No I don’t overrate our players. None of them have proved they are good enough for a top title winning team except Matic and De Gea.
A serious look at Mauricio Pochettino
- Thread starter NotBrendanRodgers honest
- Start date
No I don’t overrate our players. None of them have proved they are good enough for a top title winning team except Matic and De Gea.
You said 5th position not 1st
Then Poch can’t succeed at a big club.
Let’s ignore United for a moment and go to a different league. There’s a chance he could get the PSG job at some stage. Now who will the board choose if it’s a choice between their star player(s) and Poch? If Poch is unwilling to get the balance right between sticking to his principles and system and making compromises in favour of some star players then he can forget big clubs. Clubs will make huge losses if they keep selling record signings everything a manager asks for it.
Pochettino would have 100% flopped if he came in after Jose as we needed a SERIOUS rebuild and no doubt he would have been undermined somewhere down along the line like Ole. Luckily though Ole has done a lot of donkey work and the squad is slowly shaping itself up to the extent where if Pochettino comes in(assuming without CL football which is when we do spend) he`ll only need one transfer window to get his signings right in vital positions(CB, DM maybe a back up GK if Romero and one of DDG/Henderson leave factor in if we sell Pogba he`ll have extra funds to work with). If he gets his buys right then even with limited funds with CL football we`ll still be able to spend wisely as the squad won`t have as many weaknesses as before that require massive funds to improve and Poch is an expert at working on a limited budget. I feel he`s joining Utd at the perfect time all things considered and more likely to succeed now than if he joined a year or two ago.
I could also see him getting the best out of certain players in other positions(Greenwood at CF, Diallo at RW and Pellistri) and negating signings in those positions like top class managers like Klopp do.
I could also see him getting the best out of certain players in other positions(Greenwood at CF, Diallo at RW and Pellistri) and negating signings in those positions like top class managers like Klopp do.
Good to see some realistic expectations on here...
I mean if Pogba himself makes it clear he wants to leave I don`t think the board will mind siding with the manager and it looks like Pogba`s head is elsewhere
I'm thinking more of players being sold, for whatever the club can get for them, rather than just being excluded from the first team squad.
But if the United board wish to stick with their control over what happens to players, then I doubt Poch would be willing sign up.
What is realistic? Realistic is where we are and what we are achieving.
If we are going to sack the current manager it's only because we think new guy is going to be that much better than realistic.
Maybe he is, so let's see it.
Definitely, you need to get rid off some players. I was rather referring to Poch talking the way the Spurs fan described to Neymar, Mbappe or Sancho (if we buy him), etc.
That won't happen .... because Poch would IMO only sign up in he first place if it's agreed in advance that he has control over transfers (within a net spend budget as agreed by the United board). He isn't going to be trapped in a game of responsibility without power.
It's not even that obvious what to do. High press seems to be entering its down cycle. Spotting the next big thing is hard for anyone, let alone an accountant.
I am forgetful but was Poch the one who bought Son to Spurs? His signings have been particularly good, isnt it? A few duds like Llorente though
Ole could do well to survive our next 5 games tbh looking at our fixtures.
Clubs make big losses from shelling out huge sums and huge wages for "big name" players who then don't deliver - and then they can't sell them except for a big loss because no-one else is able or willing to match their wages.
United will continue to be stuck in their malaise for as long as they stick with the "prestige" idea that they need to be signing "big names" on big wages. Your pursuit of Sancho is just more of the same old same old.
And by the way, your notion of big clubs appears to be outdated. Poch was at Spurs, a club that arguably has the finest stadium and training centre in the world... and now has the 8th highest income in global football. He won't be impressed with club sensibilities that are stuck in the past.
He has some hits, some flops. Levy does good business for him too.
What I like about him is that he generally maximizes a player's output. No one here is Nostradamus and we aren't trying to act like we are master Directors of Football, but I'd think it's openly accepted that a good manager makes the team as a whole perform better than it's individual parts. I think Poch did this a lot with Spurs and Southampton, which is why I look favorably toward him. Think that 8th place finish is still Southampton's highest ever, and he really brought the best out of the team. For example Schneiderlin (never really hit same heights post Poch), Ward Prowse with an extended period, leading to an England call-up, etc.
In any case you will have to start fearing for United. We are not signing one more Ole again. The next coach will be actually a good one who will have good base to work with. I can guarantee one of the below would be our manager before Xmas and each one of them would be serious improvement on what we have now
Poch
Allegri
Rose
Allegri just thrown in for kicks? Spot the odd one out. I’m not surprised if the club worked like that.
Definitely or Nagelsman
He is free and is available to take over immediately. He would be definitely considered.
Would love. But he is not coming mid-seaaon unless we have confirmation he is joining us end of season
I'd be happy with that. Just praying that we're not in the bottom half by then
Which would be in line with our idiotic leadership. My point is Poch, Rose etc are considered modern exciting coaches, Allegri quite the opposite. I hope it won’t be Allegri. All the other candidates mentioned I’d be thrilled about.
Allegri would feel like a lurch back (stylistically) to Mourinho. I too would like someone a bit more forward thinking, but, unlike Ole, also with the nous to bring those ideas to fruition.
To be honest, although I dislike Allegri's football it suits the current squad more than Pochettino's. Do we really think our defensive and midfield options can play the pressing game that Poch loves? With the full backs high up, leaving the centre backs in continued one v one duels?
This squad is tooled to play reactive, defensive football and it will continue to be so unless a massive recycling of playing personnel takes place. Is that Man Utd board willing to sanction that? The Man Utd board isn't even willing to let Rojo and Romero leave.
Looking at our squad it makes more sense to appoint Allegri than Poch, unless the Board is going to sell half the squad and bring in energetic, athletic players to replace them.
As iffy as I am on Poch, Allegri to me would be an even sadder hire.
The foundation of success for any ambitious club is a strong unifying vision of the kind of football they want to play, that is tactically progressive given how the game is developing more broadly, and which can inform decisions not just about first team management, but also recruitment, and how players are trained in the academy.
The ideal situation is to have this unifying vision come down from board level but that's not an option for United. So the club really needs a manager with this kind of vision, a tactically progressive younger manager who has a strong sense of the football he wants to play and the qualities needed at each position to play this kind of football.
United has appointed four different managers post SAF without even trying to find someone that fits this profile. The club needs to start trying. Poch may or may not be the answer but at least I can imagine a plausible scenario in which he is the answer. I don't think that is true of Ole. It has never been clear to me what kind of football he wants to play and the qualities of the players he has recruited don't make sense as parts of a cohesive whole. He has bought a bunch of younger players who want to come to Manchester United, but without any sense of how the jigsaw will fit together and what the final picture on the box looks like. That may be an improvement on past transfer decisions but it is not an approach that will actually lift the club back to the top.
The ideal situation is to have this unifying vision come down from board level but that's not an option for United. So the club really needs a manager with this kind of vision, a tactically progressive younger manager who has a strong sense of the football he wants to play and the qualities needed at each position to play this kind of football.
United has appointed four different managers post SAF without even trying to find someone that fits this profile. The club needs to start trying. Poch may or may not be the answer but at least I can imagine a plausible scenario in which he is the answer. I don't think that is true of Ole. It has never been clear to me what kind of football he wants to play and the qualities of the players he has recruited don't make sense as parts of a cohesive whole. He has bought a bunch of younger players who want to come to Manchester United, but without any sense of how the jigsaw will fit together and what the final picture on the box looks like. That may be an improvement on past transfer decisions but it is not an approach that will actually lift the club back to the top.
Replace Matic with Fred and Scot , you can play high press. Maguire would be a problem but with right partner we can get around that issue.
How do you know the players we have ended up with are the players he wanted?
Successive coaches at Man Utd have complained about the way recruitment works and the fact they did not actually end up with the targets they wanted. I have not seen anything to suggest Ole was in for Cavani all summer long.
Being a coach of a football team does not give you complete and utter autonomy to do as you want.
The truth is, even if Pochettino comes in, he will be expected to work within the confines the club sets for him.
The club is not looking to get rid of Ole because it wants a change of philosophy. The briefings over the past week have been clear: The club is not happy with the results we are seeing from this squad and its considering a change of coach to improve the performances of this squad. All this talk of building and philosophy is a million miles away from what the decision makers are thinking.
Any coach who comes in will be expected to work with the players we have, first and foremost. If they can't succeed they'll be fired. Whether the transfer committee wanted the players, whether Joel Glazer thinks X player is the new Pele, whether Woodward has liked Cavani since 2013. If they cannot work with that then they will go.
This is wildly optimistic. Fred and McTominay have never succeeded in a high press at United. They have only done well in games where we've set up to counter and used their energy to disrupt the passing lines in our middle third. The first half of last season is a case study of what happens when you ask Fred and McTominay to play on the front foot and it doesn't look pretty.
Even your most basic coach will target Maguire with balls in behind the full back. His lack of pace mean the full backs cannot advance as much as they otherwise would, there's too much risk involved leaving the channel open even if you have a quick player next to him. Maguire's looked his best in games where our full backs have been at their least adventurous. If you try to switch it up too much he gets exposed.
An oft repeated truism defines madness as doing the same thing time after time whilst expecting a different result.
Since Fergie, you have sacked 3 managers. Why do you think sacking a fourth will make any difference? Might the real problem be a lack of a coherent board strategy since 2013?
Just saying...
Since Fergie, you have sacked 3 managers. Why do you think sacking a fourth will make any difference? Might the real problem be a lack of a coherent board strategy since 2013?
Just saying...
That is very true and I think the main blockage to Poch ever becoming Utd manager - if he doesn't feel he can work in the way he wants and be backed fully by the board then he won't take the job.
He is definitely a good manager. However his issue at Barca was at the time we had MSN, he completely bypassed the midfield at the time and forced the ball to our front 3 as often as possible. The first 2 seasons it worked out great, however by his third and final season teams has figured us out. He went from treble in his first season, to double in his second and then just the copa del Rey in his final season. He also butted heads with the board in his final season (such a toxic board) that he announced his departure to the team about a month before the season ended.
I do think he’s a good manager, much more of a motivational manager than a tactical one in my opinion. It was something we were missing under Valverde where Enrique has a bit of arrogance that actually helped us at times. When we lost to psg 4-0 in CL he said “if they can score 4, we can score 6”. Absolutely no way in hell so have the 6-1 comeback under any manager we’ve had since. But he often lacked a plan B which really showed in his final season.
Sometimes you have to be removed from a situation to see it clearly.
It is the easy option to think just changing the manager will change everything. It makes the problem seem easier to fix, therefore making us feel more optimistic about the future. If you accept that the problems are root and branch then you have to accept they're hard or impossible to fix, which people don't want to accept.
PS) There are other managers besides Ole that could do more with the current United squad. However, looking at the players and their weaknesses e.g. positional awareness, lack of pace etc you are talking about coaches like Diego Simeone. Who are going to set up the team to be tough to break down and then rely on the speed we have in forward areas to exploit oppositions overcommitting. Its very far fetched to think a more attack minded manager will make our centre backs competent in 1v1 duels, or stop our full backs being regularly exploited in crossing positions or develop great attacking output themselves.
I'm thinking mainly about the summer of 2019 and the transfers of Maguire and Wan-Bissaka. I could be wrong but my understanding is that those were players Ole wanted. They are both players with some very good characteristics. But I have never understood how their specific characteristics actually mesh with the kind of football that Ole wants to play or why he would would recruit those specific players. My suspicion is that his transfer strategy doesn't go much beyond finding expensive players that are good, young, and want to play for United. And that's really not good enough. There a million good young players, most of whom would want to play for United. Its picking among those players that counts and you need a strong footballing vision that encompasses the characteristics each player must have in each position in order to do that well.
Any manager will have to work with the board and may not get all the players they want and the weakness at board level will always hurt United. But given that weakness, you need a manager with a strong footballing vision who can at least make the case to Woodward that "I need a RB with these specific characteristics and attributes," not just "Lets sign a high profile young RB who is willing to come here."
Poch may or may not work out but I think he at least has a clear vision of the kind of progressive high intensity football that he wants to play.
Last edited:
I think his transfers have on the whole been very good. We should be looking more at the ones 20 million + rather than any of the cheaper ones. Cheaper ones are more often than not a bit of a gamble, but at United he will have a bigger budget on the whole. And the majority of his bigger money signings have been pretty good to excellent.
What is this understanding based on?
The club briefed that it had looked at 900 right backs and settled on Wan Bissaka. Nothing about the briefing suggested Ole played a major role in identifying Wan-Bissaka.
On Maguire, he was a club target before Ole even arrived. We know this because Mourinho spoke about him as an option when he was a sky pundit. In fact many United players have ended up signing long after they were first linked to the club e.g. Luke Shaw, Ander Herrera etc. Cavani is the most recent example of this.
Why do you assume that Ole is the one identifying the players we sign? The club has repeatedly briefed that there is a transfer committee that, yes, he inputs into. However, he does not have the lead voice. This is just a known reality.
You are acting as being a coach in real life is the same as on a computer game. In reality Ole does not have nearly that level of autonomy or decision making power. No Man Utd coach does and most of them only start bringing that to light once their NDAs expire.
He'll take the job if offered because he's been out of work for longer than he probably expected.
None of this has anything to do with the original point. In every big club there will be “star players or talent” who will be there before and after the manager. Yes the club will get rid off some, but there will be others who the board of any big club will insist on being kept and integrated. If the manager refuses to do so he has to go unless it is a manager who has already had huge success with the club, then the board might decide to stick with the opinion of the manager.
I don't know how things are run inside the club with respect to transfer decisions and suspect that few really do. But it would be very surprising to me if the manager wouldn't have significant input into transfers like Wan-Bissaka or Maguire and to have the ability to exert a veto if he thought it absolutely necessary. Without a strong vision of the football he wants to play, Ole may not have that much reason to give input or veto a certain player because, while good in certain ways, he lacks one of the necessary attributes for that position. That's part of the problem.
It seems to me that many United fans just want to heap all the problems at the club at the feet of the board and declare that nothing can be done. But a huge part of the issue is simply that the board hasn't found - indeed, hasn't even tried to hire - the type of young progressive manager who can provide a strong footballing vision to the club.
Maguire and Awb were both Ole's targets and you don't need Ole to come out and tell you this because it's pretty obvious if you've been following up. Ole has also said he has the final say on transfers which pretty much confirms he has the most significant role in picking a player Why would the club even decide to blow 80m on a player they didn't want to spend 60m on before
I remember before LVG was coming in they had asked him and said if he would he be happy for us to sign Shaw & I think herrera. He clearly said it was okay without knowing the players fully nor it being his 100% own personal choice.
Then you have Maguire who was clearly targeted by the club before Ole was even manager during the Jose tenure. It is now being said there was 900 RBS to choose from and we picked AWB.
Then you have the summer where it could be argued that the manager got only one of the targets he wanted.
Sure the manager has some influence on who we buy (especially in first season) but I really dont think it's as much influence as people think it is.
It wont be hard to see that we have no DOF type plan, so LVG got recommended some Moyes players, Jose wanted rid of LVG players and Ole got recommended some Jose players etc.
Then you have Maguire who was clearly targeted by the club before Ole was even manager during the Jose tenure. It is now being said there was 900 RBS to choose from and we picked AWB.
Then you have the summer where it could be argued that the manager got only one of the targets he wanted.
Sure the manager has some influence on who we buy (especially in first season) but I really dont think it's as much influence as people think it is.
It wont be hard to see that we have no DOF type plan, so LVG got recommended some Moyes players, Jose wanted rid of LVG players and Ole got recommended some Jose players etc.