Apologies for the wordiness of the title but I'm interested in gauging what the latest opinions are on this contentious subject.
I understand many are of the view that the issues we're already witnessing under Mourinho's stewardship (even factoring in the short time he's been here) are no different to the tenures of both Moyes and Van Gaal.
Complaints are commonly about our stark lack of creativity, tempo and identity. In other words we both play and look like crap far too often to have any realistic hopes of winning the league title.
My opinion has always been that towards the end of Fergie's reign (particularly a year or so after Ronaldo's departure) there was a distinct shift away from the long held value placed upon entertainment towards a significantly more pragmatic approach to the majority of our matches.
Arguably this can be coupled with Sir Alex's continued (and somewhat controversial) refusal to invest heavily in the transfer market during his latter years. He obviously felt the squad was good enough to compete at the highest level. However, perhaps this was only the case with him as the one-of-a-kind inspirational manager whereas anyone else would have seriously struggled.
Regardless a major consequence of all this was criticism of our style of play soon became common place. Many derided it as functional at best and downright woeful to watch at worst. And yet seemingly without playing 'well' for very large stretches of the last two or three seasons we still either won or came very close to winning the league.
And herein, in my view, lies the most crucial differentiating factor. People were being bored to tears at times during seasons 2011-12 and 2012-13 and even more importantly wondering just how the hell we were still managing to win so many games. And yet win we did. Watching the matches could be an absolute chore but we still somehow possessed enough determination, self-belief and fear factor to make us one of the strongest contenders for the top domestic honours.
Throughout Moyes and Van Gaal's reigns we were subjected to pitifully bad football. Was it worse than the final years of Sir Alex? It probably was but I don't think the gulf was as large as some might think. The problem these two men had was that they lacked (amongst many other things) one crucial aspect of Ferguson's skill-set - an innate ability to motivate a team to win when not playing well or even in some cases win when playing really badly!
I would question, however, had SAF stayed in charged how long this could or would have lasted before even he recognised that changes were needed both in terms of personnel and style of play.
Furthermore we could arguably also still be suffering from the aforementioned under-investment in the squad all these years later. Some will so say no because of the billions spent since. But has this been sensible spending or has it in fact been for a large part desperate and directionless? Had we continued to refresh and reinvigorate the squad earlier and more regularly would we be experiencing all the problems that have inhibited us in recent times?
I would conclude by saying that we have never really regularly impressed either results of perfomance-wise for such a long time now. There was an inkling of hope with Mourinho's positive start to the season but it seems this latest wave of optimism has had to be put on hold following our string of three defeats on the bounce.
Perhaps if somehow he can find a way to return us to the expansive and creative footballing style that brought years of enjoyment and success, thereby re-discovering our identity in the process, the results, trophies and titles will then soon follow.
I understand many are of the view that the issues we're already witnessing under Mourinho's stewardship (even factoring in the short time he's been here) are no different to the tenures of both Moyes and Van Gaal.
Complaints are commonly about our stark lack of creativity, tempo and identity. In other words we both play and look like crap far too often to have any realistic hopes of winning the league title.
My opinion has always been that towards the end of Fergie's reign (particularly a year or so after Ronaldo's departure) there was a distinct shift away from the long held value placed upon entertainment towards a significantly more pragmatic approach to the majority of our matches.
Arguably this can be coupled with Sir Alex's continued (and somewhat controversial) refusal to invest heavily in the transfer market during his latter years. He obviously felt the squad was good enough to compete at the highest level. However, perhaps this was only the case with him as the one-of-a-kind inspirational manager whereas anyone else would have seriously struggled.
Regardless a major consequence of all this was criticism of our style of play soon became common place. Many derided it as functional at best and downright woeful to watch at worst. And yet seemingly without playing 'well' for very large stretches of the last two or three seasons we still either won or came very close to winning the league.
And herein, in my view, lies the most crucial differentiating factor. People were being bored to tears at times during seasons 2011-12 and 2012-13 and even more importantly wondering just how the hell we were still managing to win so many games. And yet win we did. Watching the matches could be an absolute chore but we still somehow possessed enough determination, self-belief and fear factor to make us one of the strongest contenders for the top domestic honours.
Throughout Moyes and Van Gaal's reigns we were subjected to pitifully bad football. Was it worse than the final years of Sir Alex? It probably was but I don't think the gulf was as large as some might think. The problem these two men had was that they lacked (amongst many other things) one crucial aspect of Ferguson's skill-set - an innate ability to motivate a team to win when not playing well or even in some cases win when playing really badly!
I would question, however, had SAF stayed in charged how long this could or would have lasted before even he recognised that changes were needed both in terms of personnel and style of play.
Furthermore we could arguably also still be suffering from the aforementioned under-investment in the squad all these years later. Some will so say no because of the billions spent since. But has this been sensible spending or has it in fact been for a large part desperate and directionless? Had we continued to refresh and reinvigorate the squad earlier and more regularly would we be experiencing all the problems that have inhibited us in recent times?
I would conclude by saying that we have never really regularly impressed either results of perfomance-wise for such a long time now. There was an inkling of hope with Mourinho's positive start to the season but it seems this latest wave of optimism has had to be put on hold following our string of three defeats on the bounce.
Perhaps if somehow he can find a way to return us to the expansive and creative footballing style that brought years of enjoyment and success, thereby re-discovering our identity in the process, the results, trophies and titles will then soon follow.
