Life after ETH — the next United manager

Red Star One

Full Member
Joined
Jan 4, 2017
Messages
6,409
Location
Barcelona
It makes sense to start this thread again — a terrible start of the season, 87% Caf members voting 'sack' in the poll, another humiliation at Old Trafford in front of Sir Alex, Sir Jim and tens of thousands of fans who decided to leave the stadium empty among the YWNA chants. My wishful thinking aside, the chances of ETH surviving until the end of the season seem to be rather low.

So who will replace the master excuser? Are we dead certain that Ruud was brought to jump in as a caretaker when needed? Aren't we (and the structure) a bit worried about his lack of experience and pedigree at the highest level? And who would you like to see given the permanent manager role? Tuchel seems a strong candidate, perhaps this time around we'd go for a more "hipster" and less-known manager in the mold of Hürzeler? Seb Hoeneß seems to be rated very highly and might be the next big thing. Could it be McKenna already?
 
Tommy Tuchel will be watching our every game with intent. More often than not, our next manager seems quite predictable. If Ten Hag goes during the season, it will almost certainly be Tuchel coming in. And rightly so.
 
We didn’t go for Tuchel in the summer though. What was the reason?
Apparently he was interviewed etc so must not have ‘ticked boxes’.
 
Whoever it is, I hope it starts to usher in an era of more responsibility across the whole club. We aren't going anywhere until everything is pointed in the right direction and decisions are made with long term goals in mind.
 
Tuchel would bring respect, authority, charisma and standards to the role.
His football will be pragmatic though but I think this squad is pretty much there for him to get a solid tune out of this lot, especially in defence.
 
I'd rather we bring in Ruud as the interim so that we can appoint the 'right man' next summer as opposed to the 'available man' right now.
 
Get Tuchel in. That's why we should have done it after the season ended. Could have gotten De Zerbi, Flick, or McKenna. Not many out there available anymore.

If we can get Alonso or Ange at the end of the season, I'd persist with RVN as caretaker for the rest of the season.
 
Wasn't Amorim the flavour of the month for a while early this year? What happened with that?
 
My gut feeling is Ruud would be equally as poor as ETH.
Yeah I don't think he's anywhere close to be ready to be our permanent manager. Just one season with the senior PSV team and he resigned citing "a lack of support", which doesn't sound particularly good.
 
My plan when we were having these conversations in Ole's last days was to get Rangnick in as caretaker and then Eric ten Hag at the end of the season.

I don't know yet what I think we should do this time but I know whatever it is we shouldn't do it.
 
I'm at a loss as to who we appoint if EtH goes, but one thing is pretty clear to me after watching pre-season and the first three games of this season - he is not the man to progress this team. We are playing with a losing mentality. I do no have a clue what he is good at. Absolutely no clue.

We have talent, on paper, someone needs to come and start thinking about how to bring that to life in a way that represents actual progress. I'm well aware that certain things don't happen overnight, but this is no longer a reactionary feeling. He needs to go.
 
I’ll say that our summer purchases definitely seem more like club purchases than ETH purchases. Ugarte is blatantly that based on media comments already. De Ligt and Mazraoui are purely coincidental to me. They’re good players regardless of the Ajax association. Yoro is a great talent any team would have and Zirkzee has potential.

INEOS have just got to find the guy best suited to getting those players first and foremost playing as a team in a coherent system which I’m pretty sure isn’t going to be too hard to find, but we obviously need someone who’s going to be consistent good at it leading to winning lots of games and hopefully winning trophies.
 
My plan when we were having these conversations in Ole's last days was to get Rangnick in as caretaker and then Eric ten Hag at the end of the season.

I don't know yet what I think we should do this time but I know whatever it is we shouldn't do it.
If its an interim in the mould of what Chelsea got with Hiddink (2009) or Benitez (2013) I'd be on board with that strategy providing there's a plan for what comes next.

Rangnick was always going to end badly.
 
I’ll say that our summer purchases definitely seem more like club purchases than ETH purchases. Ugarte is blatantly that based on media comments already. De Ligt and Mazraoui are purely coincidental to me. They’re good players regardless of the Ajax association. Yoro is a great talent any team would have and Zirkzee has potential.

INEOS have just got to find the guy best suited to getting those players first and foremost playing as a team in a coherent system which I’m pretty sure isn’t going to be too hard to find, but we obviously need someone who’s going to be consistent good at it leading to winning lots of games and hopefully winning trophies.
I agree on De Ligt and Maz, I think it was mainly good value deals and it's not often you have a player quality of De Ligt available for such a low amount.
Zirkzee I'm not fully sold if it wasn't ETH purchase. It seems like it was only us and Milan (briefly) interested in him, Bayern were also quite happy to let him go a while back. I hope to be proven wrong and that he turns out to be a great transfer, but it does smell a bit of ETH inspiration - like Mount, there's not a proper position for him in the current set up, so I am not sure our structure would go for such players without managerial request.
 
No Tuchel please, would be more years of crap. I love Peter Bosz, though I can imagine most wouldn't want another Dutch manager. Don't think there's a lot of exciting managers out there.
 
If its an interim in the mould of what Chelsea got with Hiddink (2009) or Benitez (2013) I'd be on board with that strategy providing there's a plan for what comes next.

Rangnick was always going to end badly.
What are you suggesting Hiddink and Rafa had over him? Big enough names to command the players?
 
I've a horrible feeling that it'll be Southgate and that will be me done with football for a long time I think. We are a joke now, we'll be the punchline if we get that buffoon.
 
Would love Tuchel but didn't he tell Ineos to feck off already?
 
Tuchel as a steady bet, for slightly riskier punts you could try to persuade Xavi or take a punt on someone like Iraola who I've liked the look of and see if he steps up.
 
We'll see. I'm sure ETH will eventually get sacked, but it might not be soon, it might not even be this season if he salvages something in the next few weeks and months. If we do sack him at one point between now and the end of the season, though, I imagine it will be the same three candidates in the running as this summer? McKenna, De Zerbi, and Tuchel, unless Ineos believe van Nistelrooy is worthy of being a candidate too. It's literally the 2nd of September, it's obvious that no new names have emerged since June.
 
Tuchel would be a great move. First and foremost what we need to do is stop losing, and stop being thrashed. He would bring both of those, I think.
 
Why does Allegri never get mentioned? I don't really follow Serie A so know nothing about him. Stock fallen too low after his latest stint?
 
Anyone but a Dutch manager, these folks seem to think we’re in the 90’s or the 70’s and their footballing culture is somehow relevant.
Haven’t produced exciting players for two decades. Xavi Simmons ain’t it.
Get out.

Ten Hag always had to start the season strong to have any sort of chance to survive in the eyes of the suits, even more than the fans, they didn’t particularly want him here to begin with, its just a matter of time now.
3 pts from 9 is not good enough, getting swept a side without a fight and rondo’d by Liverpool at home is not good enough, get out, go back to Ajax pal.

Someone like Southgate would set us up compact and hard to beat, which is a massive improvement as it is, we won’t get battered every other week.
There would be very little to look forward to but its an improvement over the present.

Xavi is an unknown quality but will have the respect of the players, can vastly improve our midfield setup, will be proactive, will take time to get used to the league and will get battered a few times, worth a punt.

Tuchel seems like the safest option, has PL experience, good tactician, bit of a difficult personality but I can live with that.

Stefano Pioli, don’t know a whole lot about him but he did win the Scudetto and took AC Milan the furthest they have been in the CL for a while.

Max Allegri, pretty tedious brand of football, but would demand the maximum from every player and would set us up hard to beat.

David Moyes, kidding, but he would too be an improvement over Ten Hag.

Graham Potter, been away from the game for awhile so it’s hard to have an opinion, did well at Brighton, others did too.
Was a disaster at Chelsea, others were too.
A bit of an unknown quality really.

Plenty of options here, not a single one of them would be worse than Ten Hag.
 
Last edited:
Why does Allegri never get mentioned? I don't really follow Serie A so know nothing about him. Stock fallen too low after his latest stint?
His second spell with Juve was a disaster and his football is awful to watch.
 
We didn’t go for Tuchel in the summer though. What was the reason?
Apparently he was interviewed etc so must not have ‘ticked boxes’.
Would love Tuchel but didn't he tell Ineos to feck off already?
I'm sure I read recently (must have been in one of the fanzines) that Tuchel took INEOS by surprise a bit by deciding to take a sabbatical. If it becomes available, I definitely reckon he'd be in the running (assuming he fancies it).

Same bit said De Zerbi was all about the money or something like that, hence that not going any further.
 
Tuchel will fail within 18 months as well so we should avoid and give it to someone who has at least a chance

That's not a given, if you look at his past teams. When did he have an actually good, supportive structure around him, that trusted him and backed him properly? PSG, Chelsea under both Abramovich and Clearlake, Bayern. All clown shows lately. I included Abramovich's Chelsea because he was famous for not having any patience with managers.

Ineos would arguably be the best of the lot, by far, in terms of providing Tuchel with the support he needs, and to actually put real trust in him long-term. He would also be hired solely to be a head coach, and not interfere with other unnecessary stuff. And in that aspect, he's up there with the best managers in the world.