvantage. Hopefully it discourages it.

19 Sep 2026 15:00:57
No i think its a good rule stops a lot of nonsense. I think a 5 min should be compulsary for head injuries for checks but a sub should be allowed to replace him.

19 Sep 2026 13:59:09
Is your leg falling off? No? Then get on with it.

19 Sep 2026 17:16:41
While at times it is unfair, the rule was introduced because teams started intentionally delaying games and pretending to be injured to breakup the play and to gain an unfair advantage.

Is the rule perfect? Nope, but few rules are.

Personally I wonder how the game would be if we reduced games down to 60 minutes (30 minutes a half), but stop the clock every time the ball is dead. No extra time, no point time wasting as all you are doing is dragging out how long your team are on the pitch for. Would it work? Possibly, would it be better than what we have? Debatable. Some would like it and some wouldn't. While some teams will still find a way to delay it or get around what it is intended to do.

20 Sep 2026 05:03:54
How about one new rule, we stop changing rules after rules, let's just get back to football and stop taking the emotion out of it, of course that will never happen because ££££s involved but football now as a spectacle is vastly going down the pan the EPL prime example of it .

Like Ai taken over football coaches just want Robots now athletes without any talent in football Dorgu being prime example, let's just put 11 Robots out there be about as exciting.

20 Sep 2026 10:17:59
I would put a clock up on the screen, take timekeeping away from referees, stop the clock every time they go down rather than have injury time.

19 Sep 2026 07:39:02
{Ed's Note - Ed001 has posted a new article entitled, Liverpool v Fulham - A Quick Liverpool Perspective

19 Sep 2026 07:22:20
{Ed's Note - Ed001 has posted a new player profile about, Marcos Senesi

19 Sep 2026 10:25:29
Ed001, the Argentine Maguire?

{Ed001's Note - better on The ball, but even slower.

19 Sep 2026 00:21:10
Saw a genius idea from someone on Twitter, on how to solve our problems in the short-term at least.

Said we should sack Carrick, then hire him as an interim. ?.

19 Sep 2026 06:07:07
Now that is the type of out of the box thinking that might just fix this problem!