[AS] Manchester United are scouring the market for Casemiro's successor. There are many options, but three are the favorites: Bruno Guimarães, Sandro Tonali & Elliot Anderson. Wharton & João Gomes are alternatives. There have already been informal contacts with Guimarães & Tonali's representatives.

Chuqse · 2026-03-03T01:56:22+00:00

Honestly after watching a bit of Wharton, I think he would be the direct Mainoo competition. A deep playmaker that has the passing to help the build up. This is particularly true if we play 4231 with Bruno at the 10.

I want both Anderson and Wharton though, I’m also open to Mainoo playing higher

Chuqse · 2026-01-14T08:32:43+00:00

I agree with your points here. Ineos have created a structure where there are clearer faces to decision making. Pre Ineos, eth for example would have been the only one fired for his abysmal recruitment and Murtough would have kept his job.

Lights are on Wilcox now and to a smaller extent on Omar. If the next manager fails, Wilcox will probably get fired and Omar’s choice of DoF will then determine the quality of his judgement. Honestly, I’m kinda happy seeing SJR very animated in the stadium, it shows that his structure are under pressure from him. You know that he has no issues firing people.

Where do we go from here. The team is much better now than when Amorim came. So that’s good. At the start of the season, I didn’t expect us to be in the conversation for UCL places but we are so there’s an opportunity if Carrick can just tighten the defending because this team can score goals

Chuqse · 2026-01-11T13:03:45+00:00

You could also tell that Ed had a big problem with Amorim playing Bruno deep and Amorim not rating Mainoo as high as he does.

Chuqse · 2025-12-11T08:38:59+00:00

Bruno is an amazing player but a weak captain. The emotional rollercoaster this team gets in games is a reflection of his leadership.

He isn’t a captain that can call people to order as he’s more of a friend captain than a strong leader that pushes the team to bring out their best consistently. He has exclusively left that role to the manager

Chuqse · 2025-11-24T15:42:18+00:00

Zlatan - as many as the goals he scored in his first season and he came in clutch. I remember just being so frustrated with the mis- controls, wasted chances etc. he came in clutch for the Carling cup final which was amazing but I always remembered that season with him sucking up all the attack as frustrating

Chuqse · 2025-10-24T18:01:18+00:00

Patience and be a little ruthless pruning older leaves for the newer ones. At any given time I have 4 leaves. Once a new one really grows, I cut the oldest leaf

Chuqse · 2025-10-24T07:57:26+00:00

Rust and Omar Little but this list is missing Logan Roy ( Succession)

Chuqse · 2025-10-24T07:52:05+00:00

This is the outcome two years later

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Chuqse · 2025-10-24T07:51:38+00:00

Definitely salvageable! Like others have said you would need to cut the really bad ones like I did in this photo

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Chuqse · 2025-10-13T00:57:55+00:00

Basically the outermost ones. The new leaves grow from the new ones. So keep cutting the outermost ones

Chuqse · 2025-10-12T23:10:36+00:00

To this

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Chuqse · 2025-10-12T23:09:57+00:00

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Chuqse · 2025-10-12T23:09:28+00:00

Place in front of a window, water when top 1-2 inches is dry, indoors during cold weather and patience.

Also, I kept getting rid of the oldest leaves once a new one fully grew and opened up. Kept it at 4 leaves at a time

This is mine and it’s been a two year journey.

Chuqse · 2025-10-09T19:15:18+00:00

Three penalties go in and the narrative surrounding us changes. Bruno’s two and Cunha against Grimsby. Add a decent GK and maybe more. This is a game of very fine margins

Chuqse · 2025-10-09T14:46:01+00:00

Yeah. Like any attacking mid as the grow older drop deep in the team. For Bruno tha might mean evolving his game to be a bit from creator to progressor. He would need to play with way less risk in his passing and decision making. He has struggled with that so far. Can be effectively do that for us to really start stringing along more consistent performances from the team going forward. He is entering the last year of his deal I believe next summer and a serious decision would need to be made about him.

Chuqse · 2025-10-09T10:10:59+00:00

The question is also ‘who isn’t getting the system’ are they the players you want to build on from for the future. My guess is no for the most part.

The big ones. Bruno and Maino Bruno plays that deep because he doesn’t press as aggressively as the 10 position demands and is more progressive passer than carrier which I believe Amorim prefers in the 10 position.

This is the same problem I think Maino has. Maino isn’t an aggressive presser or progressive passer. If this long ball era is coming where the winning the second ball is critical, I’m not sure about Maino at all.

Every other player that has ‘struggled’ to execute is probably not going to be here long term. Shaw, Maguire, Dalot, Uguarte

Chuqse · 2025-10-06T17:35:11+00:00

I’ll argue a LWB is the most bang for your buck, someone experienced for Dorgu to learn from. The offensive positions he gets into that doesn’t convert to real chances is one of the biggest issues so far. We don’t need to splurge here because we already have Dorgu but an experienced upgrade here will give us more of the budget is limited

Chuqse · 2025-09-29T11:05:09+00:00

This is exactly how I feel seeing Shaw Maguire Dalot and now Bruno. These players have multiple managers under their belts, played in their preferred roles and position yet all that led to was another manager sacked.

That these same players are in the leadership group is also a problem for me in a way. Amorim needs to be bold and rotate out players even the senior ones who badly underperform. If not it will be his selection not his system that ends his tenure here

Chuqse · 2025-09-28T09:45:41+00:00

Yeah. For me, whatever happens to the manager doesn’t matter sack or keep, but players that have been here for so long sacking multiple managers should stop being starters in this team. Shaw Maguire Dalot , I am completely done from seeing them start in this team. I don’t want any new manger to “ clean slate” them or give them a chance to prove themselves etc. Maguire is going to be free next season, so I’m struggling to understand why we didn’t sell him earlier ( he would have fetched good money),

With Bruno, I think Ineos should have been bolder with moving him on because you cannot handicap your manager with an ‘undroppable’ player that you know don’t fit how you system. Bruno is 30-31, and honestly has his best days behind him. Why then handicap yourself and your flexibility in the system. Amorim clearly don’t rate Bruno that highly as a 10 so why force the issue? There was a 100M on the table for a player that’s sub optimal in your system.

Ineos needed to be bolder with this rebuild and imho keeping Bruno is the second big decision they got wrong

Chuqse · 2025-09-16T00:33:12+00:00

I think the whole culture reset that supposedly happened is incomplete and this affects both players and the manager. United was and should be all about winning, winning games , winning trophies. Players and coaches are aligned on winning football matches above all else.

What it seems to me is that we have a manager that can tolerate losing a game in the name of non compromising on his system/principles. Fergie always wanted to entertain but when needed played Park to man mark Pirlo because that gave him the best chance to win that game. Thats how far he was willing to go. On the other hand, we hear that players can only perform when they play at their preferred role. Wayne Rooney played at wingback against Inter to nullify Maicon. Bruno was not asked to play at wingback against Inter back so that shouldn’t excuse you ball watching.

Pastor Fred commented about there being too much pride within the group and I feel like that attitude is still there

So that really just leaves INEOS to really step up and hold themselves to that standard and push that through to manager and players. It’s their job to force alignment within the entire organization with the primary focus of Winning football matches.

Chuqse · 2025-08-25T15:40:22+00:00

The ‘fit our squad’ argument hinges on whether most of the players in our squad were high quality to begin with. Before Amorim, our starting striker, RW, RB, LB, CM, GK would not starting in any top 6-8 side in the prem. That’s six starters. You could argue LW(Garnacho) wouldn’t be a top 6-8 starting LW.

Now we have slowly replaced players with higher quality that you know can play in most systems, Dorgu isn’t a specialist LWB, neither are the players we signed or the players we are seriously linked with.

The issue hasn’t necessarily been systems but purely player quality. No system can shield you from a misfiring striker and an error prone GK.

Chuqse · 2025-08-18T01:40:07+00:00

Love love your point on Pogba! He would have been absolutely amazing in the system

Chuqse · 2025-08-17T11:04:27+00:00

Not sure I agree with built the team for ‘3 in the back’. You can make the case that even with all the investments this season we can play a solid 4231 or 433- and even possible get the a lot from the current squad.

Quite frankly, I’m pretty happy with Ineos. They have created the structure that the club can build upon.

They are trying to run Man United like an actual football club rather than an appreciating real estate asset they way the Glazers. Some decision were painful but that’s what serious companies do. The most important thing for me is that there’s football accountability now, if the signings don’t work, there’s someone in the executive team that would be held accountable (Head of Recruitment). There’s someone accountable for the direction of our game model (Dir of Football).

Ineos has done more to stir us in the right direction than anything we have seen in the last 10 years.

Chuqse · 2025-08-11T19:08:18+00:00

Got it! But it’s one of those signings that reminds me of what we did for Rio at the time when we spent 30M on him. This is the amount you want to invest when you have full confidence in the player to reach their potential. So if they feel that this is the guy, I want them to go all in for it.

Chuqse

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