Maybe we should take away the word blame as its connotation is pretty bad. I am sure nobody here will ever want to have a shot at SAF because of what he did for the club. But being a manager at a club like ours, being the kind of manager SAF has been, he was needed to make an infinite number of decisions and of course not all of them were always right or the best decision in the long run. Nothing malicious about stating that but we lose out on potential to learn from previous lessons if we just wash these "wrong turns" away by stating "...but we were so successful".
To be honest, even back in the day, I thought it was a quite an un-Fergie like action to step down as the manager and doing nothing to prevent David Gill from stepping down at the same time. This was always going to make life for the "new ones" way harder than it would have been, if there was a one or two year delay in between. I mean both of them must have been aware of the inexperience of Woodward (not even starting about Moyes on this level) so in conclusion: I don't blame SAF for it, but there would have been a few things that could have been done to smooth'en the whole transition.
Ed has been rightfully criticised for a few things in here but context is king and you lose out on a valuable lesson if you just end the issue by declaring someone as the scapegoat.
I agree with you on that. How do you know all these things about the state of the academy? Do you have some links to explore?
There is one thing I'd like to add a few points to your statements. You mentioned that the manager choices were met by a mostly happy fanbase and that some negativity today arises from the "hindsight is 20-20" standpoint. I think you are right but this "fanbase being happy with appointments" is a problematic barometer as happiness potentially stems more from something manifesting the end of something dreadful than the outlook of something promising starting.
I mean we have all witnessed Moyes and his struggles, so it felt somewhat good when LVG was announced to take over from him as at least he came with the pedigree of being a top club manager. But even back then LVG was not one of the more sought-after managers. It took Heynckes to finish and polish his job at FC Bayern and I think most of our fans had some comments from Bayern-players in mind, pointing out that LVG laid the foundations for the great Bayern side of 2013/14, that thumped Barcelona in the CL 7:0. It was about laying good foundations at ManUnited with LVG from at least my perspective while he himself seemingly started some sort of Galactico route.
Mourinho himself came also from a rather unfavourable position, having been axed by Chelsea after taking part of very ugly things surrounding that club for while. I guess, the fan happiness was even more connected to LVG really torturing us with his brand of football and his obvious insistence of proving himself to be not-outdated while hampering the club on that egoistic quest.
If I remember correctly even back then I think the most optimistic fans were saying "lets hope Mourinho is serious about this being a long-term commitment and hopefully at least he could bring some level of success back to stabilize the club and make progress on the transition". I think, the majority was aware that stylistically, Mourinho players and LVG players are quite different. And I think the majority was very aware of Mourinho being a potential risk as we have seen him creating deep issues within the squad and club on at least two instances (Chelsea and Real).
All in all, I think "fans were happy back then" isn't a good barometer for evaluating the job of the one person responsible for appointing the manager.
I agree, fan opinion is never a good barometer to measure things, but in the context of how the discussion evolved in this thread, it was brought up, but it's not important in the grand of scheme things.
Regarding the managerial appointments post Fergie, I was for the appointment of LVG and against the other two (Mourinho, Moyes) due to footballing reasons, believe it or not. Van Gaal's Ajax team had a profound affect on me growing up, in the way they played the game and how he was ahead of the game when it came to coaching at the time . Without going into too much detail, he coached his team straight from the Rinus Michels play book but turbo charged the same (Michels) approach to create a team made up of teenagers and experience alike, that would go on to win the European Cup playing a brand of football that was mind boggling due to how they were coached in overloading offensive zones but without losing defensive structure. So they'd go away to teams like Real Madrid and pin them in their own half and comfortably win the game. And he did that by coaching his players to adopt the total football mantra of Michels, where interchangeability/positional play was key and it helped cause confusion in opposition ranks which enabled Ajax to unhinge opposition defensive lines without sacrificing their defensive structure. But what he did, that not a lot of people know at the time was to bring in the best data analysts, sports scientists, nutritionists to the club which added to his existing staff that created the structure that would provide him with the platform to elevate his Ajax team from the best in the Eredivisie to the best in Europe. And below I'll give my take on why I feel he failed, along with the two managers post Fergie at our club.
Our owners are incompetent and I've been saying that on here for several years now. So let me get that out of the way before I proceed.
After Fergie retired and David Gill jumped ship with him, the football structure was broken and I've provided details in my previous posts as to why I came to that conclusion. Ed Woodward who had no experience in such a role was thrust into the role of the CEO of the club with a manager he inherited who was also 'green' at such a huge club with a demanding fan base. So this was always gonna end bad, especially for David Moyes who asked the club to give him access to the player database, which never existed, and he was told everything was in Jim Lawlor's head, who was our only fulltime scout after Fergie's brother, Martin Ferguson also retired, which was a reduction from the two full time scouts under Fergie.
So our issues stem from having a non existent succession plan. And then putting people into positions who had very little to no experience in their respective roles with a broken football structure. So Woodward ended up giving control to managers for far too long which had other knock on effects which we're seeing to this day. And that's down to his naivety which I've mentioned in prior years, which caused instability at the club.
But I'm crediting Woodward for putting in place mechanisms at the club which has seen a ten fold improvement in our academy compared to what he inherited. And also the complete revamp of our footballing structure which has taken years to complete after John Murtough was appointed in November 2013. It might take a new Head Coach to come in to take us back to the top. But as things stand, things are looking very positive regarding the mid to longterm future IMO.
And this is to those people who say that the key roles have been filled by mates of Woodward and Solskjaer. Bayern have done the same, Dortmund have done the same and even hired ex player Sebastian Kehl to work alongside Michael Zorc after Kehl had returned from his back-packing adventures. Rangnick also works with his mates and so does Luis Campos.
