Life after ETH — the next United manager

[Andycoleno9]

Who is on top? Just do what every other company does when it hires a manager or minor director, hire the best one available and boot them if they aren't good enough. The right guy doesn't exist or is never available.

Exactly. You don't need to search for another Fergie or Wenger. You don't need to hire a manager who will be here 10 years.

Hire best available coach who will work with team which you have. If he doesn't do good; sack him and hire another. If another is not good, sack him and hire another. All other top clubs do that and they are doing just fine.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

His delusion is very offputting. He seems to believe he has an unlimited amount of time to get it right and lacks any accountability for anything that goes wrong

The lack of accountability from a leader is one of the worst traits there is. Drives me mad.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

I think he also had 2 Lbs ( Maz and Davies) playing last season against Real to nullify their attack.. which had worked ..
Davies got the goal..if I remember correctly

Yeah you’re correct. Obviously the hesitation with Tuchel is his tendency to clash with clubs (different circumstances each time min it’s somewhat of a pattern now), but I do think he’s every bit an elite coach/tactician as there is in the sport.

 

[Red Ten]

I genuinely think this is a 2 stage situation, we need a here and now coach that will drag this squad out of the mire and make the team competitive and difficult to beat.

Surely SJR and the Management team have made their mind up already about ETH, he is not a coach who has the personality to manage one of Europe’s biggest Clubs.

Right now we need to pick up wins and sometimes win ugly and stop the team leaking goals, we also need an experienced Elite coach that has EPL experience and can adapt his team formation in each game to get those necessary points, so we must either Appoint Jose, Conte Or Thomas Tuchel, two of them have won the PL and two of them have won the CL, but only one of them has won both but he’s probably the coach who is currently the most in Decline.

I think Conte will reinvent himself this year and go very close to wining Serie A with Napoli, next year he’ll fall out and be on the market again but right now, right here we must appoint Tuchel, he’s available, knows the EPL, has a brilliant record in Europe with all of his teams, this is a guy that has been to 3 CL Semi Finals and 2 Finals and has 1 victory, he’s won 11 out of 12 domestic and European Semi Finals and 8 from 14 major finals. I think he will be a United Coach for maybe 3 years, maximum 4 but the club will be in a much better position when he leaves.

Many fans forget he had 63% win rate for Chelsea, averages over 2 points per game in all of His last 4 big jobs, Dortmund, PSG, Chelsea and Bayern and averages over 2 goals per game.

United have 31 games left so if he does what he’s good at he would probably get this squad to 70 points and somewhere around 4th-5th, from where we are right now, that would be a monumental transformation.

He also is tactically incredibly flexible and will change From a 4 man defence to 3 or 5 depending on the opposition. He’s miles better than our current coach, clearly wants the job but with the ability to veto transfer which is normal for an elite coach. I also think he will fancy wining the Europa League with Man United and consider that a huge trophy to add to his record.

In 3 or 4 years, the next young genius coach will emerge or coaches like McKenna would be finally ready, but right now we need a sure thing whose available and will not cost any money to negotiate from a club that he’s currently working for?

Nailed it. Spot on.

 

[croadyman]

Imagine if we lured Zidane here. The scenes would be mental!

Can safely say he won't be Utd manager due to the fact he has no intention of managing in England and the fact he can't speak much English. Absolutely certain he is prepared to wait it out for the France national job too.

 

[croadyman]

For the poll, is there any point in having someone like Xabi Alonso there? We know he's not coming here. We also know Nagelsmann is going to be with Germany till 2026.

So of the realistic options, for now I'd take Tuchel. Long term is different.

Yeah he wouldn't be my long term appointment, however he could make us a more attractive prospect to Nagelsmann/Inzaghi in a couple of years time. Like you say can't see Alonso ever choosing us over Real.

 

[afatzp]

whoever gets the gut and knowledge to drop Bruno and Rashford will get my vote. Otherwise it's just rinse and repeat

 

[Zaphod2319]

 

[Redivy]

I really want Nagelsmann. However, im assuming he doesn't want to exit the German job until after the world cup. We should still put the offer out there.

Otherwise, the only manager that would excite me is Tuchel. I don't think our players are a good fit for him, but im sure a manager of his calibre can make it work.

However, its pretty obvious they won't sack him. Some of journalists from the Athletic which are very-in-the-know, have already said as such prior to the Villa game.

He is at least 3 more defeats away from the sack.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Which of the managers in this poll have a possession / control oriented style? We don’t need another “pragmatic” coach to waste time on. It has to be someone who can get us keeping the ball well and having a big emphasis on everyone being comfortable in tight spaces and the importance of midfield. Basically the opposite of our last two managers.

 

[croadyman]

Still believe there is a chance Alonso comes here one day after a stint at Real, provided he doesn't ever manage those arch rivals from Merseyside

 

[AndySmith1990]

Which of the managers in this poll have a possession / control oriented style? We don’t need another “pragmatic” coach to waste time on. It has to be someone who can get us keeping the ball well and having a big emphasis on everyone being comfortable in tight spaces and the importance of midfield. Basically the opposite of our last two managers.

Then we're left with the inevitable problem of what the new manager does with Bruno the reckless. We'll never control a game and keep possession with him

 

[dinostar77]

I'd like him to get a shot. Done a fantastic job at Brentford. This season alone, approaching kickoff's like a set piece and scoring with the first minute or so is really clever.

Would rather get a manager who's getting his first chance to manage a giant club.

However do see the flip side of getting someone like Tuchel, who is experienced and a proven winner in multiple countries.

When it comes to "show us you medals", and winning respect of the dressing room winning trophies with Dortmund, Bayern, PSG and Chelsea is a helluva start. "Lads what have you won in your career so far?"..

 

[doubleohseven]

I'd like him to get a shot. Done a fantastic job at Brentford. This season alone, approaching kickoff's like a set piece and scoring with the first minute or so is really clever.

Would rather get a manager who's getting his first chance to manage a giant club.

However do see the flip side of getting someone like Tuchel, who is experienced and a proven winner in multiple countries.

When it comes to "show us you medals", and winning respect of the dressing room winning trophies with Dortmund, Bayern, PSG and Chelsea is a helluva start. "Lads what have you won in your career so far?"..

We need a bit of stability.

Frank seems another EtH appointment. A good manager, in his fifties, tactically minded and modern. Frank has never won a major honour and has a personal best of mid-table.

He's good, but it's another 'vibes' appointment.

The clear frontrunner is Tuchel. Experienced, successful and, above all, instantly available.

However, Ineos are not keen. They have in their head a manager who can last five years and lead from the bottom up. Sort out yoof. We are in serious trouble if such goes wrong.

This is an impasse. It's clear things cannot proceed as they are, but ambition (Frank) has encountered necessity (Tuchel).

We'll see how it goes.

 

[GreatDane]

I did not want to go to work this morning, but I did it anyway.

 

[Highfather_24]

If INEOS dont sack him now, that means they are throwing away this season, which is a really really bad move imo. Doesnt garner confidence in the new regime.

 

[Avero]

Carlo Ancelotti?

 

[MiracleInMadrid]

It's a tough task to find the right manager at this point. For me, it no longer matter what kind of football a new manager can bring to the club. All that matters is that we find someone who can work with the culture within the squad and instill a new hierarchy.

I assume that players like Rashford, Maguire, Shaw and Casemiro are part of the upper hierarchi in the squad aswell as the payroll. Either they aren't really playing or they underperform. That can't be healthy for the culture within the group. I think that translates to the pitch and to their teammates.

The manager who comes in needs to show some gut and be a real leader of the group. I will give ETH that he has taken over a difficult group of players at a difficult time. It was never an easy job to turn around. But time has shown that he isn't the sort of character who will transform this club into something competitive at the top level. The players aren't following him. That's partly on the players aswell of course.

It's a tough job to hit the jackpot with a new manager. Only very few have the status and character to overhaul the culture of a club and set a new direction. Klopp and Pep has been able to do it. Two very special and rare managers. I can't think of anyone capable of doing something similar for us, but I hope the new management are able to.

 

[Chicharo]

There's still time to salvage this season. We're not that far behind on the table, and we've only played two games in Europe.
But we need to see the reaction from the board today

 

[SomeRandomPerson]

So I don't know if this is a good methodology for picking managers given that its still very early in the new season (small sample size), there is still a lot of difference in the relative difficulty of the fixture list for different teams, and all said and done, I don't actually know if xPts is a metric that reflects anything at all (I don't want to reopen the debate about whether our xG being roughly the same as Liverpool's in our 3-0 thrashing tells us if we've been unlucky, or if xG leaves out a lot of context) but I thought I'd figure out which teams have started the best in terms of underlying numbers and use this as a way of figuring out which teams have the most interesting managers. So, I went to Understat and got the xPts numbers for every team in Europe's top 5 leagues (England, Spain, Germany, France and Italy) and since different leagues have had different number of matchdays so far, I converted xPts into xPts/Match and then ranked the teams according to xPts/Match. I've listed the top 10 here (expected rank in their league is based on xPts) -

Team	PTS	xPTS	xPTS/Match	Actual Rank in Their League	Expected Rank in Their League	Manager
Paris Saint Germain	17​	17.15​	2.45​	2​	1​	Luis Enrique
Liverpool	18​	16.32​	2.33​	1​	1​	Arne Slot
Bayern Munich	14​	13.93​	2.32​	1​	1​	Vincent Kompany
Barcelona	24​	20.14​	2.24​	1​	1​	Hansi Flick
Monaco	19​	15.57​	2.22​	1​	2​	Adolf Hutter
Lazio	13​	14.21​	2.03​	4​	1​	Marco Baroni
AC Milan	11​	14.03​	2.00​	6​	2​	Paulo Fonseca
Inter	14​	14​	2.00​	2​	3​	Simone Inzaghi
VfB Stuttgart	9​	11.97​	2.00​	8​	2​	Sebastian Hoeness
Fulham	11​	13.95​	1.99​	8​	2​	Marco Silva

Unsurprisingly, most teams at the top of xPts are also near the top of actual points in the league so far. Also unsurprisingly, we see the usual contenders at the top of this table - PSG, Bayern, Barcelona. Also shows how well Liverpool have started under Slot - even if their fixture list to start has been kind, their xG numbers show they've been sweeping aside 'lesser' teams without any hitches. But then we get to the surprising names (which might offer up names for us to consider?) -

1. Monaco - They are top of the table in Ligue 1 this season, 2 clear of PSG. I can't say I know much about Hutter beyond his spell at Borussia Monchengladbach, which was quite underwhelming overall. They finished midtable in the league (10th, google tells me). But they had a memorable result where they beat Nagelsman's Bayern 5-0 in the cup. Not sure if he is any good, if they've just had an easy start, or if this is a Jardim type perfect storm situation and they'll surprise everyone this season. Worth noting they've also beaten Barcelona in the Champions League.

2. Lazio - Haven't watched them at all this season. Have never heard of Marco Baroni. Haven't even heard anyone mention them as a team to watch early in the season. I am completely baffled by them apparently leading Serie A in expected points so far. I guess this is just a quirk of xG models and an easier start to the season. They are top of the standings in the Europa League after 2 games so they might be actually good?

3. AC Milan - Also surprised at them apparently being the second best team in Serie A on xPts so far. Not really a big fan of Paulo Fonseca and they had tension with the fans to start the season. Notable results - lost to both Liverpool and Leverkusen in the Champions League, beat Inter in the league. Not an option for us I don't think.

4. Inter - Look a bit sluggish to start the season, especially compared to last season. Only 2 points behind leaders Napoli in the league (Napoli are 6th in the league on xPts, for the record) and played very well in the Champions League against City, I thought. Unsurprising to see them on the list - genuinely one of the best teams in Europe with genuinely one of the best managers in Europe. Simone Inzaghi might be gettable and would probably be a great choice.

5. Stuttgart - We get to the reason I made up this whole list in the first place. Stuttgart lost 2 of their starting back 4 (Anton went to Dortmund and Ito went to Bayern) and their top goal scorer (Guirassy went to Dortmund), and made really only two big singings (one of which - Undav - was already on loan from Brighton last season, they just made the transfer permanent) but continue to show good performances. The losses are showing an impact though. They look slightly suspect defensively, and have been made to pay for defensive errors. Attack continues to be great, though. Hence, underlying numbers continue to be great but they've not converted underlying metrics to actual points and they languish in 8th in the table. Also, worth pointing out that they've only barely made it onto this list. Their xPts are 11.97 - marginally ahead of Leverkusen at 11.87 (5th in the league), Freiburg at 11.54 (who are currently 4th in the league and beat Stuttgart 3-1 on the opening weekend, punishing their defensive errors on the counter) and Eintracht Frankfurt (3rd in the league) have 11.35. There is then a gap and Dortmund is next at 9.86. Which tells you a bit about the Bundesliga so far - Bayern are ahead and by far the most dominant, then there is a bunch of good teams all playing well. But Stuttgart's underlying number don't match their results so far. They've also created the second most xG in the league - 15.18, marginally behind Kompany's all conquering Bayern at 15.31 - and scored 15 goals (compared to 20 for Bayern, and 16 for Leverkusen from an xG of 14.47). Defense as I said is suspect - xGA of 9.56 is only the 10th best in the league, well behind Bayern's xGA of 4.93 - but they've actually underperformed their xGA and conceded 11 in the league. As I said, losing 2 of the starting back 4 has hurt them and they've made poor mistakes in defense. I would love to see what he could do with a higher caliber of talent in the playing squad. At any rate, I am a Sebastian Hoeness partisan here and would like for United to appoint him. Planning to spend the rest of the season being for Hoeness what Amadeus was for Pochettino

6. Fulham - Was also completely surprised to see them so high. Apparently the second best team in the Premier League on xPts so far. Marco Silva has done a brilliant job with them. Fulham are 6th in the league for xG and have actually underperformed their xG numbers - 10 scored for an xG of 13.86. Also second in the table for xGA, but defense roughly reflects that - 7.37 xGA and 8 goals conceded. Have only seen them twice this season - against us (thought they were terrible, got caught out by our press multiple times playing out from the back and didn't really create anything. We only won 1-0 but if Bruno had converted any of the chances in the first half and Garnacho not missed an empty net, it could have been much more.), and against City last week (lost 3-2 but I thought they were brilliant. Fully deserved to win the game based on quality of chances created). Not really sure what to make of them, to be honest. But people in this thread have been suggesting him and Duncan Castles has been saying he's a top target for Ineos. Already knows the league but his record is mixed (started well at Everton and Watford but ended badly at both). May be a good appointment but I'm not sure.

Also ranked the managers in the poll based on xPts this season (excluded any managers not in the top 5 leagues (so no Amorim or Carrick) because I can't find data on Understat for them but I'm sure Amorim's numbers are great. For any managers not currently working because obviously they don't have any numbers for this season, so I've used numbers from their last working season (not sure if it's fair to compare across seasons though. Inzaghi/Alonso's numbers must have been better last season). Here's how the rest match up (ranked on xPts/Match) -

Manager	Team	xPts/Match	Actual Rank	Expected Rank
Julian Nagelsmann	Bayern Munich	2.0536​	2​	1​
Thomas Tuchel	Bayern Munich	2.025789​	3​	1​
Xavi	Barcelona	2.025263​	2​	2​
Simone Inzaghi	Inter	2​	2​	3​
Sebastian Hoeneß	VfB Stuttgart	1.995​	8​	2​
Marco Silva	Fulham	1.992857​	8​	2​
Thiago Motta	Juventus	1.984286​	3​	4​
Xabi Alonso	Bayer Leverkusen	1.978333​	5​	3​
Massimiliano Allegri	Juventus	1.964211​	3​	2​
Unai Emery	Aston Villa	1.794286​	5​	7​
Andoni Iraola	Bournemouth	1.752857​	13​	8​
Graham Potter	Chelsea (results only from his time at Chelsea)	1.483182​	11​	8​
Ruud van Nistelrooy	Manchester United	1.402857​	14​	10​
Roberto de Zerbi	Marseille	1.374286​	3​	11​
Thomas Frank	Brentford	1.314286​	11​	11​
Eddie Howe	Newcastle United	1.132857​	7​	14​
Kieran McKenna	Ipswich	0.584286​	17​	20​

For Ruud, I used the results this season as I was not sure what to do. Also on the note of comparing across seasons, Inzaghi's xPts/Match last season was 2.18 - the highest on the list.

 

[RedFanaticTattooist]

You are a bit.

We have three points from three games. When we won the PL/CL double in 2008, we had two points from three matches. I do not think we are in the same league, but it's still worse.

For me, any post-EtH has to be Nagelsman or Tuchel, and given the core disciplinary problems, and mental lapses within our squad, I'd lean to the latter.

Forget about Potter. He's a busted flush. Poch is yeaterday's yesterday. Ole?If it's Southgate, we riot (metaphorically, Jim). Can see the club hiring a 'positive vibes' coach and have pliant media sell it (The Telegraph, tongue out of cheek, have printed articles in favour of Southgate). Brexity FC. No thanks.

Nagelsman or Tuchel, or it's grim and bear it with Erik.

We actually have a totally ridiculous 23 points from the last 19 league games. That's 46 points for a whole season, which is usually enough for the 15th position. So we're crap not just this season, but a long time ago. We don't score goals. Last time when the team scored less than 5 goals in the first 7 matches (happened only once, four im 1973-74) the team finished 21st and got relegated. We are one of the worst team in the league not just this season, and someone still supports ten Hag. Shocking.

 

[stefan92]

1. Monaco - They are top of the table in Ligue 1 this season, 2 clear of PSG. I can't say I know much about Hutter beyond his spell at Borussia Monchengladbach, which was quite underwhelming overall. They finished midtable in the league (10th, google tells me). But they had a memorable result where they beat Nagelsman's Bayern 5-0 in the cup. Not sure if he is any good, if they've just had an easy start, or if this is a Jardim type perfect storm situation and they'll surprise everyone this season. Worth noting they've also beaten Barcelona in the Champions League.

First of all: Great post. Just wanted to expand on Hütter a bit. His spell in Gladbach was underwhelming, but he walked into an unexpectedly chaotic club at the time and a lot of promises the club made were broken (partially caused by an evolving burnout syndrome or something like that of their DoF at the time - Max Eberl, who now is at Bayern). So I think we can more or less ignore that time.

But before that he managed Eintracht Frankfurt for three seasons, and that quite successfully. He took over from Niko Kovac (who won the cup in his final match against Bayern, before moving himself to Bayern) and established Frankfurt as an "Europa League team" (finished 7th, 9th and 5th which means qualifying two times). They also had one great EL run in his time, only ended in the semifinal against later winners Chelsea (and that was a penalty shootout in the end).

Besides that run they had some other great results in big matches as well. Most famous surely the 5-1 against Bayern, which resulted in Bayern kicking out Kovac and replacing him with Flick (who went on to win the sextuple).

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Then we're left with the inevitable problem of what the new manager does with Bruno the reckless. We'll never control a game and keep possession with him

Phase him out. There’s no other way.

 

[Wilt]

We actually have a totally ridiculous 23 points from the last 19 league games. That's 46 points for a whole season, which is usually enough for the 15th position. So we're crap not just this season, but a long time ago. We don't score goals. Last time when the team scored less than 5 goals in the first 7 matches (happened only once, four im 1973-74) the team finished 21st and got relegated. We are one of the worst team in the league not just this season, and someone still supports ten Hag. Shocking.

Shocking. Literally just hovering above relegation form.

Still supporting ETH must be either oppo’s or WUM’s.

 

[OmarUnited4ever]

I've been thinking, how would a new manager make use of this squad as currently constructed.

Don't get me wrong, I want EtH gone, and I believe he deploys terrible tactics that do not fit the team, and his in-game management is terrible.

however, I am still not sure if we cannot take a look at the playing squad and the quality in the team, I am a firm believer that a group of good and quality players should still be able to perform even in tactics and styles of plays that might not suite them, the team won't win anything major, but simply being good and having quality should get you somewhere, not very far, but somewhere, and it should also ensure that smaller teams with lesser quality do not beat you routinely, and right now, not only we are not going somewhere, we are actually regressing even further back, which made me question the actual quality.

I am certain the current top 4 (Liverpool, City, Arsenal & Chelsea) as well as Villa, have better squads than United if we go man for man, so the question is then is this squad is as good as teams like Spurs, Newcastle & Brighton? can this current squad actually get top 4 for example if a good coach is brought in?

After watching 10 competitive games this season, I am not sure the players we have in the squad in it is totality is actually any good, many of our terrible results is littered with tonne of silly individual mistakes that quality players do not make.

 

[Cathy Ferguson]

I've been thinking, how would a new manager make use of this squad as currently constructed.

Don't get me wrong, I want EtH gone, and I believe he deploys terrible tactics that do not fit the team, and his in-game management is terrible.

however, I am still not sure if we cannot take a look at the playing squad and the quality in the team, I am a firm believer that a group of good and quality players should still be able to perform even in tactics and styles of plays that might not suite them, the team won't win anything major, but simply being good and having quality should get you somewhere, not very far, but somewhere, and it should also ensure that smaller teams with lesser quality do not beat you routinely, and right now, not only we are not going somewhere, we are actually regressing even further back, which made me question the actual quality.

I am certain the current top 4 (Liverpool, City, Arsenal & Chelsea) as well as Villa, have better squads than United if we go man for man, so the question is then is this squad is as good as teams like Spurs, Newcastle & Brighton? can this current squad actually get top 4 for example if a good coach is brought in?

After watching 10 competitive games this season, I am not sure the players we have in the squad in it is totality is actually any good, many of our terrible results is littered with tonne of silly individual mistakes that quality players do not make.

This squad is terribly overrated. We have a squad for position 6-10. Our attackers are even below that.

 

[Laurencio]

I've been thinking, how would a new manager make use of this squad as currently constructed.

Don't get me wrong, I want EtH gone, and I believe he deploys terrible tactics that do not fit the team, and his in-game management is terrible.

however, I am still not sure if we cannot take a look at the playing squad and the quality in the team, I am a firm believer that a group of good and quality players should still be able to perform even in tactics and styles of plays that might not suite them, the team won't win anything major, but simply being good and having quality should get you somewhere, not very far, but somewhere, and it should also ensure that smaller teams with lesser quality do not beat you routinely, and right now, not only we are not going somewhere, we are actually regressing even further back, which made me question the actual quality.

I am certain the current top 4 (Liverpool, City, Arsenal & Chelsea) as well as Villa, have better squads than United if we go man for man, so the question is then is this squad is as good as teams like Spurs, Newcastle & Brighton? can this current squad actually get top 4 for example if a good coach is brought in?

After watching 10 competitive games this season, I am not sure the players we have in the squad in it is totality is actually any good, many of our terrible results is littered with tonne of silly individual mistakes that quality players do not make.

System beats individual quality. The key is to find a system that takes advantage of our strengths and minimises our weakness. As it is we are just chucking "the best" players on the pitch in a "set" system that everyone is supposed to adapt to, and that doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to begin with. We aren’t as good as those who we want to compete with, but we have a wide variety of players who can play in many different systems, so we likely need to adapt our style to the opposition and what we have available at any given time.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the vast majority of our players are having the worst spells of their careers under Ten Hag at Man Utd. It's nothing new for players that join us to turn to shite, or be injured, or for us to be shite, but it's never been as bad as this. One thing is being shite and finishing top 6 for a season before bouncing back, another is being shite, playing like a lower table side and quickly becoming worse season by season.

 

[westmeath]

It doesn’t really matter who we appoint. The damage is done, we’ve bought a lot of terrible footballers. We have very little money left. Would be hilarious if we got Alonso but this job is beyond the capabilities of any manager.

 

[McGrathsipan]

It doesn’t really matter who we appoint. The damage is done, we’ve bought a lot of terrible footballers. We have very little money left. Would be hilarious if we got Alonso but this job is beyond the capabilities of any manager.

shut the doors then?

 

[Jock Steins Boots]

I genuinely think this is a 2 stage situation, we need a here and now coach that will drag this squad out of the mire and make the team competitive and difficult to beat.

Surely SJR and the Management team have made their mind up already about ETH, he is not a coach who has the personality to manage one of Europe’s biggest Clubs.

Right now we need to pick up wins and sometimes win ugly and stop the team leaking goals, we also need an experienced Elite coach that has EPL experience and can adapt his team formation in each game to get those necessary points, so we must either Appoint Jose, Conte Or Thomas Tuchel, two of them have won the PL and two of them have won the CL, but only one of them has won both but he’s probably the coach who is currently the most in Decline.

I think Conte will reinvent himself this year and go very close to wining Serie A with Napoli, next year he’ll fall out and be on the market again but right now, right here we must appoint Tuchel, he’s available, knows the EPL, has a brilliant record in Europe with all of his teams, this is a guy that has been to 3 CL Semi Finals and 2 Finals and has 1 victory, he’s won 11 out of 12 domestic and European Semi Finals and 8 from 14 major finals. I think he will be a United Coach for maybe 3 years, maximum 4 but the club will be in a much better position when he leaves.

Many fans forget he had 63% win rate for Chelsea, averages over 2 points per game in all of His last 4 big jobs, Dortmund, PSG, Chelsea and Bayern and averages over 2 goals per game.

United have 31 games left so if he does what he’s good at he would probably get this squad to 70 points and somewhere around 4th-5th, from where we are right now, that would be a monumental transformation.

He also is tactically incredibly flexible and will change From a 4 man defence to 3 or 5 depending on the opposition. He’s miles better than our current coach, clearly wants the job but with the ability to veto transfer which is normal for an elite coach. I also think he will fancy wining the Europa League with Man United and consider that a huge trophy to add to his record.

In 3 or 4 years, the next young genius coach will emerge or coaches like McKenna would be finally ready, but right now we need a sure thing whose available and will not cost any money to negotiate from a club that he’s currently working for?

Excellent post.
When you lay it out like that, it makes a lot more sense.

 

[croadyman]

If INEOS dont sack him now, that means they are throwing away this season, which is a really really bad move imo. Doesnt garner confidence in the new regime.

Mine will evaporate if they bottle this, shame really because they made some decent transfer deals

 

[westmeath]

shut the doors then?

It’s extremely grim. I can’t see how it gets turned around. Throw in an investment in a new stadium on top and it just gets worse. Our brand has been great and a fantastic money spinner globally but 5 more years of mediocrity will kill that.

 

[J!!Z]

I've been thinking, how would a new manager make use of this squad as currently constructed.

Don't get me wrong, I want EtH gone, and I believe he deploys terrible tactics that do not fit the team, and his in-game management is terrible.

however, I am still not sure if we cannot take a look at the playing squad and the quality in the team, I am a firm believer that a group of good and quality players should still be able to perform even in tactics and styles of plays that might not suite them, the team won't win anything major, but simply being good and having quality should get you somewhere, not very far, but somewhere, and it should also ensure that smaller teams with lesser quality do not beat you routinely, and right now, not only we are not going somewhere, we are actually regressing even further back, which made me question the actual quality.

I am certain the current top 4 (Liverpool, City, Arsenal & Chelsea) as well as Villa, have better squads than United if we go man for man, so the question is then is this squad is as good as teams like Spurs, Newcastle & Brighton? can this current squad actually get top 4 for example if a good coach is brought in?

After watching 10 competitive games this season, I am not sure the players we have in the squad in it is totality is actually any good, many of our terrible results is littered with tonne of silly individual mistakes that quality players do not make.

I disagree on the quality of the squad. The defence is composed of a mix of very good players who play at a good level and have experience. The midfield is also made of a mix of very talented individuals and experienced pro who in the right setup can should be able to play well. The attack is the only part of this team where there is a relative lack of experience but in a system that gets the best out of them, you should expect their productivity to improve. This team is not Sure top 4 quality but it's no where worse than the squad of those teams currently battling for top 4-7 currently.

All we need now is a manager who can make them play better as a collective. When you do that, squad upgrades become easier because weaknesses become easier to spot.

Right now no player in this squad is playing at his level talk more of above it. Every player apart from Onana is underperforming (some would argue the coach hasn't even used Onana's ball playing ability as well as possible) and that's a systemic issue. I'll always use Newcastle as an example of how players look poor in a bad system. Newcastle were in relegation form when Howe took over. At the time many were surprised that he would take on such a job given his tactics and questions were asked if the Squad had the ability to play the kind of football Howe was known to favour. In less than 6 months and barely any major Changes to the starting 11 he had players like Willock and Wilson playing out of their skin.

I actually feel for some of our signings because I van imagine the shock someone like Zirkzee must be feeling coming from the structured system of Motta where his role as a false 9 was solid and clear to this mess of an attack where everybody is overthinking or Deligt being asked to defend acres of space and still have to watch his back in the paciest league in the world without any reasonable midfield protection.

 

[didz]

First of all: Great post. Just wanted to expand on Hütter a bit. His spell in Gladbach was underwhelming, but he walked into an unexpectedly chaotic club at the time and a lot of promises the club made were broken (partially caused by an evolving burnout syndrome or something like that of their DoF at the time - Max Eberl, who now is at Bayern). So I think we can more or less ignore that time.

But before that he managed Eintracht Frankfurt for three seasons, and that quite successfully. He took over from Niko Kovac (who won the cup in his final match against Bayern, before moving himself to Bayern) and established Frankfurt as an "Europa League team" (finished 7th, 9th and 5th which means qualifying two times). They also had one great EL run in his time, only ended in the semifinal against later winners Chelsea (and that was a penalty shootout in the end).

Besides that run they had some other great results in big matches as well. Most famous surely the 5-1 against Bayern, which resulted in Bayern kicking out Kovac and replacing him with Flick (who went on to win the sextuple).

I saw Toppmoller mentioned as a left-field option this morning but I can't say I've seen much of Frankfurt this season, and I think he was assistant to Nagelsman until last year. Any good?

 

[LordSpud]

shut the doors then?

Just expect mid table mediocrity

 

[Tom Van Persie]

 

[horsechoker]

Apparently he's an unlikeable dickhead

 

[golden_blunder]

Nobody likes sacking staff, but sometimes you have to go where the data is leading you and all the analysis of results is not good for Ten Hags time

 

[stefan92]

I saw Toppmoller mentioned as a left-field option this morning but I can't say I've seen much of Frankfurt this season, and I think he was assistant to Nagelsman until last year. Any good?

I'd say he needs to mature still. Managed to qualify for the EL in his first season with Frankfurt, but did it in a very boring way nobody was happy about (just think of United under van Gaal, I think that's a good stylistic comparison).

However Frankfurt definitely did right what United did wrong after last season - make a real post season analysis, decide on what has to change and committed to do it together. So this season Frankfurt is much more direct again (like they were before Toppmöller under Kovac/Hütter/Glasner and became an exciting team and arguably in terms of titles have been the second best team in Germany for some years), much more entertaining and so far more successful. It shows that Toppmöller is able and willing to learn, but I am not yet fully convinced of him in the long run.

As we are talking about Frankfurt I'll give you an even more left field option: In my opinion right now Markus Krösche would be a bigger upgrade over Dan Ashworth than Dino Toppmöller would be over EtH.

 

[golden_blunder]

Changed my vote to Tuchel. I think that he would have the biggest impact straight away