Graham Potter | turns down Ajax job

spiriticon said:
He did a good job at Brighton yes, but so did Erik at Ajax. I see them as a similar type of manager. Potter struggled with Chelsea as their new owner had no clue what direction to take the club in, over here the shitshow is equally bad. There's nothing about Potter that suggests he can be the band-aid.

If we want to change for the sake of change for 6 months, there are surely other managers with a better profile of handling difficult big clubs. I'd love it to be Zidane, but he will never come to England. I think Conte is worth a punt too, I think he'll sort the defence out at the very least even if not much else.

At the end of the day though, I think keeping ETH till the end of the season is the best choice but we have to start considering his replacement now.
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Forget what Potter has done previously, he's a decent coach of PL quality who knows the league and can get a team playing decent football. These are the things we need right now, there should be no long term thinking if you're appointing Potter as your manager unless you're a mid-table club. Sometimes just not being the bloke that caused all the issues is the only salve you need to increase morale and performances. The promise of change.

He can stay longer if he earns it, managerial posts should be evaluated every 6 months or so. No one 'deserves time' if they're making massive mistakes week in, week out. If we're going to salvage the season we need to appoint someone who knows the league and can hit the ground running. Bringing in a foreign manager with no idea of the scheduling, intensity, athleticism needed in the PL will result in 6 to 12 months of adaption phase which will mean they'll be out before they ever get going.

Ten Hag has to go, that's the bottom line. Get him out, get a relatively respected body in and start planning from there.
 
crossy1686 said:
Forget what Potter has done previously, he's a decent coach of PL quality who knows the league and can get a team playing decent football. These are the things we need right now, there should be no long term thinking if you're appointing Potter as your manager unless you're a mid-table club. Sometimes just not being the bloke that caused all the issues is the only salve you need to increase morale and performances. The promise of change.

He can stay longer if he earns it, managerial posts should be evaluated every 6 months or so. No one 'deserves time' if they're making massive mistakes week in, week out. If we're going to salvage the season we need to appoint someone who knows the league and can hit the ground running. Bringing in a foreign manager with no idea of the scheduling, intensity, athleticism needed in the PL will result in 6 to 12 months of adaption phase which will mean they'll be out before they ever get going.

Ten Hag has to go, that's the bottom line. Get him out, get a relatively respected body in and start planning from there.
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Potter flopped so hard at Chelsea. He shouldnt be in the conversation.
 
There is zero difference between the glazers banking mates screwing the club by just hiring the wrong people and brailsford, the drug lord of Chigwell, doing the same with his own mates.

Ten Hag might have worked, no one knew. Potter failed when given the money and pressures of a big club., We know exactly how it will end with him. We've seen it happen.
 
Nogbadthebad said:
There is zero difference between the glazers banking mates screwing the club by just hiring the wrong people and brailsford, the drug lord of Chigwell, doing the same with his own mates.

Ten Hag might have worked, no one knew. Potter failed when given the money and pressures of a big club., We know exactly how it will end with him. We've seen it happen.
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Potter was flooded with unwanted players to be fair. I don't see it being similar at all, I think he'd have had a better chance if they didn't keep randomly dropping players he didn't want on him.
 
TrustInJanuzaj said:
I just don’t see the point when Ten Hag is a superior manager to potter. Why not just try and fix the structure around ten hag? Get the sale through, drive some positivity and let him try and coach the team for 6months with 1 game a week and no distractions. If he can’t manage to improve performances by the summer than evaluate again.
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Because Erik is failing his responsibilities. It's not like a new structure is all of a sudden going to improve the coaching, nothing will change whatever the team is doing in training, it's failed to show any signs of improvements in 18 months adding further time to that doesn't rectify anything.

New structure won't fix the midfield being open, it won't create clear cut chances for Hojlund, it won't stop leaving open acres of space when the defence is in transition. There are some things that rely solely on the manager.
 
Devil81 said:
Potter was flooded with unwanted players to be fair. I don't see it being similar at all, I think he'd have had a better chance if they didn't keep randomly dropping players he didn't want on him.
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We have an entire squad of unwanted players. No matter what happens, it will be at least 4 transfer windows to get to a place where the squad is what a manager wants.
 
crossy1686 said:
He doesn't have to, he just has to make it slightly less of a shit show for a while.
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Then what’s the point?

We need to stop thinking in the short term. We’re a broken football club from top to bottom. There’s every chance Ten Hag can get this right, he just needs to be given a chance on the pitch and a chance with the right people running the club.
 
ShinjiNinja26 said:
It’s another poor appointment imo. Taking a punt on a manager that failed the last time he made the step up to a bigger club. Jobs for the boys vibes, hiring him cause he’s pals with Ratcliffe/Brailsford. I could easily see us being in the exact same position of needing to replace him 18 months down the line after he’s spent £300m. The same old vicious cycle of the last 10 years repeating itself again.
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That’s very surface level though isn’t it. Realistically the Chelsea move wasn’t for him he needed a Spurs before that. But with failure comes experience, he didn’t do a bad job he was just under bad ownership.

What Ineos are looking to do is improve how the club is run and last time I checked idiots like Woodward and Boehly won’t be here.

There’s always room for skepticism but he’s out coached ETH twice already and I haven’t seen anything under ETH for United that would suggest he is better than Potter.
 
Trigg said:
Then what’s the point?

We need to stop thinking in the short term. We’re a broken football club from top to bottom. There’s every chance Ten Hag can get this right, he just needs to be given a chance on the pitch and a chance with the right people running the club.
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I would absolutely keep ETH than hire Potter.
 
crossy1686 said:
Forget what Potter has done previously, he's a decent coach of PL quality who knows the league and can get a team playing decent football. These are the things we need right now, there should be no long term thinking if you're appointing Potter as your manager unless you're a mid-table club. Sometimes just not being the bloke that caused all the issues is the only salve you need to increase morale and performances. The promise of change.

He can stay longer if he earns it, managerial posts should be evaluated every 6 months or so. No one 'deserves time' if they're making massive mistakes week in, week out. If we're going to salvage the season we need to appoint someone who knows the league and can hit the ground running. Bringing in a foreign manager with no idea of the scheduling, intensity, athleticism needed in the PL will result in 6 to 12 months of adaption phase which will mean they'll be out before they ever get going.

Ten Hag has to go, that's the bottom line. Get him out, get a relatively respected body in and start planning from there.
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If Potter is actually hired for the sake of being a different name, then so be it. While I don't think it will be a success, some things may just surprise me.

I just hope whatever money we have to pay both of them won't affect our transfer budget next year.
 
Trigg said:
Then what’s the point?

We need to stop thinking in the short term. We’re a broken football club from top to bottom. There’s every chance Ten Hag can get this right, he just needs to be given a chance on the pitch and a chance with the right people running the club.
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No, we need to stop thinking that every manager we bring in is Fergie and is required to carry the entire football club for the next 25 years.

People are crying out for this DOF model, they're even making excuses for the current manager because apparently he should never have been trusted to spend money. What people don't realise is that with a DOF model a manager is highly expendable. He comes in, he coaches, if the team don't improve, he's fired. No noise around the board, the training ground, the stadium roof, his signings etc. Just coaching and how the squad are playing.

So when INEOS come in and they hire Potter, it will be a good move until it isn't any more. Then you fire him and hire someone else.

This is normal at every single big club in the whole world.
 
spiriticon said:
If Potter is actually hired for the sake of being a different name, then so be it. While I don't think it will be a success, some things may just surprise me.

I just hope whatever money we have to pay both of them won't affect our transfer budget next year.
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I don't think he'll do anything remarkable but change is needed.

Well Ten Hag has cost us £28m already by getting knocked out of the group stage of the CL so he's the gift that keeps on giving really.
 
crossy1686 said:
I don't think he'll do anything remarkable but change is needed.

Well Ten Hag has cost us £28m already by getting knocked out of the group stage of the CL so he's the gift that keeps on giving really.
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We do nothing but fecking change. It’s another manager that the players will have downed tools for but hey, it’ll be different next time..we’ll really back the manager over the players then
Pinky promise
 
I wouldn't be against getting Potter in as ETH has gone down a very wrong path and probably won't back out.

It's quite a gamble though on Potter, you could argue either way that he could get the team to function better or simply not and fail to win the players over.

Goals have been a problem for both but we're really looking dead under ETH. United are on course for 40 odd goals scored and conceded, Potter at Brighton had the same record. De Zerbi has really elevated the team to score 60-70 goals and conceded less. Obviously there's many factors.

ETH has a knack of hanging higher in the league with very few goals, if we look at last season and particularly this season we're against the grain. With Potter we could well score and concede around the same but be further down.
 
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We probably need a change of manager if ETH don't get the act around soon but no Potters please. If Chelsea is too big for him, how can he even succeed at a bigger club.
 
cyberman said:
We do nothing but fecking change. It’s another manager that the players will have downed tools for but hey, it’ll be different next time..we’ll really back the manager over the players then
Pinky promise
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I'll never really understand the mindset of not changing something that's broken because the next thing you change for might break also. Just have some fortitude.
 
I personally think Potter's a good coach and that Poch's failures have vindicated him somewhat by showing the sheer difficulty of the task at Chelsea. But with that said there might be a cautionary tail there somewhere.

The task at United is not too dissimilar to the one at Chelsea. An underperforming club with a history of success which puts a lot of pressure and expectations on the coach, some huge transfer expenditure but still a lot of mediocre players in the squad, probably a bunch of strong personalities in the dressing room which the manager will need to win over/motivate etc. If he failed at Chelsea that doesn't make him a bad coach at all, but it might make him a coach not suitable for this particular task.

After seeing ETH stand meekly on the touchline and same with Rangnick before him, I think a more fiery coach might be needed to motivate and instil some confidence in the players. Which is why I'm leaning more towards De Zerbi as a better candidate. I know that Mediterranean fiery temperament is a double edged sword, but it's also worth remembering that Mourinho (another combustible character), for all his short-comings and career trajectory when he took over, he was still the one who managed to get the most out of this club in the 10 years post Fergie. And that Pep and Klopp, who are both very loud, opinionated and animated characters are doing very fine. Obviously I'm not trying to insinuate at all that:
loud, animated coach = good coach

I'm simply saying that it seems more of an advantage than a handicap, especially when dealing with star players. And aside from that particular character attribute, De Zerbi has also shown very good signs of being a progressive, front-foot football playing coach. So he would get my vote.
 
crossy1686 said:
I'll never really understand the mindset of not changing something that's broken because the next thing you change for might break also. Just have some fortitude.
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Fortitude? We keep using the same playbook over and over again while constantly getting the same shit results. We shit ourselves at any hint that this manager may not be the one when he’s in the middle of restructuring our squad so we can watch Lindelof and Maguire protected by McTominay in the big matches in 12 months time.
Pretty soon these cnuting players will be receiving testimonials at OT despite constantly underperforming for a good 4-5 managers now.
The next manager is never different. Not with these players who we can’t move.
 
crossy1686 said:
Okay? But how about we just appoint him and get rid of Ten Hag and see what happens? Why does it matter that he flopped? Most managers have been sacked at some point?
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Sure why not get Ole back while we are at it.
 
crossy1686 said:
It makes sense. Bring him in as the manager ASAP, give him the season to feck around, wait until a very good manager comes available, sack Potter and say results and performances didn't improve, that's if he can't do anything with this team and the players that come in under INEOS.

That's literally no different from hiring an 'interim' just without the title. People need to stop marrying every manager we appoint and seeing them as the last great hope for the football club.
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You must think sacking managers isn't expensive.
 
cyberman said:
Fortitude? We keep using the same playbook over and over again while constantly getting the same shit results. We shit ourselves at any hint that this manager may not be the one when he’s in the middle of restructuring our squad so we can watch Lindelof and Maguire protected by McTominay in the big matches in 12 months time.
Pretty soon these cnuting players will be receiving testimonials at OT despite constantly underperforming for a good 4-5 managers now.
The next manager is never different. Not with these players who we can’t move.
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Well 'these cnuting players' have won trophies and appeared in finals, and did so as recently as 6 months ago. We need improvements for sure, but the manager has failed miserably and should absolutely be getting more out of them. We you realise that, you also realise he has to go because he's taking the piss at this point.

With the new structure incoming, the manager won't get as much freedom as Ten Hag got to make the mistakes he made and to have the excuses made for him that currently are. So the next manager will coach and be judged on the way we play and if we win games. If he doesn't do those things well he'll be fired, and that's how it should be.
 
crossy1686 said:
Define waste of time?
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Like being halfway through cooking a roast, seeing all your neighbours have already sat down with their dinner, and you’re pissed that yours still has another hour to go. So you chuck it all in the bin, moan about how their butcher obviously gave them better quality stuff, and start again with another chicken from somewhere else. Just leave the one you’ve already got in the fecking oven!
 
Brighton struggled to score under him just as United do under ETH. Let’s just give up scoring goals again
 
2 man midfield said:
Like being halfway through cooking a roast, seeing all your neighbours have already sat down with their dinner, and you’re pissed that yours still has another hour to go. So you chuck it all in the bin, moan about how their butcher obviously gave them better quality stuff, and start again with another chicken from somewhere else. Just leave the one you’ve already got in the fecking oven!
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Mate, we never turned the oven on and it's riddled with salmonella.
 
crossy1686 said:
Well 'these cnuting players' have won trophies and appeared in finals, and did so as recently as 6 months ago. We need improvements for sure, but the manager has failed miserably and should absolutely be getting more out of them. We you realise that, you also realise he has to go because he's taking the piss at this point.

With the new structure incoming, the manager won't get as much freedom as Ten Hag got to make the mistakes he made and to have the excuses made for him that currently are. So the next manager will coach and be judged on the way we play and if we win games. If he doesn't do those things well he'll be fired, and that's how it should be.
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Because it’s 12 months on, 12 months off for them unless you’re saying these successful players can only store guidance from managers for 12 months at a time?
It’s the same players you’re judging these different managers by, it’s an insane point to make.
It’s basically how well can they coach these West Ham level players to pretend Man United standards until it comes crashing down as it always does
 
crossy1686 said:
This is part of the problem with Ten Hag's reign. Everyone has had a collective bout of amnesia for most of our loses so you only remember the good games.
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I seriously doubt they do :lol: :lol:

There's a pathetic loss every few days this season.
 
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