Life after ETH — the next United manager
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SAF would never recommend a shit manager, would he?
We need to move on from these types of sources and I am sure Ineos has
We need to move on from these types of sources and I am sure Ineos has
I know people are very skeptical about SAF's recomendation after the whole Moyes debacle, however it's important to note that Moyes was our 5th choice manager, just like Kompany was for Bayern.
While it is easy to dismiss, I do think that he usually knows what he's talking about. I've attached a video below where he predicted Aston Villa's rise despite being hammered 5-1 by Newcastle that day. So clearly the man has an idea or 2 about what it takes to build a good team.
The reason he might have recommended Allegri is because he is a very pragmatic coach that makes your team solid(something we are currently missing) and actually has a track record of steadying the ship at Milan in very adverse circumstances. While he might not tick the new up and comming manager to takes us to the next level, he might be a short term fix that will leave us in a better position that we currently are in.
So at the very least, he should be one of the candidates we are looking at, provided that this news source isn't making it up.
I probably don’t care about your estimation
@Deco10Legend, since you watch the Portugese league, your input would be greatly appreciated in this thread.
Can you please give us a rundown as to how Amorim has his teams set up, what kind of style does he employe? Is he attacking, counter-attacking, defensive, etc? What would you say are his main strengths and weaknesses? Do you think he would be a good fit for United?
Clearly having weird substitutions that don't work isn't something we'd like to hear as United fans, not after 2 years of this under ETH
I don't watch every Sporting game, but usually he uses 3 centre backs, 2 offensive right and left back that act as midfielders when attacking, 2 holding midfielders, 2 wingers and a striker. The wingers a lot of times go inside leaving Room for the right and left back to act as wingers.@Deco10Legend, since you watch the Portugese league, your input would be greatly appreciated in this thread.
Can you please give us a rundown as to how Amorim has his teams set up, what kind of style does he employe? Is he attacking, counter-attacking, defensive, etc? What would you say are his main strengths and weaknesses? Do you think he would be a good fit for United?
Clearly having weird substitutions that don't work isn't something we'd like to hear as United fans, not after 2 years of this under ETH
Sometimes he changes it up and uses 2 strikers, but a lot of the time one of them will open wide.
He is very attacking, Sporting scores a lot of goals and plays really attractive football.
He has sometimes the odd Guardiola moment of overcomplicating things, but he usually explains well his thought process to the press in those moments.
My estimation in you went up if that means anything
Bud I don't think you needed to include that clip to convince us SAF knows football.
It's like showing us a da Vinci doodle to prove he could draw a bit.
I will say it again. Marco Silva. He was the first one to be interviewed when our “assessing all options” period was happening and his team play football the right way.
Ye but it’s one thing doing it with Fulham and another with one of the biggest clubs. We need to do what INEOS said and go for best in class. Someone experienced and can get the best out of players. Inzaghi from Inter is probably one of the best we should aim for.
The reason I included it was because people on here thinks SAF only knows how to pick his players and not managers.
That clip clearly shows that Fergie knows a good manager and a team that he is building when he sees one, even if it on the receiving end of a hammering.
Thank you for your insights. The way most people were talking about him on here, I thought he was a defensive coach that relied on counter attacking to score goals. It's good to hear that he is an attack minded coach.
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I think that's an interesting shout.
Sometimes it's about getting the opportunity. Right time right place sort of thing.
Ha? You think that's some sort of gotcha? All these managers are much more than just arrogant. You must be young and perhaps didn't witness Fergie in this prime, so don't know how he dealt with his players and had more charisma, empathy, leadership qualities in his little toe than our current manager. And to be honest, I didn't think of him as arrogant at all. He was tough when he needed to be, he was like a father to many players in how they handled him. He was extremely respectful to fellow managers (he represented them through the LMA for a long time) and even the staff much lower down the pay grade than him. He absolutely wasn't arrogant at all.
But that isn't the point. Personality is a huge factor in being a successful coach. Some of this was alluded to by Benni Mccarthy in what he said. It's what many of us have been saying for a long time about Ten Hag. If you think he has the same personality as Fergie then you're sorely mistaken. In fact, I can't think of another top manager with as dour a personality as him.
Arsenal got great manager in Arteta and their ex manager Emery is doing great job at Villa (as he did at Villarreal). Then you look at our previous managers and realise all of them deserved the sack and it probably should've happened months earlier with all of them as well.
I hope we finally get top, modern coach that can make us compete for top honours again. Not going to be optimistic but do hope.
I hope we finally get top, modern coach that can make us compete for top honours again. Not going to be optimistic but do hope.
Whenever anyone says Frank for some reason I default to thinking they are talking about Frank Lampard. And I shudder a little.
They might as well be because neither of them would get us where we need to be.
I care a lot about your estimationMy estimation in you went up if that means anything
That’s true. But who was Simone Inzaghi before Inter. He literally just kept Lazio a float finishing average 5th. Which isn’t anything bad I’m sure there average position over that time was better than Roma. However the point is sometimes it’s best to look outside the box and spot potential.
If we’re going for potential then I’d definitely back us going for Amorim. But if we want a proven winner and someone who can get the best out of average players etc then Inzaghi is the man.
United would soon be sick of Arteta though. Twice thrown away the league post-April, without winning a cup in that time, playing very defensively at times.
It's hard to think about it now given we just want to feel like we're not supporting Barnsley, but in the long term we need a manager who's going to play good football. We saw it with Jose who finished 2nd and won cups, he still got a lot of stick in those seasons when City were winning by playing much better football. Ole also finished 2nd by just playing on the counter attack and we were getting sick of watching us rely on "moments".
Yes, it's different to actually win the league playing like that, and I'm sure there wouldn't be much moaning if someone like Simeone came in and delivered a league title. But even then we'd start moaning if we failed to defend it, or failed in Europe. Suddenly the supremely high expectations will be back. Remember we've seen our club win doubles, trebles, three in a row whilst also playing supremely eye-catching football with some of the most iconic attacking players of all time.
A modern coach similar to Emery and Arteta may not be the best shout if you think long term, even if we would take literally anyone right now to stop failing to beat shit teams and getting pumped by any half-decent team. The high standards of United are still there deep down in the fans - that has to be considered in any managerial appointment.
Presumably either wouldn't be obtainable until the summer due to Champions League involvement, therefore need to put in place an interim for now
The Spanish managers are currently ruling the football world.
Why not go for a Spanish manager with the skillset to make us a real modern team.
Get rid of the non pressers and poor athletes.
Why not go for a Spanish manager with the skillset to make us a real modern team.
Get rid of the non pressers and poor athletes.
Curious, what makes you think that with regards to Thomas Frank?
I think we need a manager that will galvanise the players more than anything, and knows how to win. I really don’t think the players or fans are going to tolerate another ‘process’ or ‘project’ that will bear fruit in 3 years time. We need to be in the mixer every year. Top 4 consistent and closing that points gap at the top.
Thing is, no manager will be a guaranteed success in the short or long term. But when you hire someone like Mourinho, Conte or even Tuchel for short term success you know that they won’t bring long term success. If you want consistent top 4 you have to hire someone with a long term plan.
That’s not the same as saying they will not improve results in their first years, though. But we need someone who can implement a clear playing style and is more tactically flexible than EtH while also buying into the clubs mid- and long term plans (whatever they might be, hope INEOS have sound thoughts on this).
You don't though, no club should be hiring a manager thinking they'll be good in the long term. You can't just spend a billion quid and say 'it's alright, we'll start winning one day in the future'. What if that day never comes?
The irony is, someone like Jose would probably have been brilliant under the structure we now have where they go out and find him players that he needs in certain positions. I'll take short term success any day. If we sack a manager every 3 years after they've spent 2 years winning things then eventually short term success is long term success by default.
We can't keep doing this hit and hope approach.
Xavi makes the most sense, as he can build upon any foundations Ten Hag has left. With Xavi using the closest system to Ten Hag's when compared with other managers
What fecking foundations? The last time we played good football was against Xavi's Barca.
Xavi's a no go, for me.
@Deco10Legend, since you watch the Portugese league, your input would be greatly appreciated in this thread.
Can you please give us a rundown as to how Amorim has his teams set up, what kind of style does he employe? Is he attacking, counter-attacking, defensive, etc? What would you say are his main strengths and weaknesses? Do you think he would be a good fit for United?
Clearly having weird substitutions that don't work isn't something we'd like to hear as United fans, not after 2 years of this under ETH
I don't think I've ever seen Amorim's Sporting play so obviously @Deco10Legend will know more than me, but I do remember The Athletic doing an analysis of the problems at Pochettino's Chelsea in March this year where they dedicate a section to analyzing Amorim as a potential replacement. They go over his playing style and potential problems (starts at 25:38 in this video) -
Obviously they might be wrong but the analysis here just gives me Ten Hag vibes - builds up in a 3-1-6 with Hjulmand as a single pivot, likes to push the front 6 really high, score lots of goals (though the video shows stats indicating they were overperforming xG) and concede very few (again, video highlights they have the best xGA in the league), but leave lots of space in the middle which the single pivot (Ugarte/Palhina/Hjulmand in versions of Amorim's Sporting) was expected to cover on his own. Alex Barker in the video makes the point that this strategy works in the Portuguese league because Sporting (and Benfica and Porto) have such a massive financial advantage over other teams in the league that the smaller teams don't have the type of players to punish such risk taking. But I feel, like with Ten Hag, teams in the premier league would punish it. Obviously both Ten Hag and Amorim have coached their sides against the best teams in European competition - Ten Hag had that famous run to the semi-finals, Amorim knocked out Arteta's Arsenal in the Europa League a couple of years ago - I feel like those don't necessarily translate in a league format where you are expected to dominate 'lesser' teams in the premier league who nevertheless have the quality to punish you.
I feel like this is an issue with coaches outside the big leagues generally. Often, these leagues are very top heavy. So, teams like Sporting, Benfica, Porto, Ajax, PSV, Celtic etc. are often playing against teams which have barely 1/10th of their budget and thus, a massive talent disadvantage. So, they often end up playing against teams who park the bus trying not to get humiliated. And the challenge for the coaches of these big fish in small pond type teams is to break down deep defenses, which they usually do by pushing players forward to create an overload, safe in the knowledge that their talent advantage will mean that they can usually pin the opposition back when in possession and also control transitions pretty reliably given the lack of quality in the opposition line-up. We've now seen Ten Hag and Ange come to the premier league and struggle in defensive transitions. And it's still early days for Arne Slot who might yet run into the same problem, though he's done well so far.
And that I think is the challenge of assessing these coaches - any coach from these leagues coming into the premier league will have to alter their defensive principles to handle these transitions, perhaps by having more people in deeper positions to handle the transition defensively. But if they take players out of the offensive lines to put in the defensive line, can they still produce the blistering attacking football that has made them an interesting proposition to teams like United, Spurs and Liverpool in the first place i.e., are the goals just a consequence of numerical overloads in the final third? Do they have the tactical nous to produce both a solid transition defense and a strong attacking unit?
I feel like striking that balance has been the main problem for Ten Hag's United. In the first season, he prioritized defensive solidity and basically played a tweaked version of Ole's system, running into the same issue - the team could not break down deep defenses, or at least, relied too much on Bruno/Rashford to do so. In the second season, he tried to do the offensive overload to try and remedy this and consequently, the defense fell to pieces. But without any noticeable improvement in attack. This season has been mostly about trying (and mostly failing) to get that balance right, with the odd success here and there (first half vs Fulham, last 60 mins vs Southampton, first 60 mins vs Palace etc.).
Ange has done a better job implementing his on the ball principles but Spurs also often look quite vulnerable on the counter.
If I were Ashworth/Wilcox, that would be my main concern - assessing the scalability of tactical set ups of these interesting up and coming the coaches from smaller leagues. Wilcox obviously has coaching experience himself so might be qualified to do so.
Or they could go the easier route and try for coaches whose methods are proven to work in top 5 leagues where financial disparities are smaller. What Xabi Alonso and Seb Hoeness have done in Germany, producing dominant sides which are free flowing in attack and among the best defensively, while working on relatively modest budgets - Leverkusen and Stuttgart are not working on a Bayern level budget - is much more impressive in that sense. Or at least, it's much easier to make the case for how well they might translate into the premier league.
Simone Inzaghi at Inter is also, for many of the same reasons, probably the safest choice. Did well at Lazio producing a team which was punching above its weight and very good both in defense and attack. Got the big job at Inter where, while he was able to immediately improve their style in possession compared to Conte's more counter-attacking style, the results didn't follow immediately. They finished second to AC Milan in his first season, having taken over the champions and being in the title race quite deep into the season, but ultimately being perceived by many Inter fans as having bottled it. Then they didn't start the second season well either, being well behind Napoli very early in the season. It is easy to forget now but many Inter fans had doubts over him and wanted him gone. It was only the Champions League run that kept his head clear. But the run to the Champions League final, where they arguably outplayed Pep Guardiola's team, clearly gave the team and the fans a lot of faith in his methods and then they walked the league last year. But the point is, through all that, his teams were constantly creating good chances in attack and defending well as a unit. His methods demonstrably work in a top 5 league, and he is able to go toe-to-toe with the likes of Barcelona, Manchester City and Atletico Madrid without having to tweak his system too much, except maybe playing a bit more on the break against City.
Andoni Iraola, even if he's not won anything or managed a top team, has shown his methods work not only in a top 5 league generally, they work in the premier league specifically. Bournemouth are probably the best pressing team in the league and he's made them one of the most fun teams to watch in England. Only negative is that his team hasn't really beaten a top side (except us but we weren't a top side at all last year). Bournemouth mostly beat the teams below them and lose to the teams above them, with mixed results against the teams around them. So difficult to assess how good he is really. This season, they really should have beaten Chelsea and should have gotten at least something at Anfield, given the quality of their play. But they did end up losing both and losing games like that would not be acceptable at United.
TLDR - My preference is we take the safe route and go for someone already doing well in a top 5 league. Personal preference is Hoeness because his Stuttgart team really are delightful to watch, even if he's never won anything. But generally, I would like for us to assess coaches based on the quality of their tactical set ups and how they might work in the premier league, rather than just looking at their achievements/numbers.
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The interim is probably already at the club mate. Either Ruud or Rene. There’s the planning right there… incase of a worse case scenario they hired 2 managers as coaches incase they need to sack ETH.
If it's Rene it will be hilarious
I agree with everything you're saying but I think all the due diligence in the world still won't prepare you for what might happen when the rubber meets the road. I think the most important thing is for the management team as a whole to have the wisdom to sack a coach when things are unfixable. Is there some reasonable framework to evaluate a coach's performance beyond what happened in the last game? How do you know if you have an LvG or Moyes on your hands and not an Arteta or Fergie? Arsenal were probably wrong to sack Emery with 20/20 hindsight for example.
It's so easy to just go with whatever the prevailing narrative is - keep him after FA cup win, we had so many injuries during the season vs sack 3 games into the season after the Pool loss. Do they really have convictions of their own that don't change every other game week?
There’s pros and cons to all types of managers and we are at a point now where we have tried them all. The winner; club legend; the philosopher; the hipster; the chosen one.
The only thing that really matters is that we hire someone who can implement a style that suits the current and future squad. Understands the demands of the EPL and has the charisma to get their ideas across to overpaid pre Madonna’s.
Haven’t heard United DNA mentioned in a while.
BUT - I think this is the key to the next managerial appointment.
The common thread connecting all our managers since Ferguson is that they are all high concept tactic managers. Exception is perhaps Ole but more on this below.
In short this sort of manager doesn’t suit Manchester United. Never has. Even pre-Ferguson. We cant splash out on the best players in the world and then try to shoehorn them into a system. This is not the United DNA. Give these same players a little freedom and inspiration and they will flourish.
So I would target someone on the inspirational side of the continuum rather than highly tactical. A level of tactical awareness should go without saying. Uniteds Zidane or Ancellotti. No idea who that might be.
Back to Ole - he was inspirational to an extent but lacked the gravitas, stature or reputation required. Also lacked the required tactical nous.
So sorry for digging up the old United DNA chestnut but I don’t think it can be ignored.
BUT - I think this is the key to the next managerial appointment.
The common thread connecting all our managers since Ferguson is that they are all high concept tactic managers. Exception is perhaps Ole but more on this below.
In short this sort of manager doesn’t suit Manchester United. Never has. Even pre-Ferguson. We cant splash out on the best players in the world and then try to shoehorn them into a system. This is not the United DNA. Give these same players a little freedom and inspiration and they will flourish.
So I would target someone on the inspirational side of the continuum rather than highly tactical. A level of tactical awareness should go without saying. Uniteds Zidane or Ancellotti. No idea who that might be.
Back to Ole - he was inspirational to an extent but lacked the gravitas, stature or reputation required. Also lacked the required tactical nous.
So sorry for digging up the old United DNA chestnut but I don’t think it can be ignored.
Will obviously be Ruud. But could be either as both have managerial experience
The Athletic reported that United had a face to face meeting with Silva the Thursday before the FA Cup final. Silva's agent is Jorge Mendes.
What makes you so certain about that