The Manchester United Thread

As I digress, the first half has been well, without sounding like a broken record, Peak ole ball. Varane making runs into the box with Fred and Maguire just passing the ball between each other was the funniest thing I saw in the half.


Classic ole ball. No structure, just vibez....
 
It’s horrible watching Fred at times in CM. Especially in games we dominate. And Mctominey is miles off the pace understandably
 
Well, we do get sick days but I highly doubt they'd still keep me on the payroll if I'm out for a over a year and I'd understand.

The world doesn't owe me understanding so it's every man for himself/herself
If you have any value for any company, they are going to keep you.

That second part is just plain ******* dumb and explains a lot.
 
You couldn't make it up. Lingard comes on as subs and is welcomed by the West Ham fans then promptly scores against them.
 
Justice got served imo. The pen to west ham was within a minute of Ronaldo being denied a clear pen
 
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That was a roller-coaster. Wow! Heck of a goal from Lingard, kinda nice to make up for the mess mid-week. Varane, Shaw, Fernandes, Ronaldo, Greenwood were all pretty good, as was Lingard when he came on, linking-up. Sancho's movement is kinda worrying, he is not attacking spaces enough (although, he was a sub, so it is understandable) - he would have had a tap-in had he drifted to the centre while Ronaldo was dropping deep.

Also livid the penalty decisions. Shaw, I agree, handball. But Ronaldo should have had two penalties. Furious with VAR. But de Gea! For someone who does not save penalties, generally, what a time to save one, in an extremely high pressure situation.

My worry is still the absolute lack of structure or plan. We need better attacking co-ordination and better penetration when facing deeper defences. And the half-press, it's just plain confusing - there's noone backing up the press and we don't end up getting back possession quickly enough. Also, I agree, despite a double pivot, we were taken through too easily in the centre on the counter. Fred still misplaces too many passes, AwB was slightly more encouraging today, willing to get forward more.
 
******* off Atkinson‼️ Another win and 3 points for the PE teacher with vibes 😁 the amazing away record continues 🤩 what a week for Lingard lol. Dave with a peno save to boot 😀 your not going to have it all your own way Liverpool this season 😋
 
My worry is still the absolute lack of structure or plan. We need better attacking co-ordination and better penetration when facing deeper defences. And the half-press, it's just plain confusing - there's noone backing up the press and we don't end up getting back possession quickly enough. Also, I agree, despite a double pivot, we were taken through too easily in the centre on the counter. Fred still misplaces too many passes, AwB was slightly more encouraging today, willing to get forward more.

Careful mate, you might be deemed miserable around these parts....
 
My only worry is CM. Hopefully when Mctominey is back fully fit. Fair play the shift he put in today. It’s him and anyone but Fred!
 
I don't mean to sound like a ****** but his contract should've never been extended regardless. This is a business, not a charity or rehab.

With that said, I felt sorry for him when he apparently refused a testimonial on the basis that he feared no one would attend. That's just sad.
I get that but the lad got injured giving his all to united. No one can say he didn't give absolutely everything when he stepped on that pitch. Personally the least United can do is offer him an extension to get his rehab sorted, I know it aint a charity but its still something. Discarding him whilst he is at his low is not something that should be associated with an institution ike United.
 
Could you post the article somewhere? Unable to see it
ARTICLE TEXT Part 1.

**Phil Jones reveals the true story behind months of injury torment made worse by abuse in the street and criticism even from Rio Ferdinand**

_Jonathan Norcroft, Football Correspondent
Sunday September 19 2021, 12.01am, The Sunday Times_

Alaria is a clever girl and old enough to understand, Phil Jones says, and he gets a sick feeling just thinking about that day in Hale. He was strolling with his three-year-old daughter, pushing her little sister, Rayah, in the pram. A workman walked past. And the guy suddenly just unloaded. “_Hey, Phil . . . You’re ****. You’re shit_!”

Alaria turned to look at him. “_You know when a little kid will ask you 20 times before you give them the answer_?” Jones says. “_It was one of them. ‘What is that? Daddy, Daddy, what is that_?’

“_I got so many emotions: rage, calm down, do I confront him, what do I say to my wife? I froze. In the end another guy walking past said, ‘Phil, leave it. Hey, you’re better than that_.’ ”

He did leave it. He was brought up to leave it, reared at Manchester United to leave it. His values are that you get your head down, you do your work, you don’t start thinking you’re special, don’t complain.

So, he has been leaving it all this time. Leaving it through years of abuse on social media (in 2017 he came off every platform, deleting the apps from his phone). Leaving it when talked down by pundits or mocked for his injuries. Leaving it when barracked in the street — Hale was by no means the only time.

Now he is here, over a coffee in south Manchester, opening up, because enough is enough.

The tipping point: Rio Ferdinand, in a podcast, calling him a “_waste of time_”, who is “_taking up a youth player’s position_”. Ferdinand painted him as one of those comfort-zone leeches, who just sits there taking the money. This cannot go unchallenged — Jones wants to tell the real story of what has been happening since his most recent appearance for United, in January 2020.

“_Listen, the respect I’ve got is enormous. I’ve shared a dressing room with Rio — great professional. Loved playing with him. Great lad, good humour. Learnt so much off him_,” Jones begins. “_But what he said was poor. Really poor. I’m not into disputes, not into arguments, and if he didn’t know, he didn’t know_. . .”

The truth is that Jones, 29, has been fighting the same debilitating injury that put Ole Gunnar Solskjaer out for three years as a player. It is severe meniscal damage, and his is to the lateral meniscus of his right knee. The issue first arose when he was an academy player with Blackburn Rovers and flared up at the start of his second season with United. He was 20, had just been to Euro 2012 with England and was being fêted, with Sir Bobby Charlton comparing him to Duncan Edwards.

He had surgery. Upon coming round, the surgeon bleakly explained that he had removed the meniscus — it was just not reparable. That left Jones with bone crunching against bone inside the joint. Linear movement was always OK but sideways impact often caused pain. Still, things were manageable until 2016, and the start of José Mourinho’s first campaign as United manager. “_I’d get swelling after training. You’d lay a ball off and any resistance against the knee was just agony. The merest nudge_,” Jones says.

“_For years I’d go into games thinking, ‘I shouldn’t really be playing,’ and players would look at me, see the swelling and be thinking, ‘He’s playing here?’ But I love playing and I’ll do anything for United. If I have to play at 60 per cent and know I can get through it, then why not_?”


The Covid-19 shutdown offered a chance to rest and rebuild physically, and he worked like a demon, waking early for extra running and gym work before the kids got up. When United resumed training, in May 2020, he was, “_in the best shape I’d ever felt as a professional footballer_”.

On day two, the squad did a familiar sprint exercise, “strides”. He completed one set “_and then just couldn’t run, couldn’t pick my leg up to bend it. I just walked in_.

“_Everyone was saying, ‘What’s he doing?’ I’d lost my mind completely. I’m thinking, ‘I’m finished, can’t be bothered with all this any more.’ I went straight to the doc and said, ‘Enough’s enough. I’ve had too many anti-inflammatories, too many injections, too many close shaves. I need this sorted_.’”

He travelled to Barcelona to visit the world-leading specialist Dr Ramon Cugat. Cugat prescribed injections — and, if unsuccessful, last-resort microfracture surgery. The injections did not work, and so in late August he had the operation. It involves drilling deep holes into the knee to allow an influx of blood, rich in growth factors, which eventually turns into fibrous cartilage.

Rehab included a week in Spain, two months on crutches and time strapped to a machine at home. Covid complicated everything. Travel restrictions delayed his visits to Cugat, adding months to the process, and the hardest bits of rehab coincided with the UK’s second and third lockdowns.

It seemed a long shot that the surgery would actually work. Rayah was a baby, Alaria a toddler, the Joneses were living in a new house and Kaya, his wife, had to do everything, “_while I was just hobbling about, not even able to take the kids to the park_”.

“_It was the lowest I’ve ever been as a human being. I used to come back [from United’s training ground] and be in bits. My head was an absolute mess. I’d be in tears. I’d say to Kaya, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ I remember us both crying_.”

He and Kaya met at school in Leyland. “_She has kept the ship together while I got my **** together_,” he reflects. “_I feel guilty because she didn’t deserve having to deal with me every day and then look after the kids_.

“_There were many times I felt an awful dad. You’re trying to give your kids your energy but you can’t. Listen, you’ve got daughters . . . if your daughter tells you you’re dressing up as a princess, you’re dressing up as a princess . . . but I just wasn’t there, wasn’t present in the moment. I’d be on my phone or miles away_.

“_I’m not scared of saying any of this. People and footballers, they’ll put on a front that everything’s all right, but you don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors_.”

At his lowest came the abuse in the street in Hale and he would just like people to reflect on some of the vitriol footballers get. “_In this society we’re living in at the minute, all the racism and stuff that affects mental health — I’d just say be careful. You don’t know how it’s going to affect players: physically, mentally, emotionally. We always go back to the same point: ‘Oh they’re footballers, they should be able to deal with it, they get so much money, have this lavish lifestyle.’ But take all that away, strip all that back and we’re just human beings_.

“_Listen, my problems are not bigger than the problems someone has to deal with in an office, I know that. But they are problems. Footballers have problems like anybody else, and maybe me talking can help players_.”

In the early months of his layoff the training ground was a difficult place. He felt guilty about being out of action again and “_so useless, so worthless_”. He would ask the physios to arrange later sessions so he did not have to face team-mates asking how he was doing. “_All I could say to them was [puts on a small voice] ‘I’m getting there’. When at the back of my mind I’d be thinking, ‘I’m miles off_.’ ”

Yet now he really is getting there. After 14 months of graft he was ready to join the start of United’s pre-season training in July. Typical of his luck, he then contracted Covid, delaying his return until the squad went to Scotland for a camp. On August 2 he completed his first full session since before the 2020 lockdown. Team-mates applauded him on to the field.
 
I get that but the lad got injured giving his all to united. No one can say he didn't give absolutely everything when he stepped on that pitch. Personally the least United can do is offer him an extension to get his rehab sorted, I know it aint a charity but its still something. Discarding him whilst he is at his low is not something that should be associated with an institution ike United.
Hopefully he can stay fit play a few games and earn a move away. Best end for all parties after us sticking with him through this horrible time.
 
ARTICLE TEXT Part two:

He has since completed two 90-minute appearances for United’s under-23s, most recently against Brighton & Hove Albion yesterday, and the knee feels incredible. “_It feels almost like I’ve started my career again_,” he says. “_I feel young — not 29 but 25 or 26 — and because I’ve missed so much football I feel I have so much left in me_.”

He is “surprised” that Ferdinand claims not to have known he was injured. There are no grudges, but that portrayal of the layabout player just picking up his money cannot go uncontested. “_Look, I’m private_,” Jones says, “_so maybe people don’t understand me, but that’s the total opposite to how I am. I’ve done my absolute utmost. From tablets, to my diet, to setting up my house so that every time I get back from training I’m sitting in recovery boots and have my ice machine ready. Nobody can say, ‘You didn’t do enough_.’ ”

As for blocking youngsters’ paths: his contract runs until 2023 and, he says, “_I’ll fight for United until someone tells me, ‘Go somewhere else_.’”

He has had everything on social media. People have messaged Kaya to say that they hope she dies, or terrible things befall their kids. As individuals and as a couple they are strong enough to brush it off but he worries about young players and would love to do something to help them to deal with abuse. “_Players say, ‘I never read stuff,’ and two minutes later they’re on their phone. I’m glad I’m done with that now. It’s hard [to stay off social media] when you’re younger_.”

Why does he get abuse? He has 27 England caps, has played in two World Cups and owns a Premier League winners’ medal, while spending a decade at United is an achievement in itself. What is there to mock? “_I must be an easy target_” Jones says. “_Every footballer has a tag and unfortunately mine is, ‘Let’s have a laugh at him_.’

“_But — and I say this in the nicest possible way — I know who’ll have the last laugh. I’m proud of my career and when it finishes and I’m enjoying my life — and by the way I’m super fortunate that I’ll be able to do that, because footballers are fortunate — [the keyboard warriors] will still be in their mum’s spare bedroom, sipping Diet Pepsi that’s flat, eating a Pot Noodle, sitting in their boxers, tweeting_.”

Phil Jones recalls how a meeting this year with his former boss Sir Alex Ferguson lifted his spirits. “_He was just unbelievable for me. I went to the premiere of his film with a few players and he came over, we shook hands and then out of the blue he said, ‘Hey, you were ******* terrific against Real Madrid away [in 2013]. ******* marking Ronaldo.’ It just gave me so much confidence_.

“_To be honest, I didn’t even watch his premiere, I was just sitting there thinking about his comment, thinking, ‘He remembers it . . . someone of his magnitude remembers that_.’”
 
Just saw the United game highlights that was one of the worst officiating that I have ever seen lmao. Also Ronaldo is the great equaliser like I said, doesnt matter how much Ole will self sabotage when you have him its a guarantee a goal a game. Him and Salah slugging it out for the golden boot will be a great sight this season.

Edit: how we all feel about Ronaldo if you isn't a united fan.
 
Just saw the United game highlights that was one of the worst officiating that I have ever seen lmao. Also Ronaldo is the great equaliser like I said, doesnt matter how much Ole will self sabotage when you have him its a guarantee a goal a game. Him and Salah slugging it out for the golden boot will be a great sight this season.

Edit: how we all feel about Ronaldo if you isn't a united fan.

The funny thing is I feel we've yet to see the best of Ronaldo. He missed a clear cut chance early in the 2nd half which typically, you'd expect Ronaldo to put away. This, imo, is his poor form.
 
I get that but the lad got injured giving his all to united. No one can say he didn't give absolutely everything when he stepped on that pitch. Personally the least United can do is offer him an extension to get his rehab sorted, I know it aint a charity but its still something. Discarding him whilst he is at his low is not something that should be associated with an institution ike United.

He'd get a healthy compensation package while still being granted access to our Physios to work with him. It's not like we'd be leaving him out to hang dry.
 
He'd get a healthy compensation package while still being granted access to our Physios to work with him. It's not like we'd be leaving him out to hang dry.
Fair enough but still feel it would've been harsh to just let him go completely. The idea of coming back and playing is a great source of motivation.
 
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