Mike Phelan signed a contract extension in late 2021

Sky1981 said:
I'm aware of that, but

1. He's 60+ , he doesn't run around in the pitch, doesn't mean he doesn't do meeting, instruct, listen, analyze and decide whose does what. Nobody needs the manager to run along in the pitch, but I do expect them to oversee the whole thing. There's delegation, and there's I don't care, you do this for me.

2. SAF didn't focus only on training, he's basically our DOF and he undersee a lot more aspect on top of first team football. So it's understandable that he delegates a lot of the tiny details. Ole main job is coaching, if he doesn't coach than what good is he?

3. SAF got the result, he could be home playing minecraft for all I care but if he keeps on winning, nobody would care. Ole doesn't, it doesn't matter if he's the hardest working longest distance runner in the training pitch, off he goes. The point that we aren't doing so well and he comes up with this "I don't do training" only exacerbates the issue.

4. Ole is not SAF

So tell me again, if he doesn't coach, what is it that he does at United?
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I'd say you've just contradicted and/or undermined all the points from your previous post mate. Well done.

SAF wasn't 60+ in the 90's.

Every manager since SAF has had basically the same duties as we didn't have a DOF.

No Solskjaer isn't SAF and you'll have to accept no one is mate. Success isn't guaranteed with anyone we hire. But developing bitterness and dislike/hatred toward them if they aren't successful isn't productive and probably not very healthy.
 
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stevoc said:
I'd say you've just contradicted and/or undermined all the points from your previous post mate. Well done.

SAF wasn't 60+ in the 90's.

Every manager since SAF has had basically the same duties as we didn't have a DOF.

No Solskjaer isn't SAF and you'll have to accept no one is mate. Success isn't guaranteed with anyone we hire. But developing bitterness and dislike/hatred toward them if they aren't successful isn't productive and probably not very healthy.
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So calling them a bad manager and a bad coaching staff is hatred?
 
Greck said:
The biggest issue for me wasn't just that. As we all know SAF also delegated. The biggest issue was emulating it simply because SAF did it. Why emulate SAF in that when you can't emulate the man and squad management prowess that justified his methods. These ex-players really stepped into management from day one and said I'm going to imitate SAF like for like, strengths and caveats and improve on nothing else.

It's just odd to hear he and Phelan with their combined 20 years of experienced delegated training to a bunch of inexperienced hands and outright refused to hire coaching help after our play continued to suffer in cohesion and reliance on induvial production. Talk about imitating someone blindly.
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Ferguson earned his respect the hard way. Working to build up his team, getting them playing how he wanted, strengthening, cajoling, blowing his hair drier until he achieved success.

He then worked at improving his side every year. Another piece in the jigsaw each window. A new assistant to freshen things up. Never complacent. Tuning what he had each season.

You can't get the success without the hard graft and preparation.

That's the mistake OGS and Phelan made - coupled with an unbalanced squad, underperforming "stars" and misfits
 
Daengophile said:
Ferguson earned his respect the hard way. Working to build up his team, getting them playing how he wanted, strengthening, cajoling, blowing his hair drier until he achieved success.

He then worked at improving his side every year. Another piece in the jigsaw each window. A new assistant to freshen things up. Never complacent. Tuning what he had each season.

You can't get the success without the hard graft and preparation.

That's the mistake OGS and Phelan made - coupled with an unbalanced squad, underperforming "stars" and misfits
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Oh yes, Fergie didn't just delegate for the sake of it. He actually started out taking them but later delegated to level up his man, squad and tactcical management.

As he moved up—to St. Mirren and Aberdeen, in Scotland, and then, after spectacular success at Aberdeen, to Manchester United—he increasingly delegated the training sessions to his assistant coaches. But he was always present, and he watched. The switch from coaching to observing, he told us, allowed him to better evaluate the players and their performances. “As a coach on the field, you don’t see everything,” he noted. A regular observer, however, can spot changes in training patterns, energy levels, and work rates.

"Observation is the final part of my management structure. When I started as a coach, I relied on several basics: that I could play the game well, that I understood the technical skills needed to succeed at the highest level, that I could coach players, and that I had the ability to make decisions."
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Even then it wasn't a complete handsoff approach.
It didn’t take away my control. My presence and ability to supervise were always there, and what you can pick up by watching is incredibly valuable. Once I stepped out of the bubble, I became more aware of a range of details, and my performance level jumped. Seeing a change in a player’s habits or a sudden dip in his enthusiasm allowed me to go further with him: Is it family problems? Is he struggling financially? Is he tired? What kind of mood is he in? Sometimes I could even tell that a player was injured when he thought he was fine.

I don’t think many people fully understand the value of observing. I came to see observation as a critical part of my management skills. The ability to see things is key—or, more specifically, the ability to see things you don’t expect to see.
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His decision to delegate training was a very personalized process. Not sure one should emulate that aspect just because. Good chance you won't have all of his strengths to make it work. All our ex players just imitate him like they did. Ole would often struggle on when to make subs and which subs to make. Not sure he experienced the same benefit of stepping back that Fergie did.
 
Greck said:
Oh yes, Fergie didn't just delegate for the sake of it. He actually started out taking them but later delegated to level up his man, squad and tactcical management.



Even then it wasn't a complete handsoff approach.


His decision to delegate training was a very personalized process. Not sure one should emulate that aspect just because. Good chance you won't have all of his strengths to make it work. All our ex players just imitate him like they did. Ole would often struggle on when to make subs and which subs to make. Not sure he experienced the same benefit of stepping back that Fergie did.
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Exactly this.

from the link that was shared earlier, below bits are key:

‘He set the tone, he would give the coaches the instructions what we need to work on this week, but not once did he take a session, it was all down to the coaches,’ Giggs told BeIN Sports’ The Champions Club.
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Meulensteen, who was first team coach at United from 2007-13, confirms that Ferguson told him what he wanted to achieve from training, but it was up to the coach to do that.

‘When Ferguson called me in, he promoted me to first-team coach, he had his flip-charts about how to defend and how to keep possession,’ said the Dutchman. ‘But his main thing was his attacking style and he had four words he used about it: speed, power, penetration and unpredictability.
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SAF was not delegating for the sake of it, he had a clear vision on what was needed and observed things like a hawk and was very decisive when his intervention was needed.
 
What I don't understand is why people feel the need to know what the ins and outs of Mike Phelan's role are.

For what benefit? Does it really help one sleep at night to know Mick Phelan was responsible for leading a session, or leading a particular meeting with a group of players, or liaising with whoever else, or offering an opinion?

He's a staff member and he's on the payroll, that's enough to know he has a function as it's not really possible to sneak around a football club doing nothing and earning a pay cheque like you can in some 9-5s. Why we need to know the minutiae beyond that for one of about 50 odd staff that must be associated with the first team I absolutely can't fathom, we have a strange fixation on support staff way beyond the significance of the role.

There are probably people sat in a commercial department with job titles that mean very little to an outside observer, why stop at Phelan!
 
Is he still with United? I haven't seen him in a long time. Just Fletcher and the bald Ted Lasso next to Rangnick.
 
Page one tells you all you need to know about how the club is run. We were deep into Ole's sack form but someone went ahead and re-signed all his staff. When does the assistant of a sacked manager outstay the person he was brought to assist?

Carrick and McKenna bravely and gracefully left rather than impose themselves on future managers. Phelan was renewed as an assistant manager but on matchdays Fletcher is the one taking greater responsibility in the dugout. You can't keep staff around and think the next manager will even get along with them.

Ready for backlash of this statement but but he needs to respect himself and step down. Those contract renewals that kept him here were a mistake anyway. He was a key figure and number 2 in a failed regime. By merit there's little reason to have him here. Especially since Ole, Mckenna and Carrick are gone. We have Fletcher, Murtough and are signing a Deputy DOF. Phelan is just loitering club premises at this point. We shouldn't have to make up a new position. We already have enough people in roles they have no experience in.
 
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Greck said:
Page one tells you all you need to know about how the club is run. We were deep into Ole's sack form but someone went ahead and re-signed all his staff. When does the assistant of a sacked manager outstay the person he was brought to assist?

Carrick and McKenna bravely and gracefully left rather than impose themselves on future managers. Phelan was renewed as an assistant manager but on matchdays Fletcher is the one taking greater responsibility in the dugout. You can't keep staff around and think the next manager will even get along with them.

Ready for backlash of this statement but but he needs to respect himself and step down. Those contract renewals that kept him here were a mistake anyway. He was a key figure and number 2 in a failed regime. By merit there's little reason to have him here. Especially since Ole, Mckenna and Carrick are gone. We have Fletcher, Murtough and are signing a Deputy DOF. Phelan is just loitering club premises at this point. We shouldn't have to make up a new position. We already have enough people in roles they have no experience in.
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I'd agree with this in fairness.
Time to go for MP.
 
Aye if only the squad showed as much commitment as he did when making teas and taking uber eats orders for the actual coaching staff.
 
So.... where and what is he now? might need him to be the good cop. Just saying.
 
Thought he had already been moved to an upstairs role during Rangnick's tenure
 
I had presumed he was the source of the news, that the United players may now express themselves as Ronaldo is apparently leaving. That probably was the final straw.
 
Some of the early posts in this thread about "Ole being long term so get used to it" aged well :lol:
 
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