And why so? It's not like Pep has proved himself before in a team where he has had limited resources or challenges in attracting players that he wants, or getting rid of the players he doesn't want. The "Pep Guardiola is my idol" nickname doesn't come from nowhere.
Obviously poor, or only obvious in hindsight? I recalled David Moyes' and Mourinho's appointments were really the only ones that people go "really?" but most opinions were generally positive about LvG's appointment (after Moyes) and OGS after the results and the feel-good factor he brought back during his care-taking period.
This is the answer to why clubs keep changing manager, gambling on marginal improvement. Especially for club that falls behind in current big club status. You can't expect good players keep coming especially at reasonable wage, when the club is well known dysfunctional, declining performance and the manager is not popular within the existing squad. No team can change the whole squad in couple windows. So even if the plan to overhaul the existing players, changing manager even via stop gap managers maybe the way to go. They key is having a solid recruitment plan rather allowing incoming to dictate it like this, and being enslaved to the fear that changing manager would require a reset in recruitment policy.Actually, looking at Pep’s first 15 City signings, it’s a daft to imagine United couldn’t also have attracted similar players.
It wasn’t like Pep was getting in the likes of Haaland from day one.
Pep in fairness also bring his own “attraction” as lots of players are desperate to play for him due to his standing in the game.
This is the answer to why clubs keep changing manager, gambling on marginal improvement. Especially for club that falls behind in current big club status. You can't expect good players keep coming especially at reasonable wage, when the club is well known dysfunctional, declining performance and the manager is not popular within the existing squad. No team can change the whole squad in couple windows. So even if the plan to overhaul the existing players, changing manager even via stop gap managers maybe the way to go. They key is having a solid recruitment plan rather allowing incoming to dictate it like this, and being enslaved to the fear that changing manager would require a reset in recruitment policy.
Comparisons to Fergie’s early United years are also both hilarious and disrespectful to the great man, who was given nothing like the financial backing of LVG, Mourinho, Ole nor EtH.
My only issue with this take is that we are obviously talking about different eras, and as such the value of the transfer should not be an indicator of whether SAF was backed financially. In fact, if we look at what the general transfer value were at that time, one can indeed argue that SAF was given financial backing:
1. Mark Hughes' fee of£1.8 million back in 1988 was a club record fee.
2. Gary Pallister - his fee of £2.6 million broke the record for a fee paid for a defender, as well as being the highest fee between British clubs, and the second highest fee to be paid by a British club.
3. Lee Sharpe's fee of £200K broke records for the highest fee ever paid for a young player.
4. Paul Parker - I can't recall exactly, but if my memories were correct the fee paid for him (around £2.5 million?) back then was considered a club record fee received by QPR.
5. Roy Keane - his fee of £3.75 million paid to Nott Forest was a British record at that time.
6. Andy Cole - was it £7.5 million? Not sure if the fee includes valuation of Keith Gillespie who went over to Newcastle as part of exchange deal. Nonetheless it was also a transfer record at that time.
7. Jaap Stam - transfer record for a defender.
8. Dwight Yorke - transfer record
9. RvN - transfer record
10. Veron - transfer record
11. Rio - transfer record.
12. I'm not sure but I think Berbatov's transfer fee of £30 odd million broke the transfer record as well;.
Exactly. There aren't many, but there are some valid reasons to keep ETH for a while. But this ridiculous, lazy and embarrassing "we've tried sacking managers" logic is most definitely not one of them. And it's always the same shite that these ex players are spouting. Manager and after manager "he's the last person that should go". And then after we hit rock bottom, sack the manager, nobody ever talks about how it was a bad decision. Because it wasn't but they just couldn't admit they were wrong.It's so ridiculous and I never see anyone use that logic with players. We've tried signing strikers so why buy Hojlund when we should have just stuck with Hugill? Be patient though, give him at least 2 seasons and don't knee jerk saying he's not good enough until he's had time. Why are we supposed to play by different rules than the rest of the football world?
My only issue with this take is that we are obviously talking about different eras, and as such the value of the transfer should not be an indicator of whether SAF was backed financially. In fact, if we look at what the general transfer value were at that time, one can indeed argue that SAF was given financial backing:
1. Mark Hughes' fee of£1.8 million back in 1988 was a club record fee.
2. Gary Pallister - his fee of £2.6 million broke the record for a fee paid for a defender, as well as being the highest fee between British clubs, and the second highest fee to be paid by a British club.
3. Lee Sharpe's fee of £200K broke records for the highest fee ever paid for a young player.
4. Paul Parker - I can't recall exactly, but if my memories were correct the fee paid for him (around £2.5 million?) back then was considered a club record fee received by QPR.
5. Roy Keane - his fee of £3.75 million paid to Nott Forest was a British record at that time.
6. Andy Cole - was it £7.5 million? Not sure if the fee includes valuation of Keith Gillespie who went over to Newcastle as part of exchange deal. Nonetheless it was also a transfer record at that time.
7. Jaap Stam - transfer record for a defender.
8. Dwight Yorke - transfer record
9. RvN - transfer record
10. Veron - transfer record
11. Rio - transfer record.
12. I'm not sure but I think Berbatov's transfer fee of £30 odd million broke the transfer record as well;.
How are we supposed to realistically tell players aren't good enough if everything around them is rotten?How are we supposed to realistically tell if everything around him is rotten?
Personally I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt until the mess is cleared up. If then he proves to be a poor manager then fair enough.
He could play a different way. There is a way that, in a good year, gets you third, provided Rashford bags you 20 goals. We all know how people on here are quite happy with third, once in a while, so yeah he does have that option if Marcus will oblige.The thing is, if the players keep getting into wrong positions after a full season of playing and training, and if ETH keeps using these very same players who keep getting things wrong, it's more reflective of ETH's ability as a manager.
I mean, you’ve just admitted Moyes, Mourinho got people questioning and no, most were not positive about Ole at all, the wheels had already fallen off from his honeymoon period with a series of shit results and lots of fans thought it absolutely ridiculous to give him the full time gig.
There’s only been 2 managers of the 5 that the huge majority were positive towards, and they were our Dutchmen.
Newcastle beat Chelsea 4-1 with those players, held PSG 1-1 and beat us 1-0. Joelington and Almiron have even scored during this run. They've been run to the ground. You couldn't have picked a worse example. Newcastle do not have the same quality of depth that we have
I think Fergie was a couple of years in before he got to spend proper money wasn't he? Then there's his career pre United. No real money spent there I believe.
And obviously in terms of Europe, we spent nowhere near as much as the big clubs until the late 90's. 12/13 years into his tenure. Imagine that now.
For SAF’s first few years, we spent massively behind Everton, Liverpool & Spurs. That’s the point here, no point saying “well it took Fergie x amount of years” when he had nothing like the backing of Ole, LVG, Mourinho & ETH.
SAF was appointed manager in Nov 1986, and he signed Brian McClair (£1.2m Tribunal?) Steve Bruce (£1.5m) and Viv Anderson (£300K) during 87/88. £3m was no small money back then.
Purely thanks to SAF's ability as a manager to make the team a much great sum of it's parts. Imagine, victory over Wenger's Arsenal with Fabio, Rafael, Gibson and O'Shea in midfield. fecking Glazers lucked out on having Sir Alex at the helm.
SAF was appointed manager in Nov 1986, and he signed Brian McClair (£1.2m Tribunal?) Steve Bruce (£1.5m) and Viv Anderson (£300K) during 87/88. £3m was no small money back then.
To be honest I can't fully recall this - I do recall Liverpool signing Peter Beardsley and Ian Rush for quite a bit of money but overall transfer spending wise I'm not sure if they were really outspending us massively.
For Spurs, I can only recall Gazza's signing as one that was really big; I'm not sure about their overall spending. Whereas I'm totally in the dark about Everton.
No signings in his first season. That alone would be crazy now.
Two signings going into his second season for a combined total of 1.1million. Bruce arrived halfway through the second season for £800,000.
It's just nothing like what ETH, Ole, Mourinho, and LvG were given.
No DoF, a weight room that made Pure Gym look top class, a small coaching staff, the coach driver sat on the bench.
And again I want to emphasis that values of transfers should not be indicative of whether SAF was properly backed; we broke transfer records when it mattered.
You mean his first full season? I would consider 87/88 as his first full season. Yes transfer windows back then worked different, meaning to say SAF could have signed players when he first arrived in Nov 86, but I guess he wanted to suss out how much further he could get out of Bryan Robson, Whiteside and Paul McGrath before bringing in players.
And again I want to emphasis that values of transfers should not be indicative of whether SAF was properly backed; we broke transfer records when it mattered. Back then we were also not the financial giant that we are today; meaning to say not only were we operating under realistic financial constraints but also just by having "Manchester United" in the mix doesn't automatically increase the asking price like it does today. I mean, asking 50 million quid for Sean Longstaff is fecking madness.
We didn’t though in SAF’s early years, that’s the point, and it did matter then, we almost lost out on our greatest manager and era of success because we didn’t fully back him until the Summer of 1989. (Almost 3 years into his reign).
You said that whenever Newcastle have to rely on the likes of Joelinton, Longstaff and Almiron they are a poor side. Each of those players are fixtures in their team with one being an ever present. They qualified for the CL last year, were drawn into the most difficult conceivable group and have given a good account of themselves.Us and Chelsea are genuinely shit though?
I'm also not sure one week of games against "big", sides disproves the notion that they're a bunch of game-raisers either, especially as they got absolutely twatted by Bournemouth, Everton and Spurs either side of that run.
However, I do not want to come across looking like a staunch defender of ETH because I'm not.
2 massive games ahead. If we lose both we will need to seriously consider letting him go.
That's how it comes across when using Pep in this hypothetical instance of managing United. Erik is essentially one window away from having an outlay of potentially 600 million more than any manager post SAF (if he survives this season) and look at the state of the team approaching this period progress has been mute to say the least. This is a manager who has been battered and tactically undermined on multiple occasions, on the verge of not even making the group stages in the UCL.
You give Pep 400-600 million you can almost guarantee that his team will be challenging on every front. Pep will get more out of average players because he's an inspirational manager, Erik is not, he's routinely falling out with players and clearly lacks charisma.
Guardiola is the best manager in football for the last 15 years or so and his philosophy has changed the modern game due to his vision. It's like comparing Bojan and Messi. Eth like Bojan has showed promise but it's relative to the sample size we are given being small as he's only managed in Netherlands. Eth has just as much to prove as Mount, Onana, Hojlund or Antony. If he's failed to deliver in the promise he's displayed he has no one to blame but himself.
The problem with United has never been the hierarchy ostracizing a manager from resources or accessibility, it's been the continuous theme of overindulgence. Overindulging what the manager wants from staff to recruitment to philosophy with no deliberation from a director of football and the managers have failed to balance those responsibilities.
Exactly this. Its utter lunacy. And yet people still claim he is some tactical genius or worth sticking with. We have been wide open since the first game vs Wolves, we made them look like peak Barca. And we cant even scoreIf ETH carries on with his current formation of 1 DM and 2 AM it shows he is not learning anything, the whole world can see it doesnt work but yet he persists with it in the vain hope we somehow scrape wins here and there. Most well organised teams find us a doddle to play against, we lack intensity, organisation, leadership, team play, basically everything needed to be a good team, and it is purely down to the manager.
1. He had a very good track record with Ajax. Emphasis on the very - roughly 75% win rate, his team scoring around 2.5 goals per game whilst conceding less than 1. Yes it's the Eredivisie, but he is also the first manager to get Ajax to UCL semi-finals since LvG did it back in 96/96 season. And it was not like his Ajax team lucked out by getting weaker oppositions; his Ajax faced off the likes of Real Madrid, Liverpool and Juventus and still his team managed to get 10 wins, 5 draws and 1 loss away.
2. There were times last year, especially post WC, where things look like they are coming together. Despite the debacle by Liverpool.
3.We have had so many managers over the last decade, from Moyes to "master tactician" LvG, to "serial winner" Mourinho, to "feel good old-boy" OGS, and now ETH, and it's the same. The problems seems systemic; we are unable to shift on players whom we no longer want, and we have problem getting in players that fit the vision of the manager.
In short, we've tried changing managers but outcomes seems to be always the same; at some point in time you have to conclude the problem is systemic and changing manager yet once again will lead us nowhere.
To put it blankly, even if we somehow manage to convince Guardiola to take the reins, there's no way he can succeed with the same disastrous structure in place.
I'm not quite sure how you can claim this about Pep with such certainty. He's excelled at a Barcelona filled with a golden generation of players, a Bayern Munich side almost entirely unopposed in Germany, and a Manchester City capable of replacing half the squad at a moment's notice, with a football structure implemented to prepare for his arrival, and that is currently facing 115 charges for cheating.
You even acknowledge the massive structural failings at United. Do you actually think Pep is capable of working through that? Even the money spent thing ignores the fact that we've simultaneously been reliant on loans and free transfers to try and plug gaps in the squad.
Even if we accept that he could, what other managers are at his level? More pertinently, why would any of them actually want to come to a club such obvious disarray?
Half of his super teams wouldn't look as super if he wasn't their coach.
2 massive games ahead. If we lose both we will need to seriously consider letting him go.
We will lose both and he would still be here. Quote me when I am wrong.Unless a literal miracle happens, I think he's gone on Monday 18th morning.
Unless a literal miracle happens, I think he's gone on Monday 18th morning.
Barcelona have won La Liga 6 times, and another Champions League (which was part of another treble) since he left.
Bayern Munich have won every league title since he left, and won the Champions League, which is something he couldn't actually manage there.
Barcelona had won La Liga twice and the Champions League (as part of a league/CL double) in the four years prior to him becoming manager.
Bayern Munich had won a league/CL double literally the season before he took over.
Guardiola has been a transformative manager in terms of the tactical developments we've seen, and even in the profile of player utilised by pretty much every half-decent side in Europe, but let's not pretend he turned shite into gold.
Guardiola has been a transformative manager in terms of the tactical developments we've seen, and even in the profile of player utilised by pretty much every half-decent side in Europe, but let's not pretend he turned shite into gold.
