Liverpool have won 1 Premier League title. Just because they got it right once with Klopp, it doesn't make their record with hiring and firing in any way, shape or form decent.
Forget about 'strategic patience' at United, should we just adopt the Chelsea model?
- Thread starter fastwalker
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Sorry to add to the negativity, but the reality is that our board/owners are not winners, and never will be. We can’t be compared to Chelsea, Roman wants to win trophies and dominate, if Chelsea aren’t winning trophies he sacks the managers and hire new ones and the cycle continues. We on the other hand are more comparable to Arsenal because we are happy with a top four finish to generate more money and that’s it. It’s very obvious at this point, and this season proves that beyond a doubt.
Roman and about 90% of other football clubs aim to win trophies, and dominate matches/play nice football. Our owners/board on the other hand are only interested in making money, I mean how can we ever be winners if we stuck with Ole until now. Didn’t go for Conte because apparently the board are scared he would clash with them, don’t want to go for Ralf for supposedly the same reason, and he would want control. How many managers with winners mentality out there that 1, would be okay with just saying yes to everything, 2, would be okay with allowing a joke of a board to control almost everything.. We’re always going to end up with average managers that would only get us top four and maybe a small trophy here and there and the owners will be happy.
We are in a weird situation, our club can generate a lot of money (for the time being) without actually having to win much, and this is an absolute dream for the owners, since they’re very incompetent but they still make money.
Unless the glazers leave, or change their ways, then we are finished as a top club.
Roman and about 90% of other football clubs aim to win trophies, and dominate matches/play nice football. Our owners/board on the other hand are only interested in making money, I mean how can we ever be winners if we stuck with Ole until now. Didn’t go for Conte because apparently the board are scared he would clash with them, don’t want to go for Ralf for supposedly the same reason, and he would want control. How many managers with winners mentality out there that 1, would be okay with just saying yes to everything, 2, would be okay with allowing a joke of a board to control almost everything.. We’re always going to end up with average managers that would only get us top four and maybe a small trophy here and there and the owners will be happy.
We are in a weird situation, our club can generate a lot of money (for the time being) without actually having to win much, and this is an absolute dream for the owners, since they’re very incompetent but they still make money.
Unless the glazers leave, or change their ways, then we are finished as a top club.
Completely agree: how many managers have Madrid, Bayern and Liverpool had in the last 10 years?
If the board/owners do not care to win then they wouldn't give Ole 415m to spend. We're one of the biggest spenders in football. The club want success, they crave for it and they hate bad publicity as its not good for the business.
In my opinion United's major trouble is that the owners don't understand football and are trapped between two major forces they feel they depend upon. On one side there's what I call the University of Bristol mob. I am referring to the likes of Woodward, Judge and Arnold. Woodward made the Glazer's dream of buying United a reality. He turned things around financially so from that aspect the owners respect/depend on him.
In recent years they learnt that Woodward is clueless football wise which is why SAF seem to have made a comeback in United inner circles. That's a common trait with the Glazers ie when they are in doubt they tend to rely on what brought them success. In financial terms it was Woodward, in terms of trophies it was SAF. Unfortunately while the old fox was an exceptional manager he had never managed a club before. Its one thing managing 30 players and its another managing the football aspects of a giant like Manchester United. SAF is also nearing his 80s, he's become sentimental, football had moved on since his time and tbh he had never had a good eye for managers. In fact he pushed Moyes for the job and he had previously endorsed the likes of O'Neill, Queroz and O'Leary as well.
What United need is a proven winner at CEO level whose got the balls, the experience and the success to look straight into these two camps eyes and tell them to feck off if need be. Someone who can shield the owners from the areas they have no idea about. In my opinion that man is Beppe Marotta. The guy had made his way up through the ranks. He had built Juventus into a successful juggernaut and then he dismantled it in record time when he moved with Inter making them successful.
Chelsea took a very modern approach to 'football operations' comparatively early. Remember the days when it was inconceivable that a manager would not have full and final say on which players a club should sign, for example? I certainly remember in the early noughties, clubs were ridiculed for believing that any individual bar 'the manager' could select players and set the strategic 'footballing' direction of the club. Chelsea famously went down the 'DoF' route very early. For that reason, they are less reliant on a 'manager' to ensure a consistent approach to recruitment, tactics etc...
United have a famously backwards approach to 'footballing operations', largely because one man (arguably two if you include David Gill) were solely responsible for strategic direction, recruitment, playing style etc...and both retired at a similar time. We then started to hear stories coming out of the club when Woodward/Moyes took over, about how shoddy our recruitment strategy was, how poor our network of connections was, how little structure there was behind the scenes to support new managers.
It's inevitable that because we were so successful for so long, we got into bad habits. We didn't need to evolve or focus on marginal gains to keep winning, until SAF/Gill left - which coincided with City really getting their house in-order with Txiki Begiristain and Pep (something they had been laying the foundations for since the takeover in 2008). Nowadays, the bar has been raised. If THIS City team, with their footballing structure and their spending power had existed in the 90s/00s (difficult to say 'what if' I know), would we have been forced to evolve and develop much sooner, regardless of whether SAF was in the dugout...I personally believe we would.
So my point is, no matter how bad things have got or will get under Ole, I still think this three years have been invaluable to buy the club some breathing space. There are so many posters on here who scoff at ideas like establishing solid foundations, putting together a modern footballing structure to support the 'head coach', changing the 'corporate culture'...all ideas which have been commonly and widely accepted as being fundamental in big businesses for decades now. They don't see that Pep, Klopp and Tuchel are just one piece of the jigsaw at City, Liverpool and Chelsea. The teams and structures supporting them are critical.
Conclusion - the 'Chelsea model' of changing managers regularly wouldn't have worked for us, and if anything would have only contributed to further chaos. I am certain we won't be a force on the field again, under ANY manager, until we can prove we have the 'footballing foundations' in-place to support the 'head coach'. In addition, if the head coach proves not to be a success, we SHOULD be able to move on very quickly, safe in the knowledge the strategic plan/direction is catered for regardless of who is in the dugout. Truthfully, I don't think we're there yet...but at least whoever inevitably takes over from Ole will have a good squad and a semblance of a footballing operation (Fletcher, Murtough etc...) above them.
It's not a very modern approach, at best you could call it the ancestral continental approach.
Of course not! I don't think any club hires the wrong manager on purpose.
But the same goes with player acquisitions and we judge clubs on this all the time. I don't see why we can't hold clubs accountable when it comes to managerial hires. If you have a string of bad hires, well on you for getting rid quickly, but then what are the odds you'll get the next one right? I guess if you fire enough you'll land on the right one, but again it's not cost free, so questions need to be asked about the next level above.
A GM in North American sports can be forgiven 1 bad coach hire. After 2-3, his job is on the line.
So let's be clear, different clubs have different metrics by which they gauge a manager's performance. Regardless of Klopp's prior history, his performance last season with Liverpool probably would have got him sacked at Chelsea (prior evidence with Ancelotti). Were Liverpool right to keep him?
Regardless of whether a manager is for the long term or short term, there are certain conditions that have to be met at every step of the way, otherwise the manager risks forfeiting their position. Having a long term approach does not excuse short term incompetence.
I guess what I'm pushing back against is the emphasis on the firing part. It'll work eventually if you luck on the right manager, but it doesn't sound like a gold standard.
Yes. Its a better model than what we currently have, which is a drive for our current managers to stay over a drive for success.
Should we find a great manager who wins the league and champions league, but then has a poor spell for a season then maybe I'd be at odds with a pragmatic approach. But we're nowhere near that right now. Right now we're wasting money like crazy without success, so if we're going to continue wasting money we might as well have the success its supposed to have been spent on
Should we find a great manager who wins the league and champions league, but then has a poor spell for a season then maybe I'd be at odds with a pragmatic approach. But we're nowhere near that right now. Right now we're wasting money like crazy without success, so if we're going to continue wasting money we might as well have the success its supposed to have been spent on
Chelsea were the first major force in the PL to adopt this model. Wenger ran Arsenal, SAF ran United. Liverpool bounced about all over the place because they lacked a superstar manager and/or any proper structure behind the scenes.
City under Mansour clearly put in-place a long-term plan to get the footballing operations in-order before they even thought about approaching Pep. By the time Pep took over, much of the groundwork had been done.
But we are not really talking about bad hires here, otherwise you would be correct. We are talking about hires that only perform during short cycles, if you take Chelsea hires since 2013, two led to a league title, two to continental titles and one did his job to rebuild the team up until his own limits.
And one of the differences with American sports is that there is a smaller amount of professional franchises while the pool of coaches is larger mainly due to the NCAA being a way to test coaches and head coaches, and as you know there is a high turnover rate in the NCAA when it comes to head coaches and assistant coaches. There is also a surplus of coaches due to the smaller amount of teams.
I agree with a lot of what you said, no doubt they have spent a lot, and no doubt we should be better than where we are now. I think it’s a combination of both, and honestly few other factors, but to me, they still don’t care enough, since they’re making money, if they did care, why would they stick with Ed, they can easily move him to commercial side of the business and get a real DF, it doesn’t take a genius to see that Ed is not good when it comes to football matters, if they cared enough, why hasn’t Joel approved Ole sacking and if reports to be believed it’s on him and he’s okay with mediocrity, why did they hang on to all the under preforming managers and even players and not cut ties earlier, why reward players with better contracts when a lot of them should be sold/moved on?
I think they care enough about their public image and making money more than anything else, otherwise, things wouldn’t get to this point for a club like us, we haven’t won the premier league in almost a decade, if they cared enough, they would’ve shuffled things around after few years of no premier league trophy, and until now they still seem to not want to do that.
I agree they have spent, but they are very incompetent (which is crazy how they don’t see the obvious), and I feel like they just don’t care enough because the money keeps rolling.
To me, their focus on making money first then football second (which is obvious), and clubs like Chelsea, Real, Bayern, etc want trophies and domination first then money.
With all that being said, it’s truly baffling how they don’t want to appoint a competent DF/CEO and have them control everything, I don’t understand why they want so much control over the club and actually wasting a lot of money when they can make more money by just getting
Which doesn't make it a modern approach, you may say that it wasn't a british approach but that model is very old and the dominant model in Football. The increase in foreign executives and owners is probably why the british model is decreasing and it also suits foreign head coaches who aren't used to the british model.
The problem with that theory is that it doesn't match with the reality of Football or the way the club has operated, as Devilish said the club spent a lot and it's clearly because the goal is to win. Now why would the goal be to win? Because that's actually where the money is in Football. The most obvious way to make money as an owner is to increase revenues and the easiest ways are by either purchasing players for little money and selling them with massive profit or win games, trophies, rack up humongous prize money and CL broadcast revenue. We are clearly not selling players for profit, so if the Glazers are focused on making money, they are trying and failing badly at the later which isn't exactly comforting.
Whatever those assessment criteria are, they have to be lower for long term managers than short term ones during the early years, otherwise there's no functional difference between the two managerial types, you're demanding short term success in both cases.
The problem with that theory is that it doesn't match with the reality of Football or the way the club has operated, as Devilish said the club spent a lot and it's clearly because the goal is to win. Now why would the goal be to win? Because that's actually where the money is in Football. The most obvious way to make money as an owner is to increase revenues and the easiest ways are by either purchasing players for little money and selling them with massive profit or win games, trophies, rack up humongous prize money and CL broadcast revenue. We are clearly not selling players for profit, so if the Glazers are focused on making money, they are trying and failing badly at the later which isn't exactly comforting.
isn’t that obvious though? It’s been almost a decade since we won the premier league last, we’re going on four years without a trophy. Also how can we explain them waiting for us top not be able to get top four to sack Moyes, LVG, and it seems like it’s heading the same direction with Ole, pissing away seasons. Also them giving Jones a new contract, same with Bailey just for him to barely play, same with Mata, giving Ole, and Mourinho new contracts, etc.
If we as fans with no structure and no financial advisors with very minimal insight can see how wrong these decisions are, and are being proved to be corrected, how can they not see the obvious? What’s the explanation? How can City, and Chelsea win so many trophies and we’re here stagnating and going backwards?
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In the case of Moyes it was the smart move because they had the stupidity of giving him a 6 years contract and then had to wait for clauses to be triggered and allow a cheaper separation. For LVG it's totally different, his first season was good, the start of the second season was excellent and the club hit a very rough patch after a bunch of injuries, iirc our worst position was 6th and we were never far from our top 4 goal, keep in mind that we had a very young team. LVG being sacked at the end of the season was probably the right move and the deserved one.
The reason of our issues is that losing SAF meant more for us than losing a head coach for most teams, SAF was our football side, he was the brain of the operation and when he left we lost everything. It's comparable to Arsenal and Wenger, it's a great system when you have your man but it's an awful system when he leaves because you lose almost everything in an instant and that's why no top club operates that way, you won't find anyone on the continent that does it.
Nothing wrong with changing the manager when the results are not good enough. Atkinson and Sexton were in the job 5 and 4 years respectively, and apart from SAF our managers tend not to last more than 3 years anyhow.
| Ole Gunnar Solskjaer | 19 Dec, 2018 | Present |
| Jose Mourinho | 27 May, 2016 | 18 Dec, 2018 |
| Louis van Gaal | 19 May, 2014 | 23 May, 2016 |
| Ryan Giggs | 22 Apr, 2014 | 19 May, 2014 |
| David Moyes | 19 May, 2013 | 22 Apr, 2014 |
| Alex Ferguson | 06 Nov, 1986 | 19 May, 2013 |
| Ron Atkinson | 01 Jun, 1981 | 06 Nov, 1986 |
| Dave Sexton | 14 Jul, 1977 | 01 Apr, 1981 |
| Tommy Docherty | 22 Dec, 1972 | 03 Jul, 1977 |
| Frank O'Farrell | 08 Jun, 1971 | 19 Dec, 1972 |
| Matt Busby | 28 Dec, 1970 | 02 Jun, 1971 |
| Wilf McGuinness | 10 Aug, 1970 | 28 Dec, 1970 |
Not lower, just using a different definition. For example what I would have considered reasonable when Ole got his permanent contract would have been something like: You got 66 points, to win a title we might need 95 points. Increase the performance by about 10 points per season!
First 74 points season would have been ok (not good, just ok), second season would have been a reason to fire Ole as he did not achieve the required progress.
It is the ‘not stupid club’ model, not Chelsea’s model.
Yes, we should stop being stupid.
Yes, we should stop being stupid.
The question is, what constitutes a reasonable period of time for a manager to achieve success?
An interview question for sure
An interview question for sure
Is there no middle ground between backing an ex Cardiff relegation manager with 400 million for years and sacking managers every six months ?
The Chelsea model is purely just through Roman Abrahamovic.
The guy views that club as his football club - not his money maker, not his second or third sport - it's his football club.
The money goes to it, the interest and attention goes to it. If it doesn't work then he gets pissed off just as much as the DOF, board or the fans does - he hardly 'thinks' about sacking a manager because once it's entered his head - he is already there talking to the next manager with the rest of the board.
I've always been personally jealous that we got the Glazers - who always feel like their sun bathing in America, whilst we struggle and we didn't get someone like Abrahamovic who at Chelsea's worst - is looking grim down both at the players and the manager.
Fantastic owner in my eyes.
The guy views that club as his football club - not his money maker, not his second or third sport - it's his football club.
The money goes to it, the interest and attention goes to it. If it doesn't work then he gets pissed off just as much as the DOF, board or the fans does - he hardly 'thinks' about sacking a manager because once it's entered his head - he is already there talking to the next manager with the rest of the board.
I've always been personally jealous that we got the Glazers - who always feel like their sun bathing in America, whilst we struggle and we didn't get someone like Abrahamovic who at Chelsea's worst - is looking grim down both at the players and the manager.
Fantastic owner in my eyes.
Boom. This. Bayern are quick to swap managers and they play insanely good football & have higher standards than just about anyone in the game.
In fact let’s be real here. It’s just about every big club other than United at this point.
Van Gaal’s dismissal was pretty distasteful so maybe the owners don’t want that. It wasn’t a good look for the club PR wise. They just handled it wrong like most things.
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I suggest we don't walk away from this one fast.
Including Sagnol in that list is a bit stupid, as he was in charge just for a week and two games. But doesn't change the overall picture much.
That's also true for Chelsea with Steve Holland and Ray Wilkins who were interim managers for a combined total of 6 days.
That's true
To be honest, I don't even count interim managers who were around for half a season. They're kind of meaningless in a discussion about hiring and firing.
That's true
To be honest, I don't even count interim managers who were around for half a season. They're kind of meaningless in a discussion about hiring and firing.
That's fair since they are placeholders more than anything else. But either way even if you count interim managers, Chelsea aren't special.
I don't think they are meaningless when discussing how clubs hire and fire new managers. Trusting an interim manager means you are not forced to sign the permanent replacement immediately, which gives you more options.That's true
To be honest, I don't even count interim managers who were around for half a season. They're kind of meaningless in a discussion about hiring and firing.