Remember when people thought Fergie had 'lost it'? A bad run of form doesn't mean you've lost it, anymore than it does with a player going through a bad patch.
BBC: United hold talks with Mourinho
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Remember when people thought Fergie had 'lost it'? A bad run of form doesn't mean you've lost it, anymore than it does with a player going through a bad patch.
It really should
It was 4 months and a total disaster. And I cannot think of any top manager who had a spell like that with those players at his disposal.
At this moment he has a lot to prove again
"It" is the touch with contemporary football, after decades of coaching some managers stop adapting to their current environment(players and opponents).
RedCafe goes into Meltdown thread pinned to top of front page for the rest of the century
He does but that can be spun as a good thing as easily as a bad one.
Its clearly not quite the "sure thing" some are making out in my opinion, but the risk of his having lost it is smaller than the risk of taking a chance on a less qualified candidate. People learn more from their failures than they do from their successes and I hope that proves to be the case here.
Simeone?
Anyway as stated afew posts back we are at a crossroads the league is changing and Jose is the only person I believe can take the fight to City under Pep
But it also makes you fear that Pep brings out the worst in Jose.
We need our swagger back. We need to be hated again. Right now we are pitied. There is no fear factor. We used to have teams beat before a ball was kicked. Now we are there for the taking
Simeone doesn't seem to want to move. He was Chelsea's no 1 target and they has now turned to Conte
Not saying that he has to come here and again prove himself from the start but at this time, he is still a safer bet than Pochettino, wouldn't you agree?
Simeone is obviously a top candidate but I am not sure he wants to move out of AM anytime soon.
There is clearly a lot more to what happened at Chelsea than meets the eye. You can't underestimate attempting to sign john stones impacted the squad dynamic. Why? Because of that tool john "JT" Terry. Not to mention the subbing humiliation he "suffered"
Caniero was a very badly judged diversion tactic.
I don't think he's lost it at all. Infact a Jose with something to prove will bring out the best of him. He's always craved total control and we will be the first club to give it
I wouldn't want Simeone tbh I was just responding to the post of pochettino being the only promising young manager
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For the initial 1-2 seasons, perhaps but I would much prefer the risk of
Poch as it could in the long term be a great solution
But it will be Jose, I've accepted that now
I wouldn't mind Simeone if he was available. He's better then Pochettino and probably Maureen. However I believe he's unavailable
It is easy to assume that Poch 'could' be great in the long term but for me he has everything to prove and very little by means of credentials to manage a club as big and as big a mess as ours. Maybe in 3-4 years time once he has proven that he can compete with the best whilst with the Spurs team, for now we really don't want more uncertainty.
A few months ago, I was watching an Atletico game on the spanish TV and the commentators were talking about Simeone, they mentioned the Chelsea rumour, paused and laughed, it was unreal. After that they said that Atletico was a proletarian club and that it was one of the reasons why he loves the club and that they couldn't imagine in clubs like Real Madrid.
I'd say he's in between the two. I'd personally prefer Jose as he is a proven serial premier league winner, and has proven to be a success across several clubs so we know he'd adapt to us. Simeone would be abit of a bigger risk on that part. Doesn't speak English either
Mourinho also seems to like working with English players to so for me that's a bonus
Just because Simeone may be a better manager that doesn't necessary mean he's the most appropriate manager for us. I fully agree with your statement
Except that we are apparently in the market for a DoF, so any incoming manager probably wont have complete control at all.
This. He won the league at a canter less than a year ago. I really don't believe that his Chelsea side were the strongest squad on in the league man for man, but he out-thought almost everyone he came up against.
He let things snowball out of control earlier this season, over a very petty situation. My only concern is that he needs to learn from it, and the club needs to make sure he's learned from it. I have no concerns over his ability to win.
He may well leave us in 3 or 4 years in a blaze of fiery controversy, but we currently have a manager in place who has done the same in almost every other job he has had, so it's a risk we need to take again. There seems to be concern from some fans about Mourinho's character, but when we first hired LvG there was queue half way around Europe lining up to tell the press how horrible they think LvG is. I think LvG arrived to United with a much worse reputation than Mourinho has ever had, strictly in terms of personality, of course.
I don't see a problem with Mourinho. It's the most no-brainer of no-brainers to give him the job, given United's situation and Mourinho's availability.
''United? I never spoke to United.
I would also like to congratulate Ryan Giggs on his new 8 year contract at that club.''
Next season can't come quickly enough for me.
Mourinho is going to be refreshed and have a fire in his belly to prove everybody wrong. He's going to have free reign of the players he wants and I have no doubt he will get our players up a level just like Fergie used too.
Mourinho is going to be refreshed and have a fire in his belly to prove everybody wrong. He's going to have free reign of the players he wants and I have no doubt he will get our players up a level just like Fergie used too.
Why are people so sure Mourinho is coming? Anything I've missed?
It really wouldn't though mate, i can see what you are saying lads but it would still be the same under performing and short of confidence set of players and very late in the season. Theres only so much even a top manager like Mourinho can do in that situation.
Mourinho can pretty much assess the squad handily enough just by watching our games.
And of course all this doesn't even take into account whether or not Mourinho or any top manager would want to take the reigns of a side having a poor season in late March. I doubt any top manager with any self worth would want to be dropped into the deep end and be associated with this seasons failure. I reckon he would want a fresh start in pre-season to make changes and start off with a few friendlies.
If we were going to change mangers December was the time to do it. The new manager would have had at least 5 months to turn the ship around and a transfer window to fix some of the glaring weaknesses in this squad.
So i reckon we are stuck with LVG until may regardless of results, just as we kept Moyes on until the very end.
Well, I'm not sure about anything. But it seems pretty much written in stone that he intends to work in England. And now it seems written in stone that he's set to start work at his new club on July 1. There aren't a million places he can go.
Plus, Moratti's sister said it (which isn't as daft as it sounds).
Anyway, if we end the season in a similar style to what we've seen on the whole this year - largely shite, in other words, and a finish outside the top four - and then proceed to announce Maureen as the new manager, many will be relieved. And I suppose I count myself among them. But serious questions should be asked about how this football club is run. You reach an agreement with the new man, who simply can't or won't take over immediately (that being weeks or even months ago in Maureen's case), and that is fair enough - but you can't tell me there was NOTHING we could do interim wise to try and salvage something from the season.
LVG has looked finished in one way or another since Christmas if you ask me. He's behaved either in a forlorn and resignated manner - or in a defiant but somehow artificial manner. If things play out how most - I guess - predict here, one has to ask why the hell he was allowed to oversee this shambles till the bitter end (well, not quite - but to the bitter end of this season, at least). I'm all for treating the man with respect, within reason, and amicable partings are preferable to handbags - but we're talking about a fairly large-scale operation here. If he was deemed ultimately sack worthy (and he must've been if we did reach an agreement with Maureen weeks or months ago), then he should've been sacked - not made into what might turn out to be a highly underwhelming interim manager. We should have done something - gambled on someone - to make a Hail Mary attempt at saving the season.
And no, I'm not talking about Giggs. If he didn't want it temporarily, fine - he isn't the only possible interim manager out there. We could have given it to the tea lady, it really doesn't matter once you reach a certain, critical point.
Oh well, perhaps we did gamble - on LVG. I hope we did, in an odd sort of way, rather than just decide that the season is essentially finished, so let's wait for Maureen to start working.
I think youre glossing over a significant issue here. Its easy to say all this in hindsight but from where we stood a month or so ago I dont think it was obvious that the tea lady would have been able to do as good a job as Van Gaal. If as you say we assume Giggs didnt want the job on an interim basis we may well have decided none of the viable alternatives looked like an upgrade, and we might as well hang in there and hope things improved a bit, or at least didnt continue to deteriorate. Today it is clearer that perhaps the tea lady could have probably done at least as well (and I would never underestimate the motivational powers of a good brew) but now we've left it that late that the question becomes whether there is time to salvage anything anyway.
I guess the question is at what point we reached that moment you refer to, when it doesnt really matter. I think we are definitely there now but its debatable whether we were back in January.
Yeah, it's hypothetical - no doubt. It hasn't been easy to read the situation, to be honest. On the one hand the players - except certain of the kids - have looked half dead since that dreadful spell which began before Christmas. But on the other hand there hasn't been any undeniable indication that he's actually lost the dressing room in the traditional sense.
One thing is certain, though: Deciding (at some point) to replace LVG this summer, and then proceed to turn him into a de facto interim manager - is a pretty unusual strategy. And the earlier said decision was made, the more unusual it all becomes.
Speculation and musing, of course.
Its the United way. We are proud to be different.
The fact that Jorge Mendes hasn't opened his trap about Mourinho once, speaks volumes...
He's already got a job, and he's had it for a while...
He's already got a job, and he's had it for a while...
It's obvious isn't it?
Ay, that seems about right. Subtlety isn't really Mendes' strong suit. If he's not openly hawking Mourinho around then it's because there's no job left for him to do.
I still think plan A is to have Giggs succeed LvG. They may well have spoken to Mourinho as part of a plan B which essentially is that if the season turns out to be a disaster then he will step in on a 3 year basis with either Giggs continuing as assistant and then succeeding (modified plan A) or going elsewhere for the interim. If on the other hand LvG manages to salvage something - a cup miraculously or, just as miraculously, a top four finish - then plan A is firmly back in place with LvG staying another season and Giggs taking over a settled team for 2017/18.
On the other hand, as soon as we are clearly out of everything, the club will make an announcement to the effect that LvG is retiring at the end of the season - or that he has another post to go to - and that Mourinho will be the next manager come 2016/17. What they are trying to avoid is plunging Giggs into what is still a considerable mess. They wanted him to take over a virtual finished product which was always the idea when LvG was hired .
I can only surmise that they have told Mourinho that they may offer him the job for next season depending on what happens in the interim. Mourinho may, in turn, have told them he is prepared to wait but no longer than the end of this season. Or something like that. Bear in mind too that he doesnt necessarily want to be seen as having usurped his old mentor's job.
If this scenario is correct it bypasses the embarrassment and indignity of having to sack LvG as well as having Giggs as a caretaker again when, reportedly, that is the last thing he wants.
On the other hand, as soon as we are clearly out of everything, the club will make an announcement to the effect that LvG is retiring at the end of the season - or that he has another post to go to - and that Mourinho will be the next manager come 2016/17. What they are trying to avoid is plunging Giggs into what is still a considerable mess. They wanted him to take over a virtual finished product which was always the idea when LvG was hired .
I can only surmise that they have told Mourinho that they may offer him the job for next season depending on what happens in the interim. Mourinho may, in turn, have told them he is prepared to wait but no longer than the end of this season. Or something like that. Bear in mind too that he doesnt necessarily want to be seen as having usurped his old mentor's job.
If this scenario is correct it bypasses the embarrassment and indignity of having to sack LvG as well as having Giggs as a caretaker again when, reportedly, that is the last thing he wants.
I think it was the plan.....just like Moyes having more time rebuild was also a plan. Plans change and boards react to the position their in - the Giggs succession may have been in their mind but I think its moved on now.
Just putting this out there, if we had a big manager (Mourinho) lined up wouldn't he want CL football?
The club has written the season off by the looks of it other wise LVG would have gone by Christmas and Jose would be here.
I've got a very bad feeling that Giggs is coming in, we will be without CL footy and it will be his target to get into top 4 which will be seen as a achievement....
I hope I'm proved wrong!!!!!
The club has written the season off by the looks of it other wise LVG would have gone by Christmas and Jose would be here.
I've got a very bad feeling that Giggs is coming in, we will be without CL footy and it will be his target to get into top 4 which will be seen as a achievement....
I hope I'm proved wrong!!!!!
That's my thoughts too.
Of all of the 'top' coaches in world football, this is something I would imagine Jose would be most adept at staying in touch. If memory serves me right, he's a huge advocate of using the latest coaching and monitoring techniques / technology and nobody can suggest he hasn't evolved and expanded his tactical range over his career thus far.
The only thing Jose may have become outdated with is his own fractious personality. There are loads of good coaches around now that are particularly good at keeping the media onside whilst also commanding the respect of their team. Possibly he needs to learn how to become more approachable and 'warmer' to avoid all the fall-outs...
LVG is a big manager and he was happy to start from scratch, even allowing for a short contract.
I don't think it's a problem in truth. Jose has been gagging for the United job for the last 10 years or so - his ego will thrive with the concept that he's rebuilding the club from relative ruin.
LVG was a big manager and he came with no CL football. We have a huge budget and are willing to use it so I think we are still a very attractive proposition to managers...I mean where else would he go? All of the elite clubs have a manager in place or he has burnt bridges with.
Madrid
Barcelona
Atletico
Bayern
Dortmund
PSG
United
City
Arsenal
Chelsea
Juventus
Spurs
Everton
West Ham
Roma
AC Milan
Inter (he said he's not going back)
Valencia
His options are us, Everton or Valencia pretty much. Or go to a national team
What do you all make of Mourinho talking of 'lies' that have apparently been told about his future? What's he referring to in particular? I'm concerned that he means the Mourinho-to-United stories.
Maybe stuff like he went to Inter to talk about the job when it was actually a dinner for the treble
Me too
That was cleared up pretty quickly though, mate.
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