I just love how bitter everyone here is. Cox has said it all along that Solskjaer is not good enough, as has I, and plenty others too, but you just haven't listened or believed it. Cox is an interesting writer who tries to see lines in the game and not just bases it on 'vibes' or 'The United Way' like some others. Great article and he is spot on, as he often has been and is regarding Solskjaer.
Cox: Don't judge Ole on Fergie's 'attacking philosophy' - It didn't exist. | The Athletic
- Thread starter Hoof the ball
- Start date
Yes. you are right. My comparison there between Ferguson and Mourinho was intended to be solely limited to their pragmatism and then how they attempted to account for their pragmatic approach to fans and the media. They obviously approach their football from slightly different starting points though.
I don't think Mourinho's sides would have scored quite so many goals over the years, especially during his peak period, if he was as dogmatic and adhered to defensive football as much as is often perceived. His teams at Chelsea, Inter, Madrid and Chelsea again were either the top scoring side in the league or competing to be the highest scorers, especially when contending for the title. His pragmatism usually sees him get the most out of his star forwards, which we saw again at Spurs. Yes, we know Mourinho's philosophy and how it relates to the possession of the ball, but he's not a manager who dogmatically looks to park the bus regardless of his squad and the opposition.
I think Mourinho's weakness, in contrast to Ferguson, is that he doesn't have the same man management and political acumen as Ferguson does. The optics of his football are inherently poor due to his lack of willingness to pay lip service to the media and the fans, and he has a tendency to be too cerebral and act as if aesthetics and style have no importance. That's fine when you are winning, but feels terrible once results don't go your way. Once things start to turn negative, he finds it difficult to man manage and reconvince his personnel, and you get the negative spiral.
That's the real genius of Ferguson in contrast - the ability to adapt to trends in wider football, recognise the end of a cycle, and rebuild new sides over and over again.
A younger Fergie most certainly would have adapted but by the end of his tenure he was not quite at the races with his eye for a player or attacking tactics. He got out at the right time.
Agree. I think its all part and parcel of folk wanting to make the game more complicated than it is. Lot of pseudo intellectualism.
Klopp a great tactician but Fergie wasn't apparently. I watch Liverpool now and think they're incredibly similar to Fergie's peak years.
If we imagine a world where Ferguson was still managing and effectively competing with City/Liverpool, the logical way that would occur is with SAF recognising the trends in the top level European game and bringing in a coach/assistant with the capacity to upgrade United tactically to compete.
I don't think it's that implausible that would occur given that's precisely what he did with the Queiroz appointment, as he believed changes in the way we played were needed for United to compete in Europe. If it reached a point where United were suddenly unable to compete to win the league (as happened when Mourinho first took over at Chelsea, for example) then I doubt SAF would stubbornly stick to doing the same thing that wasn't working.
These gowls just love posting United articles because it sells. They all do.
It's just history being rewritten based on how Utd are doing now. Football and tactics are over analysed in the current day by people who think tactics and teamwork were invented only a few years ago. That football until then was just 22 people running around chasing a ball around a field, kicking each other and going for a loads of pints after.
If these people actually went back and watched a good selection of matches they'd realise just how good he was a setting his teams up to win. Never mind how good the football really was.
Klopp basically won the league using Jack Charlton's long ball and "put em under pressure" tactics. But he's regarded as a tactical genius. Whereas SAF won nearly every thing in the game over 35 years and somehow he's not...
Agreed.
People talk about how pragmatic Fergie was in his later days but United only scored once more league goals than his last two PL campaigns.
Not entirely clear what people are arguing about her. Fergie regularly shook up his back room team to improve, from Brian Kidd to McClaren to Queiroz. This was one of his greatest talents, to know his own limits and to bring in people to assist him. That plus building an incredible bond and team spirit. That was why he was invited to lecture at Harvard on management. I would compare with Mou who didnt adapt as football changed, and seemed overreliant on a long standing support team who merely reinforced his own limitations and failure to adapt. Plus he motivated on fear, unlike Fergie, and that only works for short periods, and even loss so with modern footballers.
Fergie was struggling in his later years, we got schooled by Barca and had no idea how to adapt. The final title winnign squad got over the line on sheer willpower from the great man, but the team he left was a mess. He also oversaw our academy get left well behind by City, Chelsea and others. Which highlights how a big club needs a football structure that brings continuity even when the manager changes regularly.
I assume the comment about Klopp is a joke? Imagine if Woodward had not messed up the interview with him, we would be drooling at the football he produces. utd DNA all the way, versus Ole's new 7 at the back strategy.
That wasn't by choice. Most of it was because his assistants left to become managers, so he had to bring in new assistants.
I'm not sure about that, the league was up for grabs the next 4 seasons.
Pellegrini, Mourinho, Ranieri, and Conte are the managers that won the league after him. Only Pellegrini had his team scoring more goals than United in Fergie's last two seasons.
Not true, some did. But also Fergie also looked for different attributes, Quieroz specifially came into help us compete in Europe. Fergie also left a lot of the coaching to his coaches, something Ole has done but with a far inferior team to support
SAF did it in his latter years when he was very old. Quieroz was assistant and then left for Madrid job, came back again as assistant. He was probably the only assistant who came in when existing assistant was still in position.
Quieroz played important role in 2008, no doubt about that but people somehow assumed that it was always assistants setting the tone.
I mean that’s absolute nonsense. To even begin to compare Mourinho to Fergie is just unbelievable. If you want to find a primary difference then look at their attitudes towards their opposition. Mourinho has always first and foremost been concerned with the weapons of the opposition and how he can nullify them best. Sir Alex was the opposite in that he looked at the weapons he had at his disposal first and decided how he could hurt his opponent. We didn’t always play brilliant football but we absolutely did always try and play positive front foot football, that centered around positivity and flair. I just don’t see how anyone can compare Mourinho and Alex Ferguson in good faith.
Who are these modern managers that play better football btw?
Tuchel = boring as feck
Pep = can be brilliant, can also be boring possession football for the sake.
Klopp = easily the closest style to Sir Alex and Utd teams of old, and likewise he’s built some incredibly entertaining teams but this current Liverpool side isn’t one of them any more. They currently play pretty crap football.
Good post.I made almost exactly the same points (not behind a paywall) on the thread about why Ferguson's 'disciples' don't make top managers.
As I said, it's not a criticism of SAF, it's purely a reflection on the fact that football is barely the same game now as it was in the 90s and early Noughties.
Jose Mourinho was able to come over to England and dominate for a period of time simply by sticking an extra man in midfield and forming that double-pivot/#10 triangle with the two hard-working wingers and the target-man CF. SAF (or Quieroz) countered this by regularly setting United up in a 4-5-1 with Rooney wide-left and Ronaldo wide-right, especially against top opposition.
Pep obviously took this idea of midfield domination further with his idea this his teams should ALWAYS have one more man in the centre of the field (remember that ridiculous Bayern vs Barcelona game when he played 7 in CM?). As we know, Pep took a great deal from the likes of LvG on possession-based, highly-structured football.
Then we had the German 'Gegenpressers', with their ridiculously high-lines and intense pressing, designed to stop the tika-taka sides with their slow, possession-based football before they could get out of their own halves. In doing so, winning the ball high-up the pitch in dangerous attacking areas.
I get, before anybody says it, that this is a massive over-simplification, and there was far more to the development of modern football tactics than these managers and these styles, however, I am meant to be at work, not posting on RedCafe and haven't the time nor the inclination for more detail...I'm talking broad trends and styles here.
Point is, some of the best managers in the world existed at a time when football was a much simpler game and football was more about man-management and getting your recruitment right. Sure, I am not saying hero's of mine like Brian Clough and SAF were completely oblivious to tactics and coaching, however, I highly, highly doubt that they sat watching hundreds of hours of handball footage to work out how to help their sides retain possession, or instructed their players to occupy specific positions on the field at specific times...down to feet and inches. Clough famously preached simplicity, saying it was only pundits who insisted on complicating the game. SAF is widely acknowledged anecdotely by the vast majority of former players and coaches to spend most of the morning in his office, whilst Kidd/McLaren/Quieroz took training.
Truth is, I don't think SAF or Clough really cared to much for excruciating detail, and in any case, it just wasn't necessary. Their biggest strengths were keeping it simple enough that all of their players knew exactly what was expected of them and getting them all pulling together in exactly the same direction, fighting tooth and nail for the cause. Of course, again, I am not claiming they had no tactical insights or ideas whatsoever, that would be stupid. Remember, this is in comparison with modern day football coaches, who treat their teams like chess pieces and drill them like Roman units
I don't see how anyone can suggest he wasn't anything less than a great tactician. Tactics is about much more than what you see on the pitch, it's about everything around how the team prepares from coaches to players, that all came from him, he put it all together how he wanted it. He was an excellent team builder, right throughout the club, from coaches to players, he knew when things needed to change in terms of players, coaching staff and styles - that all feeds into the team tactics. How many players did he jettison over the years that had others scratching their heads wondering why did he do that? How often did he rebuild his teams with new players to keep up with the changes in how the game was being played? I don't think the team he left was a mess, he left a good squad that just needed few top players added over the next few windows to stay at the top.
About the Barca thing - people like to point out stuff like that - the emergence of that Barca / Spain team and Messi after 2008 - was a once in a lifetime thing - that nucleus of players won pretty much everything for 4 years at club and international level - they left everybody behind. Probably one of the best clubs sides ever in the game and he still had Utd as the second best team in Europe behind them twice, all while being restrained financially in how he could operate in the transfer market.
City and Chelsea were bought by billionaires and they've put massive money into their academies - yet Utd's has still produced more first team players and more PL players than either since, so I am not sure how you can say he left the academy to fall behind. It's only the last couple of years that Chelsea has really gotten any results from all that money invested in the academy. City really only have 1 player so far.
And that was not a joke. It was pretty much the same tactics.
I don't think either him or Pep really wanted the Utd job. Taking over after such a long tenure is never easy, there's a lot of ingrained processes and thinking still lingering. I think they preferred a blank canvas to implement their own ideas.
This is an incredibly poor article
Ole is crap.
Because he's Scottish/British. No other manager with the kind of teams or success that Fergie has would be dismissed as a tactician. Klopp's style of play isn't too far off Fergies and in truth, I think he's a better in game manager than Klopp too. Yet both are treated differently when tactics are discussed, simply because one called his style a name and the other didn't. United had great passing teams, great attacking teams and even really strong defensive units throughout Fergie's time. The past 8 years or so has shown us how difficult it is to even build one team, I don't see how you build 3 or 4 great teams that played so differently without being one of the greatest tactical geniuses. It just seems to me that because the media didn't know how to praise the tactical side of things at the time, Fergie simply didn't get the credit he deserved.In general, you should not comment on an article you haven't read. However, going off the extracts I think Cox has put 2 and 2 together and got 5.
Is it true that Ole's coaching ability shines through most when he sets up to be compact and counter? Yes.
Is it true that a lot of Fergie's old players have not proven to be attacking coaches? Yes.
Is it true that Fergie never had an attacking style of play and got all his ideas from outside? No.
The quoted bits of the article make it seem like Cox is basically saying: Cos none of Fergie's players could do what Fergie did then the idea of Fergie's style is a myth. This seems a strange bar to set. That's like saying that Ronald Koeman's boring football is evidence that Cruyff's style never existed.
Fergie was very much a great coach with a pleasing style of football to watch. He introduced several tactical innovations and plans to the English game e.g. playing with no target man at Carrow Road in 1993. Developing specialised marking plans for Steve McManaman. Where he brought in coaches from outside it was to help him execute his own ideas e.g. Fergie had tried moving away from 442 in Europe before Quieroz was appointed, with Veron. Quieroz didn't give Fergie the idea. Fergie saw in Quieroz a partner that would help him realise his own vision for how to modernise his team.
Its like people listen to the likes of Van Persie and Rio talk about how Fergie directed the midfielders to look for Robin's runs and ignore it, because the media says Fergie didn't do any coaching in his later years.
Yeah, its a strange one. Fergie went up against some of the greatest coaches to ever be involved in football. He continually reinvented his team, at home and in Europe, to address developments and trends across decades.
Nobody else has done this. The only ones who come close are Pep and Mourinho. Even the greats, like a Sacchi or Lippi, tend to have a decade where they lead the pack, then get overtaken by events and never find a way back to the top of the top. Fergie got there and was able to adjust himself and his football enough to stay there for longer than a lot of people have been alive. In many ways it was a miracle.
Yet people now want to reduce him to being little more than a cheerleader. Is it the British factor? I dunno. Maybe from kids on the internet. However, a lot of these sports writers should know better. Maybe he ruined too many of their childhoods?
True, I remember in 2008 I think we were the fastest transitioning team in Europe but didn't play a low blow but rather a mid block if you wanna call it like that, winning the ball around the midfield line and then Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez were running the opposition ragged. Those fast transitions is something we have been missing for ages, it's not just what's wrong under Ole but has been as well in the later days of SAF.
I think there are massive differences between SAF and Klopp on and off the ball. Just because both teams like fast attacks does not make them similar. The way both teams create and attack chances are very different, with SAF being more direct and created mass chances, Klopp works the positions more, with more technical creative players.
Off the ball Klopps team closes down a lot more and are more structured when doing this, creating a more high risk high reward style. SAF was more pragmatic.
Do not forget Park. We had great instinct to be able to attack so quickly, how to create a chance fast.
Transition football
Honestly, to me, that wasn't even the best of it. The 1990s gave us some glorious stuff.
showing off cos of the...
WTF does this even mean?
I believe one is about teaching a subject, the other is about the methods of teaching.
Imagine sh1tting on Sir Alex in a bid to defend Ole. The mental gymnastics it must take. Why are these folks afraid to call things as they are? It truly is baffling.
No one has done that.
It would be nice if there were trophies for playing entertaining football and bringing youth players through as well but sadly there isn't.
Who has done either of those though?
We should get this up as a banner in the Stretford End. "Don't make a stupid defensive error!"
I don't necessarily agree with this, in my opinion the biggest reason for our lackluster performances at the end of his tenure were down to the personnel at the time in terms of both players and coaching staff. Like we are seeing now at this time with Phelan as number 2, with the lack of pressing, and lack of movement off the ball. The players as well were of a lower standard than what we had previously, for instance Valencia (good player) was a massive drop-off from Ronaldo/Giggs etc and very one dimensional which inhibits tactical flexibility. Like I said in my previous post, I have no doubt in my mind that Fergie would have adjusted to the new challenges posed in the league and most likely created the best united side yet. History shows that is the case. For instance, Arsene comes into the league in 1996, and we win the treble in a couple years. Jose comes in 2004, and by 2008 we had our best ever side. I think he would have relished the opportunity to beat this generation of Liverpool and City. I do agree that he was too old by the time he left as he was 72 when he retired, but I don't believe he wasn't at the races, to me it's more likely that he just didn't have to be.
His eye for a manager has gone down the drain as well. I think he’s senile to a degree and the younger version of him wouldn’t be recommending the likes of Ole. He’s getting sentimental.
This is a fair point.
We were actually the exact opposite of this last season: 2.4 points per game vs bottom half teams vs. a shocking 1.4 against the top half - dropped points at home against literally 7 out of 9 top half sides!
There were plenty of jammy performances against the poor teams that might explain why so many people seem to peddle this line (dropped points to every relegated side, dropped points to Palace home and away, edged past Burnley at home and needed late goals away, got outplayed both times by Brighton, beat Wolves with a 90th-minute deflection, etc. etc.) but that's more to do with our general problem of controlling games and playing well consistently, regardless of opposition.
I presume you know this is a Manchester United forum?
Yeah, but my comment was about Ole and what he has failed to do.
If he was playing attractive football and bringing through young players whilst doing so, there wouldn’t be a problem, would there?
So are you saying we were not playing attacking football while we were on our record breaking away run and that Greenwood was not a factor in that?
Ya, recent Jose has been extremely one-dimensional, but it wasn't always like that. He brought his diamond from Porto to Chelsea but soon switched to a 4-3-3 (which he kept throughout). At Inter he want back to a diamond, but in his next season found the 4-2-3-1 that got them past Chelsea, Barca, and Bayern.
He goes to Madrid and it's 4-2-3-1 every single game except a Clasico where he played an extra CM. Chelsea? 4-2-3-1. United? 4-2-3-1 with maybe 2 games where Herrera was an extra RB to track Hazard. Spurs? Didn't see much, but seemed like a 4-2-3-1.
I would say we were playing some form of madness-induced, disorganized, counter attacking football where we were so rarely in control of games, even from minute to minute.
I would also say that Greenwood would be coming through regardless of the manager. He is special and there is no one else in 3 years worth mentioning. He isn’t bringing through youth.