Life after ETH — the next United manager

If we sack ten Hag who would you want as manager?

  • Massimiliano Allegri

    Votes: 17 1.7%

  • Rúben Amorim

    Votes: 101 10.2%

  • Michael Carrick

    Votes: 16 1.6%

  • Roberto de Zerbi

    Votes: 14 1.4%

  • Thomas Frank

    Votes: 44 4.5%

  • Sebastian Hoeneß

    Votes: 42 4.3%

  • Eddie Howe

    Votes: 7 0.7%

  • Simone Inzaghi

    Votes: 52 5.3%

  • Andoni Iraola

    Votes: 23 2.3%

  • Thiago Motta

    Votes: 6 0.6%

  • Julian Nagelsmann

    Votes: 169 17.1%

  • Graham Potter

    Votes: 22 2.2%

  • Ruud van Nistelrooy

    Votes: 21 2.1%

  • Marco Silva

    Votes: 10 1.0%

  • Thomas Tuchel

    Votes: 133 13.5%

  • Xabi Alonso

    Votes: 169 17.1%

  • Xavi

    Votes: 25 2.5%

  • Kieran McKenna

    Votes: 63 6.4%

  • Unai Emery

    Votes: 51 5.2%

  • Fabian Hürzeler

    Votes: 1 0.1%
  • Total voters
    986
  • This poll will close: .
Tom Van Persie said:
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.

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Duncan’s got the inside line with Jorge Mendes no? (hence how he would know this)

It’s possible but there’s been numerous reports of us meeting with coaches. Seems almost common practice. I remember a photo of John Henry and Roberto Martinez walking down a street together back in 2012, but Liverpool went with Rodgers.
 
Tom Van Persie said:
Ugarte (also a Mendes client) in the summer. It's well known he's close to Mendes and he feeds him info.

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I mean he said he will offer 50m Euros but everyone knew that before 5th August, Ugarte links were well before that.
 
Chairman Steve said:
Duncan’s got the inside line with Jorge Mendes no? (hence how he would know this)

It’s possible but there’s been numerous reports of us meeting with coaches. Seems almost common practice. I remember a photo of John Henry and Roberto Martinez walking down a street together back in 2012, but Liverpool went with Rodgers.
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Yep anything Mendes related he knows what he's talking about. It's not really surprising news that we're still interested in Silva considering we met with him. It doesn't make him the favourite or anything as like you said we met with a few coaches.
 
Marco Silva is yet another underwhelming candidate.

May as well keep EtH on.
 
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doubleohseven said:
Marco Silva is another underwhelming candidate.

May as well keep EtH on.
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Depends what we’re hiring him to do though. The new structure set up with Ashworth, Wilcox, Vivell etc takes a lot of the burden off what would have been the manager role and is more applicable to be the role of first team head coach

Silva does not need to be a transfer guru or have an eye for youth talent. He just needs to be a good head coach who can get good results and have us playing entertaining football as an added bonus.

If he was hired as a manager under the Glazers, I would be certain he would fail because the only worthwhile support he’d have is an accountant who knows feck all about football.
 
SomeRandomPerson said:
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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Thank you for the write up mate. Shades of ETH if I ever saw one, espcecially the 3-1-6 and the fullbacks pushing so high up. The similarities between Amorim and ETH are uncanny. However, maybe coaching is also the problem. While ETH does set us up for a 3-1-6 I noticed that the buildup phase looks devoid of idea, as if players don't know what to do with the ball.
 
doubleohseven said:
Marco Silva is yet another underwhelming candidate.

May as well keep EtH on.
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I’d take anyone ahead of ETH. At least with a different manager there is at least a slight hope we will be good, and a decent hope we won’t be tragic. With ETH there is full certainty that we will be horrible.

I’d not be against testing any of these more promising mid-table managers (like Silva, O’Neil, Frank) provided we don’t just blindly persist with them if things are not working out. It’s what many big clubs do, just mostly they are quick to pull the trigger when they see they are not up for the task on hand.

McKenna and Iraola are two I’d actually be very keen on, and given their age would probably have a little more patience for.
 
Sarni said:
I’d take anyone ahead of ETH. At least with a different manager there is at least a slight hope we will be good, and a decent hope we won’t be tragic. With ETH there is full certainty that we will be horrible.

I’d not be against testing any of these more promising mid-table managers (like Silva, O’Neil, Frank) provided we don’t just blindly persist with them if things are not working out. It’s what many big clubs do, just mostly they are quick to pull the trigger when they see they are not up for the task on hand.

McKenna and Iraola are two I’d actually be very keen on, and given their age would probably have a little more patience for.
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What about Emery?
 
devilish said:
What about Emery?
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Apparently Emery asked for total control when taking over Villa - as said by Guillem Balague - and I don’t think he’ll get that here. Just like Tuchel he may not want to come. So realistically, our best chance is a “company man” type manager. Someone who is okay to let the upper management do the heavy lifting with recruitment and the manager does his best to coach the team with of course having input in recruitment and overall team related issues.
 
Our players are so poor in general that we can forget top 4 no matter who replaces ETH. We need 3-4 new starting players in midfield and attack to be able to compete. The ETH era cannot end soon enough. Silva or Iraola is not a bad choice.
 
doubleohseven said:
Marco Silva is yet another underwhelming candidate.

May as well keep EtH on.
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Bit of a dis-service to Silva there. He would certainly improve the performances. How far he could take us is another thing though. I wouldn’t be apposed to him though as hes surely deserving of a bigger job soon.
 
doubleohseven said:
My Everton supporting brother would like a word.



Four whole points, eh?

What are we waiting for?
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Mate, he’s at damn Fulham, joined them one year before ETH came here, got them promoted and now they’re above us in the league and it’s not unrealistic they could finish above us. Have some respect
 
Red Star One said:
Mate, he’s at damn Fulham, joined them one year before ETH came here, got them promoted and now they’re above us in the league and it’s not unrealistic they could finish above us. Have some respect
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Yeah but has also imploded before. I see the worry with him.

It's not just a case of "is he looking better than Ten Hag, if so lets just get him in". A permanent manager comes into a 3 year project and pressure to get into the right direction immediately.
 
Is this Amorim(spelling?) dude any good? He his name being mentioned a lot. Or is it just a flavour pick.
 
Honestly, I can't wait until we get rid of this guy. It's getting more and more difficult to watch the same old shite from us under him. I'll take Ruud for the rest of the season over this Pep Guardiola is my idol.
 
Diego Simeone. He's the only one I genuinely believe that could do well with us. His tactics would suit the PL. Pity he's never leaving AT Madrid.
 
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