Next permanent manager | Poll updated

Who should be the next permanent manager?

  • Luis Enrique

    Votes: 113 7.4%

  • Erik ten Hag

    Votes: 1,300 84.7%

  • Julen Lopetegui

    Votes: 10 0.7%

  • Mauricio Pochettino

    Votes: 79 5.1%

  • None of the above

    Votes: 32 2.1%
  • Total voters
    1,534
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altodevil said:
Young? He's the same age Jose was when he started his second Chelsea stint.
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Yes, he is young for a manager, different managers can peak at different times, same as footballers, comparing years with other managers is silly.
 
evil_geko said:
Yes, he is young for a manager, different managers can peak at different times, same as footballers, comparing years with other managers is silly.
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What makes you think that he hasn't peaked? And Pochettino is not young for a manager, 12 years is a long time.
 
Andycoleno9 said:
At the end of season yes. But why now? He has nailed league trophy and at least one cup. And journos saying that he would come now. No way.

I wish i am wrong. Poch is my no1 choice
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He’s living in a hotel in Paris whilst wife and one of his son’s are still in UK. He not happy and desperate to get back.
 
MrSingh2002 said:


One reason why Rangnick should be the interim manager and then transition to Director of Football.

Clarity at last would be bliss.
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Thanks for sharing, fascinating insight. He mentions Pep, Klopp, Tuchel from England... no mention of us which is telling. "A little bit of pressing is being slightly pregnant " I really hope we get a coach with a clear plan next.
 
JPRouve said:
What makes you think that he hasn't peaked? And Pochettino is not young for a manager, 12 years is a long time.
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Nothing, no one knows if he has or hasn't, that's the thing, people act like he will never win anything for sure, written in stone, that's it. He isn't my first choice but I am willing to give him a chance, he had some great moments with Spurs.
 
The bigger issue for me is not just the next manager, but, that whoever it it is are allowed to bring in or pick their own support team. Put any manager in charge with our current back room will be a disaster - whoever they are.
 
Red Royal said:
Thanks for sharing, fascinating insight. He mentions Pep, Klopp, Tuchel from England... no mention of us which is telling. "A little bit of pressing is being slightly pregnant " I really hope we get a coach with a clear plan next.
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We won't, it's going to be Poch.
 
evil_geko said:
Nothing, no one knows if he has or hasn't, that's the thing, people act like he will never win anything for sure, written in stone, that's it. He isn't my first choice but I am willing to give him a chance, he had some great moments with Spurs.
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The problem is not just about him not winning it's his attitude and what he says, last week he was complaining about the increase of expectation and the fact that before every game the expectation is to win. I'm sorry but he hasn't changed and his mentality is wrong. Maybe he will somehow change at United but I don't see why, I don't see why he would gain a winning mentality and accept pressure when he reaches Manchester.

Now, I will give him every chance to evolve after 12 years if he joins United.
 
Red Royal said:
Thanks for sharing, fascinating insight. He mentions Pep, Klopp, Tuchel from England... no mention of us which is telling. "A little bit of pressing is being slightly pregnant " I really hope we get a coach with a clear plan next.
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A little bit of pressing is what Ole had us doing vs Liverpool and he got his pants pulled down because of it.

Ragnick vs Klopp. I'd pay to see it.
 
Henrik Larsson said:
Yeah, I was just trying to paint a picture of how the success of Ajax came from having a consistent structure throughout the club and gradually improving on that, while keeping the same philosophy over a period of almost ten years. Summed up it would look something like this

- 2009: Ajax were in a bad financial situation and had parted ways with their tradions up until Martin Jol. Then came the so called Cruijffian revolution, including a salary cap and a limited transfer budget, and the re-focus on homegrown players instead of overpaying for mediocre dross, a clear football philosophy with the classic 4-3-3 system which Jol didn't use, etc.

This happened under Frank de Boer, obviously he failed internationally as a manager, but at Ajax he did a wonderful job. They hadn't won the league in 7(!) years when he joined, but turned that around instantly by winning the league four times in a row. All while using mostly academy players and very cheap transfers because of the salary and budget cap, playing typical Ajax style possesion based football. This created a massive budget surplus (1st place led to direct CL group phase qualification four years in a row), about 100 million euro. Also helped by selling guys like Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Eriksen and Daley Blind.

There were some good results in Europe too under De Boer (beating Barca at home in the CL, finishing 3rd in a group with Real, Dortmund and City, knocking City who fisnished 4th in the group completely out of European football that year). But it wasn't an actual good run to a final or semi-final, and they had some very bad European performances as well.

- 2016: Peter Bosz took over and had a dramatic start, with those weird CL qualifiers at the start of the season.They got sent back to the Europa League, so the people in charge including Overmars decided to change the salary and budget cap to spend a little of the money they saved up and bought Ziyech, the best player in the Eredvisie at that time for 10 million, which was their biggest transfer in years. What followed was that first stand-out season in 21 years in Europe, leading to the EL final against United, which they considered a massive success at Ajax and proof their philosophy was working. But the squad was young and small, so they didn't win the domestic league that year, hindered by those intense Thursday night games. Bosz was also poached by Dortmund and decided to go for it, seeing it as a unique chance.

- 2017: They replaced Bosz with another bald Cruijff/Van Gaal/Guardiola adept called Marcel Keijzer, results weren't great so he got sacked after 6 monhts.

- 2018: another bald Cruijf/Guardiola adept, Erik ten Hag, was brought in. First six monhts weren't great, fans were going wild because of the lack of results despite having so much money in the bank.
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You're putting things out of context here. When Ten Hag took over Ajax where out of the title race. By the end of the season he almost won it, missing out on the title by 2 points. He had a similar stint to Ole when he was interim, minus the implosion at the end of the year.

The main gripes the fans had was that Ajax didn't have a discernable playing style. Ten Hag recognized this and implemented the current style we are familiar with. That's how he won the fans over.

And while the spending did increase under his stewardship, it's still not an explanation how he got 2 Ajax teams playing like world beaters in Europe considering managers with superior resources and structure have failed to do so. His core Ajax team from 2018-19 got raided. He rebuilded it from scratch from a team of rejects spearheaded by Haller who is on 7 goals in 4 matches in the CL.

While Overmars and VDS did play a crucial role in Ajax's current fortunes, let's not downplay the fact that they struck gold with ETH.
 
MrSingh2002 said:
A little bit of pressing is what Ole had us doing vs Liverpool and he got his pants pulled down because of it.

Ragnick vs Klopp. I'd pay to see it.
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Is he the real deal, even for an Interim role?? If he is so good how come he never had an offer of a bigger role (no disrespect to the clubs he did manage)?
 
1. Ragnick
2. Pochettino

I'd rather we had taken Conte but we are where we are now.

I could get behind the two of them. A partnership would be better though as manager and director of football. We could be a force if the powers that be would relinquish enough control to let them work.
 
I mean.. this could work out fine. I'd much rather get Pochettino permanently now than go through another 7 months of will he won't he and pin the tail on the interim..
 
Dansk said:
But we don't even know if he'll come at the end of the season, and we know he won't come now. It sounds like Poch will come now, and if the choice is between that and waiting to see if Ten Hag chooses to come in the summer, which is by no means guaranteed (is it even likely?), I think it's very clear what the safest bet is.

From what I can tell, Ten Hag has never expressed any interest in coming here. If he moves on from Ajax in the summer, he'll probably have other equally tempting offers. Coming from the familiar comfort of Ajax, I can see why he might not wish for his first attempt at a big club to be one where he has to untangle a mess and work under a notoriously inept board, with parasitic owners, and an incredible amount of pressure and media scrutiny. If I was him, I'd look for a less daunting route to the top tier of football management.
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My whole point is predicated on the fact that Ten Hag will have agreed to come to Manchester United at the end of the season.
 
George The Best said:
The bigger issue for me is not just the next manager, but, that whoever it it is are allowed to bring in or pick their own support team. Put any manager in charge with our current back room will be a disaster - whoever they are.
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whoever is coming in needs to be allowed to pick his own backroom staff for sure. The current setup is clearly not working and everybody at the club needs to understand that and move on.

Poch took 4 or 5 of his assistants from Spurs to PSG, I'd imagine he'd want to bring them to United too.
 
Tom Van Persie said:
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So we
Laurencio said:
I mean.. this could work out fine. I'd much rather get Pochettino permanently now than go through another 7 months of will he won't he and pin the tail on the interim..
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Yeah, I would seriously like Ten Hag, but really dont want to see 7 months of pass the parcel around ex-United players hoping he joins in the summer.
 
Berbaclass said:
If Laurens is saying it then it’s true. Poch is coming, Zidane will replace him there.
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Fred Hermel who actually knows Zidane, said that of course PSG are in contact with Zidane but that's true for everyone and there is currently nothing new.
 
JPRouve said:
What makes you think that he hasn't peaked? And Pochettino is not young for a manager, 12 years is a long time.
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49 isn't young for a manager? He's younger than both Ten Hag and Conte who seem to be everyone's favoured choices. Out of the list of managers on the poll, the only ones significantly younger than Pochettino are Marco Rose and Graham Potter at 4 and 3 years respectively. Everyone else is roughly the same age or older.
 
Henrik Larsson said:
Yeah, I was just trying to paint a picture of how the success of Ajax came from having a consistent structure throughout the club and gradually improving on that, while keeping the same philosophy over a period of almost ten years. Summed up it would look something like this

- 2009: Ajax were in a bad financial situation and had parted ways with their tradions up until Martin Jol. Then came the so called Cruijffian revolution, including a salary cap and a limited transfer budget, and the re-focus on homegrown players instead of overpaying for mediocre dross, a clear football philosophy with the classic 4-3-3 system which Jol didn't use, etc.

This happened under Frank de Boer, obviously he failed internationally as a manager, but at Ajax he did a wonderful job. They hadn't won the league in 7(!) years when he joined, but turned that around instantly by winning the league four times in a row. All while using mostly academy players and very cheap transfers because of the salary and budget cap, playing typical Ajax style possesion based football. This created a massive budget surplus (1st place led to direct CL group phase qualification four years in a row), about 100 million euro. Also helped by selling guys like Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Eriksen and Daley Blind.

There were some good results in Europe too under De Boer (beating Barca at home in the CL, finishing 3rd in a group with Real, Dortmund and City, knocking City who fisnished 4th in the group completely out of European football that year). But it wasn't an actual good run to a final or semi-final, and they had some very bad European performances as well.

- 2016: Peter Bosz took over and had a dramatic start, with those weird CL qualifiers at the start of the season.They got sent back to the Europa League, so the people in charge including Overmars decided to change the salary and budget cap to spend a little of the money they saved up and bought Ziyech, the best player in the Eredvisie at that time for 10 million, which was their biggest transfer in years. What followed was that first stand-out season in 21 years in Europe, leading to the EL final against United, which they considered a massive success at Ajax and proof their philosophy was working. But the squad was young and small, so they didn't win the domestic league that year, hindered by those intense Thursday night games. Bosz was also poached by Dortmund and decided to go for it, seeing it as a unique chance.

- 2017: They replaced Bosz with another bald Cruijff/Van Gaal/Guardiola adept called Marcel Keijzer, results weren't great so he got sacked after 6 monhts.

- 2018: another bald Cruijf/Guardiola adept, Erik ten Hag, was brought in. First six monhts weren't great, fans were going wild because of the lack of results despite having so much money in the bank.

So they took it a step further and made the two transfers that were absolutely crucial for their success of the last 3-4 years, by signing Blind and Tadic for about 30 million euro. Massive transfer fees compared to the 7 years previous, but those two guys brought in quality and also the maturity needed. Blind is known of course, Tadic I feel is extremely underrated (guy finished top 5 assists every year at Southampton and was brilliant in Holland before that). He and Memphis have been the most naturally talented Eredivsie forwards of the last decade, excluding Suarez.

Anyway, in combination with the young and talented batch that came through under Peter Bosz with De Ligt, De Jong, Onana, Van de Beek, and also very much the great transfers of players like Ziyech, Tagliafico, they had a team that had a remarkable run the CL, making the semi's in 2019. Which again created a massive budget surplus.

They won the league comfortably in Ten Hag's second full season, but struggled a bit in Europe, getting knocked out the CL by Atalanta in the group phase, and then knocked out the EL by AS Roma. So Ten Hag and Overmars both felt they needed to bring in more players to create good squad depth, they made more big transfers like buying Haller from West Ham for a record amount, also poaching Feyenoord's best player Steven Berghuis for 7 million last summer.

And now this season things are looking great again internationally. Though in the league, Feyenoord is putting in the best pound for pound performances at the moment, but in terms of quality available and in depth options Ajax has by far the best squad and they're favourites to win it. Playing a very exciting style perfectly implemented by Ten Hag.


Random things that deserve to be mentioned:

Marc Overmars became the DoF at Ajax in 2012. He deserves all the credit in the world for their fantastic, gradually improving, transfer strategy over the years. He was also personally involved with scouting a teenage Frenkie de Jong, who was brought in for peanuts and sold with 70+ million profit. It's not like all his transfers were perfect, but he's both sold and brought in such a tremendous amount of good players over the years.

Edwin van der Sar started as director of marketing at Ajax in 2012, just like Overmars and as a part of that Cruijffian revolution in the model of Bayern München where a club should be run by competent former players. He was trained over the years to take over as CEO which he did in 2016.

Overmars and Ten Hag seem to have a great click, so if I were in charge of a club I'd get them both as a package deal. And since it's United where VDS has a history, I can't blame people for getting enthusiastic about brining in all three of them.

Since this is the next permanent manager, the last thing I'm going to say is that Erik ten Hag looks like an excellent coach, in this specific Ajax structure. His stock is very high, and deservedly so because Ajax had some stellar achievements under him. But rating just him as a coach, outside of this specific Ajax structure, I do not see what makes him more special than someone like Peter Bosz, or Arne Slot, or even Giovanni van Bronckhorst who just took the Rangers job.

So would I want to see him as a United coach? Sure, but if we don't bring in guys like Overmars and VDS or others of that calibre that are a great match with his vision as a coach, I'm literally not sure what he's supposed to do at United. He'll implement his style, maybe it'll work for while, maybe he has no great chemistry with the squad. I really think we need to do a reboot as a club and plan for the next 5-10 years just like Ajax did in 2010.
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Great post
 
Rex Banner said:
49 isn't young for a manager? He's younger than both Ten Hag and Conte who seem to be everyone's favoured choices. Out of the list of managers on the poll, the only ones significantly younger than Pochettino are Marco Rose and Graham Potter at 4 and 3 years respectively. Everyone else is roughly the same age or older.
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The key point is managing for 12 years, after 12 years you are not a youing manager. Age isn't the main factor.
 
Tom Van Persie said:
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Zidane already said he doesn't want to start mid season.

I find it hard to believe PSG would let Poch leave unless they could secure a quality manager.

We've already seen how limited choices are right now.

Will be interesting to see what manager jumps at PSG and maybe a big pay deal.

Imagine they get Tag
 
MrSingh2002 said:
https://talksport.com/football/9607...fessor-tutu-punishment-chelsea-thomas-tuchel/

Bit of useful info about his career. Not sure why maybe he didn't go for a job at a huge club. Seems like he was close to Chelsea and the England job at one point though.
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It's all exaggeration, myth-building and self-promotion. Football journos are lazy and shameless so if they can use readymade sentences and narratives they'll gladly use them, and they don't care if they contribute to spreading knowledge, confusion, or downright falsehoods.

And with Rangnick it's easy because there are all these quotes of him talking all the time about what jobs he was in the running for and what kind of principled, grandstanding stuff he said to those clubs.
In reality, he's just some guy who did some work at some medium-sized clubs and for Red Bull. The "Professor" nickname was to make fun of him, for Christ's sake, not because he's actually that smart, but because he went around lecturing people while coaching some 10th division club :lol:
 
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George The Best said:
Woodward staying on to oversee the next appointment(s) is a worry - he’s been good at that, right
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Well he’s not appointing them soley by himself if he? He employed both Moyes and Ole on SAF’s advice and the ok from Joel.
And it’s not like he’s being replaced by VdS, he’s being replaced by another CEO-business, non-football mate.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Well he’s not appointing them soley by himself if he? He employed both Moyes and Ole on SAF’s advice and the ok from Joel.
And it’s not like he’s being replaced by VdS, he’s being replaced by another CEO-business, non-football mate.
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That’s the problem though isn’t it. This says he has no faith in those he’s leaving to make the right decisions either, but neither does he. We need someone like Edwin at the helm.
 
I'm also actually fairly certain Rangnick, or maybe his agent, wrote at least 40%, if not more, of his own Wikipedia entry himself.
 
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