All managers post Fergie weren't good enough

[Amar__]

Moyes and Solskjaer were completely out of depth.
Lvg and Jose were top managers and they were logical and good choices but wrongly executed. They needed DoF.

Ten Hag. At that time he was good choice but again DoF problem (in his case awful Dof).

In which universe were Lvg and Jose top managers? Lcg signed players based on world cup because he wasn't even watching lot of league football back then(I seriously doubt he even followed EPL), let alone was top club manager at that time.

Jose is long past it, not even Chelsea wanted him anymore, how on earth was he top manager? I literally argued in the OP that his biggest achievement recently is managing Roma, and you completely ignore that and continue to call him top manager.

I think it's more that anyone good enough to be successful wouldn't have taken the job in the first place with the set up we had.

That's the part that will (hopefully) change now.

Don't really disagree with the opening post. I just think picking the wrong manager comes with the territory when the people above the manager don't have a plan

That's also true. But then many poor run clubs have won many things in between and have signed some shit and some good managers. I don't think Liverpool were much better with their transfers and some decisions than us either, except the main one - hiring Klopp. Barcelona, PSG are shambles and probably worse run club than us, so are Chelsea too, all of them won more than us(I think).

 

[Wolfbot]

I probably don't agree that all the managers weren't good enough, some weren't, Moyes and Ole certainly the more limited of them. Van Gaal and Jose could and probably should have achieved more success but ultimately did both win trophies.

To be a club who are truly successful over a longer period you need the majority of your decisions to be the right ones and some gambles to come off.

There's a lot to it, but a simplistic take would be that manager has to be a top class one, and he has to be supported, but the recruitment needs to be right. There were some good signings during Van Gaal and Mourinho's tenures but a hell of a lot of flops as well.

Van Gaal got the possession sorted but the likes of Falcao and Depay flopped so the goals weren't there to finish the puzzle. Everyone knows how Mourinho will play but looking back at the players signed under him, I don't think many were particularly well suited to that style. And a few just didn't deliver what was expected of him.

Under Ten Hag I don't like his high risk, low reward approach to the game seen this season, and the recruitment hasn't been particularly good. That's a fail for the two main ingredients for success, hence why we see what we do on the pitch this season.

You get the odd manager like Klopp and Ancelloti where you feel they could get a good outcome out of pretty much anything. Fergie was like that as well, I feel he got the best out of nearly all his players, no matter what their ability.

Pep is a different level again in that he has his systems and ideas and if you don't perform in his system, you simply don't play until you do, or you get shipped out, no matter who you are.

We've had a couple of good managers, a few limited ones and the recruitment has been largely poor throughout. Both need to be improved from where we are to move forward.

 

[Sunny Jim]

I think ETH is the one that sticks out there. On paper he fit the profile and looked like the right man at the right time. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to earn that trust and will hopefully soon be the first good(-looking) manager to be sacked here.

But absolutely, LVG and Mourinho were both obviously past their prime when they came here and I was not optimistic about any of them going in. Moyes and OGS never had the pedigree (though I think the latter was the one appointment apart from ETH that I liked in theory and thought was worth trying out (and he did pretty well to be fair)).

Overall, we’ve been about as bad at manager recruitment as we are as signing players.

playing devils advocate here, we have been very unlucky with timing of our managerial changes. Simply, we might have chosen terrible managers but still we picked the best out a poor lot.

 

[noodlehair]

That's also true. But then many poor run clubs have won many things in between and have signed some shit and some good managers. I don't think Liverpool were much better with their transfers and some decisions than us either, except the main one - hiring Klopp. Barcelona, PSG are shambles and probably worse run club than us, so are Chelsea too, all of them won more than us(I think).

I would argue Chelsea until the last 3-4 years were a better run club, but even so the success has somewhat dried up. PSG are a tax haven club with no one to compete with domestically, and have failed miserably on every attempt in Europe. One of said failures was even against us. Even Liverpool with Klopp. They have been competitive but they haven't exactly been bringing the major trophies in on a conveyor belt. In terms of the big three trophies, Klopp in his entire tenure has managed what SAF did in a single season. You can add a couple of League Cups on, but then we have the same amount of those as Liverpool do since Klopp took charge. They are currently also in the Europa league because Klopp failed to get top 4 last season.

I think this is part of the problem as well. The bar is set very high and even a well run club with a good manager evidently doesn't always reach it. City are the only team managing to be consistently successful by the standards we'd measure success by, and they got caught cheating 100 and something times and are now under investigation.

There are probably at any given time only 2-3 managers in the world who would tick all the boxes in terms of being good enough, and two of them have been employed by our main rivals for the last 5 years. Another reason why although I agree with your point I think the priority should be to get the structure around the manager sorted so we are in a good position when the right one does come along and we (hopefully) hire them....which sounds mean on Ten Hag but I'm pretty sure the right manager wouldn't try to play without a midfield for an entire season.

 

[Mike Smalling]

Yes, a proper structure holding him back from acting on daft ideas would have helped him. It's a really simple concept and it's amazing that you can't grasp it and/or are so bothered that I hold this view.

You do realise that Moyes doing better under a proper structure and Moyes still not being good enough are not ideas exclusive from each other?

Tactically, he'd have been supported by better staff than Steve Round, Phil Neville and Jimmy Lumsden. Similarly, better (and familiar) staff and better recruitment is very likely to have kept the players onside (at least for longer). These are not controversial views.

As for the 15 points thing, we dropped 50 points in 2013/14. We dropped 13 at home to West Brom, Southampton, Everton, Newcastle and Fulham, and a further 8 away to Cardiff, Stoke and Everton before Moyes was sacked. We then dropped a further 5 at home to Sunderland and away to Southampton after he was sacked. That's 26 eminently winnable points, and before we discuss the 24 we dropped to City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs. As I said, I think there was still a chance we missed out on top four that year regardless, because of the post-Fergie hangover, but it's odd to think we wouldn't have managed more points had we signed even two or three of the players we were heavily linked to that summer (or even players in those positions) that weren't Fellaini and Baines. That list that included Thiago, Fabregas, Ozil, Khedira, Bale and Ronaldo, some of which were definitely a bit fanciful, but we also had the Herrera-saga and were clearly targeting a left-back as we went for Coentrao on deadline day, and ended up signing Herrera and Shaw before van Gaal was even in post.

I get your point about about Moyes thinking he could bring in his Everton team and sign Fellaini and things would run smoothly being massive red-flags, but if he hadn't been granted that freedom, he would have adapted, and been better for it. He's not a complete fool, as evidenced by his spell at Everton and current stint at West Ham.

I can grasp the idea, I just seem to put much less value on it terms on the final results. And I'm not at all bothered by what you think - it's just a discussion.

My main point is that the gap between your idea of what Moyes could have done and what we actually got was massive. Moyes was a huge distance off achieving one top four finish, let alone consistent top four finishes. He brought a midtable mindset and approach to a top club. That was far more detrimental to our results than one lacklustre transfer window or a few backroom staff changes. And I'm not at all convinced that he would have morphed into a different manager if he had been met with some constraints. Ideally you'd want a manager that gets fewer crazy ideas, so he doesn't have to be constrained so much.

 

[Camara]

Yes, keep everything the same and just throw the next manager under the grinding machine and then blame him.
When you have a roster of different managers with different styles and different pedigrees and still things keep being the same maybe the problem isn't the managers.

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 6 times and... shame on you too?

 

[Andycoleno9]

In which universe were Lvg and Jose top managers? Lcg signed players based on world cup because he wasn't even watching lot of league football back then(I seriously doubt he even followed EPL), let alone was top club manager at that time.

Jose is long past it, not even Chelsea wanted him anymore, how on earth was he top manager? I literally argued in the OP that his biggest achievement recently is managing Roma, and you completely ignore that and continue to call him top manager.

In real universe.

Ah, you argued that? Silly me. Sorry, i didn't realise that this is that type of thread where i must just confirm what is said in OP.

All managers were shit. /thread.

 

[Amir]

Yes of course there's huge issues in the boardroom and with the structure of the club, and it has of course been a hinderance to managers... BUT, it still doesn't take away from the fact that none of our managers have been of the level required.

It's not really a BUT. It's connected. The issues in the boardroom and structure meant that we don't really know how to choose the right manager.

 

[Alex99]

I can grasp the idea, I just seem to put much less value on it terms on the final results. And I'm not at all bothered by what you think - it's just a discussion.

My main point is that the gap between your idea of what Moyes could have done and what we actually got was massive. Moyes was a huge distance off achieving one top four finish, let alone consistent top four finishes. He brought a midtable mindset and approach to a top club. That was far more detrimental to our results than one lacklustre transfer window or a few backroom staff changes. And I'm not at all convinced that he would have morphed into a different manager if he had been met with some constraints. Ideally you'd want a manager that gets fewer crazy ideas, so he doesn't have to be constrained so much.

Right, but at the same time, the gap between how we were run and how a well-run club operated was also massive. To go back to a point I made earlier, he wouldn't have actually been hired if we were well run.

I agree that the mid-table mindset was an issue, but again, if he hadn't been allowed to surround himself with mid-table staff and hadn't had a mid-table transfer window, it wouldn't have been anywhere near as prevalent.

As I said, I think Moyes' ceiling was consistent, underwhelming top four finishes, until he eventually got sacked for not being able to make the step up. It would very much have been a title-quality squad under performing there, and I'm not trying to pretend otherwise, and I'll reiterate that I think that was his ceiling (i.e. the very best he could have done). In reality, I think a better structure sees him fall somewhere between maybe a single top four finish (he did manage it with Everton, as well as a couple of 5th places) and 5th to 7th (depending on the strength of other clubs), precisely for the reasons you've given.

Brendan Rodgers, Claudio Ranieri, Frank Lampard, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Eddie Howe (and Mauricio Pochettino) have managed top four finishes (and won or challenged for the league) since Moyes was appointed United manager. In 20/21, Moyes' West Ham only finished 2 points off fourth. It really isn't that controversial to suggest that he could have managed it at United within a proper structure.

 

[cyril C]

I think ETH is the one that sticks out there. On paper he fit the profile and looked like the right man at the right time. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to earn that trust and will hopefully soon be the first good(-looking) manager to be sacked here.

But absolutely, LVG and Mourinho were both obviously past their prime when they came here and I was not optimistic about any of them going in. Moyes and OGS never had the pedigree (though I think the latter was the one appointment apart from ETH that I liked in theory and thought was worth trying out (and he did pretty well to be fair)).

Overall, we’ve been about as bad at manager recruitment as we are as signing players.

Managers past their prime, is not an easy statement.

You can definitely say Rangnick is on the wrong side of the slope, but would you say the same about Carlo Ancelotti? At least not in 2021. You can argue on personality and management style of LVG and Mourhino that may or may not be suitable to MU, but surely they were still good as experienced manager upon their appointment.

 

[Mike Smalling]

Right, but at the same time, the gap between how we were run and how a well-run club operated was also massive. To go back to a point I made earlier, he wouldn't have actually been hired if we were well run.

I agree that the mid-table mindset was an issue, but again, if he hadn't been allowed to surround himself with mid-table staff and hadn't had a mid-table transfer window, it wouldn't have been anywhere near as prevalent.

As I said, I think Moyes' ceiling was consistent, underwhelming top four finishes, until he eventually got sacked for not being able to make the step up. It would very much have been a title-quality squad under performing there, and I'm not trying to pretend otherwise, and I'll reiterate that I think that was his ceiling (i.e. the very best he could have done). In reality, I think a better structure sees him fall somewhere between maybe a single top four finish (he did manage it with Everton, as well as a couple of 5th places) and 5th to 7th (depending on the strength of other clubs), precisely for the reasons you've given.

Brendan Rodgers, Claudio Ranieri, Frank Lampard, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Eddie Howe (and Mauricio Pochettino) have managed top four finishes (and won or challenged for the league) since Moyes was appointed United manager. In 20/21, Moyes' West Ham only finished 2 points off fourth. It really isn't that controversial to suggest that he could have managed it at United within a proper structure.

Could he have managed a top four finish with a more well-run version of Man Utd? Sure. Could he have managed them consistently year on year? I don't think so, but of course it's a complete hypothetical. It also becomes a bit theoretical, because how would a manager react to being told he can't bring his own staff or influence transfers in any way? Even Moyes would rightly demand a big say on the former, and at least some influence on the latter. And I do agree with you that a well-run club doesn't hire him in the first place.

 

[Alex99]

Could he have managed a top four finish with a more well-run version of Man Utd? Sure. Could he have managed them consistently year on year? I don't think so, but of course it's a complete hypothetical. It also becomes a bit theoretical, because how would a manager react to being told he can't bring his own staff or influence transfers in any way? Even Moyes would rightly demand a big say on the former, and at least some influence on the latter. And I do agree with you that a well-run club doesn't hire him in the first place.

I don't think it's that common at all for a manager to come in and completely replace the backroom team as Moyes did, and generally coaching appointments would be made by one of the sporting directors, precisely because it's incredibly disruptive to completely overhaul the entire staff with every managerial change.

At most they're bringing an assistant with them.

 

[NoLogo]

It's not really a BUT. It's connected. The issues in the boardroom and structure meant that we don't really know how to choose the right manager.

That's exactly it. We mainly chose managers based on past achievements and not if their style would actually suite us. Of course past achievements are important, but with most of these managers it was obvious that they didn't quite adept to how football evolved and stuck pretty much with what had them always made so successful in the past. If anything, EtH is the first manager we hired that would probably fit into the mold of a manager that was suited to modern football, but he inherited a team that had absolutely no identity and is incapable of playing the way he initially wanted. It's just a bit sad that it all simply went out of the window, and we adapted the "playing style" we are playing today.

 

[Amar__]

In real universe.

Ah, you argued that? Silly me. Sorry, i didn't realise that this is that type of thread where i must just confirm what is said in OP.

All managers were shit. /thread.

Well if you really think that Jose and LvG are top managers then there is really nothing to discuss here. I am not sure there are 5 people in this entire forum that agree with you on that.

 

[Maticmaker]

Can we please stop with this weird argument that nothing will change with changing the manager just because we changed couple of them in the past 10 years?

That was entirely true whilst the footballing decisions over the last 10 years were being made/influenced by the Owners (whose expertise is basically in Property Development) and a Banking CEO, who was basically there to ensure the money continued to flow-in and the leveraged funds were returned to the Bank.

Hopefully Sir Jim and the people he is supposedly bringing in have a range of skills/abilities across the board, for the successful running of a sporting (football) franchise.

 

[stevoc]

Agree with the OP.

Think of all ex-United managers Moyes actually has had best career since managing us. But he's still probably manager for type of teams he's been working at - Everton, West Ham etc. He took over an ageing team at United no doubt but don't think he'll ever again get a job like that as much as I do rate him as a manager.

LvG was in his prime during the 90s. Recently had success with Netherlands in 2014 and 2022 but that's cup tournament that suited him more as he got older it seems. League competition was really poor during his time here, especially in 15/16 and he couldn't even manage a top 4 finish. Thanks for Fa Cup campaign but we had easy road to it as well.

Mourinho has been on a decline since 2012 probably so it only slowly continued at United. Still most successful no doubt. I do believe we'd have won title in 2017/18 if Pep wasn't there so basically competition got stronger by the time Mourinho came to us with Pep and Klopp moving to the Premier League. Also Jose's decline only continued after United, otherwise he wouldn't be managing Spurs and Roma.

Ole did well considering where he was before us and where he is after us, and that's 2 and half years without job.

Then there's ten Hag. Strong 1st season for me but followed by poor second season.

Seems to me like there's never top managers available when we are looking for one. In 2013 (if we believe Fergie) Mourinho, Pep and Ancelotti already decided to join other clubs. In 2014 think there weren't available top managers either. Same for 2016 and 2018/19. In 2022 we were choosing between Poch and ten Hag and now it looks like neither are the answer. That plus whole state of the club being below required level.

So all in all we've had either not good enough or past their prime managers.

None of them were offered the job. And to be fair by the time Fergie told the club (March) it would have been too late to offer them the job anyway.

 

[AndySmith1990]

Recruitment has been poor at every level of the club

 

[Irwin99]

It's not mutually exclusive. You could argue those managers weren't good enough- fair point- but then take a look at where the majority of the players have ended up when they've left United and you will see we've had massive problems signing the right quality, and that isn't just down to the manager. We've been a top 4 challenging team in the past 11 years or so, never a title challenger and when you look at some of those line ups it's easy to see why.

 

[AfonsoAlves]

The question therefore then is, who should we have got instead when those managers were appointed?

At the time of Moyes, Guardiola was, theoretically, available I guess?

Who was available instead of LVG, Mourinho, Ole and Ten Hag?

 

[Alex99]

Agree with the OP.

Think of all ex-United managers Moyes actually has had best career since managing us. But he's still probably manager for type of teams he's been working at - Everton, West Ham etc. He took over an ageing team at United no doubt but don't think he'll ever again get a job like that as much as I do rate him as a manager.

LvG was in his prime during the 90s. Recently had success with Netherlands in 2014 and 2022 but that's cup tournament that suited him more as he got older it seems. League competition was really poor during his time here, especially in 15/16 and he couldn't even manage a top 4 finish. Thanks for Fa Cup campaign but we had easy road to it as well.

Mourinho has been on a decline since 2012 probably so it only slowly continued at United. Still most successful no doubt. I do believe we'd have won title in 2017/18 if Pep wasn't there so basically competition got stronger by the time Mourinho came to us with Pep and Klopp moving to the Premier League. Also Jose's decline only continued after United, otherwise he wouldn't be managing Spurs and Roma.

Ole did well considering where he was before us and where he is after us, and that's 2 and half years without job.

Then there's ten Hag. Strong 1st season for me but followed by poor second season.

Seems to me like there's never top managers available when we are looking for one. In 2013 (if we believe Fergie) Mourinho, Pep and Ancelotti already decided to join other clubs. In 2014 think there weren't available top managers either. Same for 2016 and 2018/19. In 2022 we were choosing between Poch and ten Hag and now it looks like neither are the answer. That plus whole state of the club being below required level.

So all in all we've had either not good enough or past their prime managers.

We quite (in)famously approached Klopp, with Woodward being laughed out of the room with "Disneyland for adults" or whatever it was he said to describe the club.

Guardiola had been announced as Bayern manager in the January, so he was definitely not an option to replace Fergie, but I don't remember Ancelotti being (publicly) tied to Madrid until the summer.

I'm fairly sure Fergie said in his autobiography that Moyes wasn't first choice.

 

[Irwin99]

Look at the typical first choice teams of each of those managers ...They ain't gonna win you league titles, no matter who the manager is. Obviously you could say the managers could/should have built better teams but I find it very hard to believe the managers were happy with some of the players they got or were told to make do with. They all reached a certain point of progress before it fell apart.

 

[Reynoldo]

I think Mourinho could have done even better but the board wouldn't back him. Glazers fault!

Wrong timing, we should have got him right after SAF left. He'd have won a title then did his 3 year melt but we then could have started afresh in a new direction with post Fergie success already having been achieved.

 

[devilish]

Manchester United are, by nature, not built for success. Barcelona had won at least 1 league title per decade since the 1970s. That's amazing considering that they had Franco against them. Bayern had been winning 1 league title per decade since the 1960s, Real since the 1950s and Juventus since the 1920s. United on the other hand has a 40 year gap between the 1910s and 1951, a 25 year gap between 1967 and 1992 and we haven't won a league title in the past 11 years. We are essentially a 2 manager's club with Busby and SAF hoarding 18 out of our 20 league titles, 10 out of our 12 FA cups and all of our CLs. That means that Manchester United despite its immense support had always been totally dependent on a genius manager and once that manager leaves, crisis follows.

In my opinion this is down to our lack of football structure. We traditionally have this almost idiotic idea that the manager should be the pinnacle of everything which might be comfortable for the financial side of the club (less salaries, less overheads etc) but can only succeed when the guy a the helm is someone as good as Sir Matt or Sir Alex. Turns out these people are rare to come by and how football had developed since the 2000s, managers capable of doing everything on their own are not produced anymore.

United had been trying to 'freeze' time. They first appointed Moyes who was one of the most experienced EPL managers around. Then they went for LVG who became one of the oldest managers at top flight after SAF was gone and then they turned to Mourinho who was the most successful EPL manager still active in football. As a former United player, Ole was yet another step into that strategy as they genuinely believed that the guy could emulate SAF having been around the guy for so many years. All of whom failed for 2 reasons. First of all none of them knew how to do SAF's job (who was manager, head of recruitment, sporting director, technical director, a head of academy, a second father to some of the players and sometimes contract negotiator all wrapped in one). Secondly it was because football was going through a shift with the classic 'counter attack/deep line' style of football giving way to a high press style of football which meant that old school managers suddenly fount themselves obsolete.

So in some ways yes the managers were not good enough. On the other hand we also hired the wrong type of managers and we did so for the wrong reasons.

 

[mu4c_20le]

I think Mourinho could have done even better but the board wouldn't back him. Glazers fault!

 

[devilish]

Wrong timing, we should have got him right after SAF left. He'd have won a title then did his 3 year melt but we then could have started afresh in a new direction with post Fergie success already having been achieved.

Nah. Mourinho was already in decline by then. He might have won 1 league title but it would have come at a huge price with us being saddled with more old players then we had. What United needed was a complete overhaul of the structure. If you ask me it should have been done PRIOR to SAF's retiring. Sure it might have irked the old man who would probably have hated having sporting directors and co stepping on his feet. Yet he was already in his 70s when he retired. Surely he could be reasoned with in terms of United building for the future

 

[Redstain]

Agreed, their post-managerial careers given their departures is also further evidence.

I think you can only really make a case for Jose out of his pedigree, but even he imploded not being able to inspire the players after a period of time and created worst environment around the club of any manager in the last decade.

Even though United are establishing a solid foundation to build from it's still going to take a very good manager to succeed. They will need to win games consistently home and away and come up against some of the top managers in Europe in the league. It's going to be challenging.

 

[witchtrials]

I don't necessarily disagree, but I'm not sure that looking at managers' records post-United is that informative.

Top level management involves trust / player buy-in / "aura" to such an extent that once you've been through the meat grinder of United - scrutinised, criticised and ridiculed in the biggest spotlight of all - the fact that you have been United manager probably has a huge impact on the chances of you getting offered other top jobs, and of commanding the respect of top players without the players having the nagging doubt that you've already been found out.

 

[Rista]

Yes, keep everything the same and just throw the next manager under the grinding machine and then blame him.
When you have a roster of different managers with different styles and different pedigrees and still things keep being the same maybe the problem isn't the managers.

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me 6 times and... shame on you too?

But 6 managers is the normal amount of appointments that clubs make. Some big, better run clubs would have certainly changed more. This is kind of the point OP is trying to make. People have no trouble believing most of our recruitment has been bad but somehow having 6 managers indicates they weren't bad appointments and weren't part of the problem.

 

[Alex99]

Manchester United are, by nature, not built for success. Barcelona had won at least 1 league title per decade since the 1970s. That's amazing considering that they had Franco against them. Bayern had been winning 1 league title per decade since the 1960s, Real since the 1950s and Juventus since the 1920s. United on the other hand has a 40 year gap between the 1910s and 1951, a 25 year gap between 1967 and 1992 and we haven't won a league title in the past 11 years. We are essentially a 2 manager's club with Busby and SAF hoarding 18 out of our 20 league titles, 10 out of our 12 FA cups and all of our CLs. That means that Manchester United despite its immense support had always been totally dependent on a genius manager and once that manager leaves, crisis follows.

I get the point you're making here, and agree we've been too reliant on managerial brilliance, but that's slightly disingenuous framing.

Liverpool went 16 years between 1906 and 1922, another 24 years between 1922 and 1947, 17 years between 1947 and 1964, and 30 years between 1990 and 2020.

 

[devilish]

I get the point you're making here, and agree we've been too reliant on managerial brilliance, but that's slightly disingenuous framing.

Liverpool went 16 years between 1906 and 1922, another 24 years between 1922 and 1947, 17 years between 1947 and 1964, and 30 years between 1990 and 2020.

Traditionally Liverpool aren't as different to us either. They always relied on a top manager to drag them to succeed. That changed lately with Edwards being appointed sporting director and stopping the likes of Klopp from signing Brandt instead of Salah. Let's not forget that Liverpool allowed the United legend himself ie Sourness to dismantle a very successful Liverpool side

 

[Blood Mage]

We all thought Ten Hag was a good appointment at the time and on paper it was. Nobody could have predicted it would fall apart so badly. The others were all terrible, short-sighted appointments though.

 

[Amar__]

That was entirely true whilst the footballing decisions over the last 10 years were being made/influenced by the Owners (whose expertise is basically in Property Development) and a Banking CEO, who was basically there to ensure the money continued to flow-in and the leveraged funds were returned to the Bank.

Hopefully Sir Jim and the people he is supposedly bringing in have a range of skills/abilities across the board, for the successful running of a sporting (football) franchise.

Do you not think we would have at least won more points in the league if we didn't waste money on terrible players like Fellaini, Anthony, Depay, Rojo, etc. who were all manager's choice based on being friends with them in previous club and nothing to do with influence from owners to sign those players? And all of those players have left/will leave with no value at all.

Ten Hag and van Gaal thought players from Dutch leage were good players for Premierleague and worth spending their entire budget on them. Moyes thought Fellaini was good enough for Manchester United.

 

[Camara]

But 6 managers is the normal amount of appointments that clubs make. Some big, better run clubs would have certainly changed more. This is kind of the point OP is trying to make. People have no trouble believing most of our recruitment has been bad but somehow having 6 managers indicates they weren't bad appointments and weren't part of the problem.

Maybe all 6 managers have been bad but it's not something one can conclude from all of this imho, the most logical thing is to assume after a while that it's more likely other factors are at play, especially since those 6 managers have different backgrounds and different styles.
Maybe in that period Real Madrid would have had 20 managers but if all of them fail the culprit should not be on them only but primarily on the structure/board that appoints bad managers every single time.

If you buy a squad of bad players and they are all flops you should direct blame not only at them (in some cases it's not their fault they are just doing what they always have) but mainly on who in charge thought it was a good idea to buy all of them.

If you had a bad structure even good managers can get eclipsed and then you will be just lucky if you discover and hire the 2 or 3 managers that would be able to thrive in that mess (and hint: you are bad at finding those in the first place).
A better run club would look inwards and try to see what is going wrong, in a normal situation an average "good" manager should do a decent job, if you require the top of the top snowflake then you're not managing the club but just trying to fish for a miracle out of nowhere.

 

[Teja]

I agree generally about Moyes, Ole and Jose but I'm curious how Ten Hag will fare if he leaves United and goes back to Ajax / takes up a role in a well run club like Dortmund or Brighton.

 

[Lee565]

I think van gaal was the only one that could have been given more time as he was the only that showed some type of philosophy, the rest seem stuck playing counter attacking football and playing like a small team against the top sides

 

[Rista]

Maybe all 6 managers have been bad but it's not something one can conclude from all of this imho, the most logical thing is to assume after a while that it's more likely other factors are at play, especially since those 6 managers have different backgrounds and different styles.
Maybe in that period Real Madrid would have had 20 managers but if all of them fail the culprit should not be on them only but primarily on the structure/board that appoints bad managers every single time.

If you buy a squad of bad players and they are all flops you should direct blame not only at them (in some cases it's not their fault they are just doing what they always have) but mainly on who in charge thought it was a good idea to buy all of them.

If you had a bad structure even good managers can get eclipsed and then you will be just lucky if you discover and hire the 2 or 3 managers that would be able to thrive in that mess (and hint: you are bad at finding those in the first place).
A better run club would look inwards and try to see what is going wrong, in a normal situation an average "good" manager should do a decent job, if you require the top of the top snowflake then you're not managing the club but just trying to fish for a miracle out of nowhere.

But nobody is saying there aren't also other factors at play. Our incompetent structure choose mostly not good enough managers. If there was any argument that any of the managers we appointment were actually good, then we could make a case that at least one of them shouldn't have been sacked. But we can't. Not only any good club wouldn't touch them anymore but even we wouldn't.

In a normal situation a decent manager should do a decent job, yes. Which did happen at times. There were ups and downs, it wasn't all terrible. But ultimately none of them were good enough to take us to the next level or not to implode after a few years.

 

[Nicolarra90]

Both of these can be true:

1. None of them were good enough
2. No one apart from maybe 2 or 3 would have been successful. But it's far from a guarantee even with them.

You can only compete with what's in front of you.

Imagine Pep and Klopp were ar Barcelona and Madrid respectively.
Then Ole and Mou might have won a PL each.
Then people would say their stints were a success.

 

[iammemphis]

When you look at it retrospectively, arguably the biggest club side in England and one of the top 3/4 clubs in world football has a vacancy for "Club Manager" come up....... And we hire David fecking Moyes. How was it possible we couldn't hire anyone better than that. Jesus.

 

[Scandi Red]

When you look at it retrospectively, arguably the biggest club side in England and one of the top 3/4 clubs in world football has a vacancy for "Club Manager" come up....... And we hire David fecking Moyes. How was it possible we couldn't hire anyone better than that. Jesus.

It makes sense when you realize that he was 6th (?) choice. Once you remove the 5 best options at the time as well as managers who just recently got a new job, then Moyes suddenly doesn't look so bad (at the time).

Hindsight is 20/20 of course. I'm sure someone will pretend that there were 20 better candidates and everyone else were idiots for not seeing it.

 

[Borys]

Eth seemed like the right guy, nobody knew he has ideas/systems that won't work in this environment/league.
Personally I think I bought the "next pep" narrative, but this guy isn't any better than Ole tactically that's for sure.
Ole made use of out his very limited squad, the recruitment wasn't good and he was not able to transform us into a modern team, but so can't ETH. I think Ole team beats ETH team (apart from the golden patch we had last season).