attacking football, blooding youth.....bring guardiola then, he can bring a part of the cruyff school to OT and mix it with SAF's legacy and create a truly unstoppable club.
Again, if Guardiola leaves Barca (his childhood club, and where he spents his entire top flight managerial coaching debut, won all, and if he leave them in 3 years time, what are the odds he's staying more than 5 at United?
Some good points made there Stretch, which i agree with. Although the reason for leaving Chelsea was in my view, because he was bitching to the media that Roman had told him he had had enough money (Waitrose comments), so Roman told him to like it or lump it basically, and he lumped it.
The trouble i have, is say we did get Mourinho and we won the treble in his first year, where is the evidence he would stay? He has never stayed anywhere after a CL triumph. So what then?
I believe that is because he knows his style is not conducive to long term sustained success and that is why he quickly moves on soon after.
Short term fixes are never the answer, we have the plan already in place. We just need to find the right man who shares similar values to SAF to continue his work.
Guardiola has done similarly at Barca. Cruyff had the plan and Guardiola has implemented it. It's more about the strategy than the man imo.
If we won the treble or even sustaining the EPL title after SAF retire, that'll change the whole outcourse of the history. Imagine if Liverpool won a few title with Souness, it'll paint a whole different story, their domination will long continue, it give them believe most of all.
20+ years onwards what souness did still leave them with handicap, they know deep inside they're second best to United (at least since the dawn of Premier league)
As much as we value our tradition in attacking football, youth, history and stuff.. it only matters if you won something, Liverpool are not lesser than us when it terms to history and stuff, but do they get the recognition they deserve since our era of dominance? Sure, they still get plenty of overseas support, but they stem from older generations of fans which still sees their glory year.
If you're saying feck the overseas and glory hunter, sadly they're part of what makes a great club, because only great clubs attracts glory hunter, it'll be selfish thought to sacrifice everything just to preserve the other.
Glory won't be attained with attacking phylosophy only (see most spanish club, they're attacking but we don't even know much other than Barca, Madrid, Valencia, and perhaps some lesser teams), youth we have West Ham, Leeds, Arsenal who's pretty good in that department, but that alone won't class West ham in the same breath with United. It's trophy won, glory, second is nothing that makes Manchester United what it is today.
I'm not worried about plan, all great managers like Mourinho, Wenger, Dalglish, Cruyff won't get to where they are without plan, they too have plans, it's only whether they're given room to implement it. SHould the Glazer cut and chop every few years i don't think any manager can sustain and carry on with whatever plan SAF left behind.
But I know one thing, Mourinho have that resilience I haven't seen for all of my life watching football, the way he doesn't break his nerve when the whole media is against him, the way it doesn't effect his game plan, the way his player have faith in him (those at madrids are not an easy bunch to handle), his tactical nous, like I said, hindsight is a wonderful thing we don't have the luxury of having, which is why all and all he is still our best bet. He might not turns out to be the best, but not knowing the future he is our best bet.
SAF have all the luxury of managing United long enough for him to tell the media to feck off, and we listen to him, we're on his side, he's the good guys. But let's not be naive, the next man at helm will probably divide the forum ala hogdson pretty fast, not many questions SAF approach, no one dared as tehy've proven wrong time and times again. But with a new coach at the helm, the doom monger will be up in full force.
We need someone with JM's charisma to buy time for him to work, lesser manager won't have that. Imagine if the likes of Blanc, Ole, Giggs, Villa Boas, finishes 4th with United post SAF, it'll quickly spiral into doom prediction, and it'll in turn adding extra pressure, and the vicious cycle repeats.
With JM's resume and CV, we at least have a better faith in what he's capable of, irregardless of result.
Imo the most important traits is mental strenght above all else, Mental strenght is what buys SAF some time, or he probably would have resign years before we actually become good.
Think you have missed my point there Sky. My point was that Liverppol have had to go back to one of their own to get their sense of identity and spirit back. If we make the same mistakes they made, putting instant success over long term stability we do not have a Dalglish type figure who could come back in to do what he has done. That was my point.
It was one of their own that dismantle their domination as well.