Rank our post-SAF managers

Giant Midget said:
Still hold the belief that LVG set us back years by gutting the squad and completely trying to change to a new system.

Yes, Fergie’s team was aging, we just needed quality reinforcements, not a wholesale fire change.
Click to expand...
Completely agree with this.
 
1. Mourinho
2. LVG
3. Moyes
4. Ole

To enjoy following a football team, you at least need hope and belief. Under Moyes and Ole, I had zero hope and expectation and both reigns felt like an exercise in futility before the United board finally had to face up to reality. As Moyes was only here 8 months, he gets the coveted “third least worst post-SAF manager” award from me.
 
It's weird because things could have been so different under Ole.

If you take it on achievements he's smack bottom with Moyes, however things could have been different if he was a more experienced manager in big moments.

Europa League Semi & final - both of which a manager like Mourinho would probably have got us past the finishing line in the most boring way possible.

Domestic cup semi finals - again bottled.

Times where we have been in excellent form in the league with title winning form just to run out of ideas.

It's times like these where his lack of technical and game management ability come to fruition, eg. lack of subs in the Europa league final.

He's gone someway to stabilise the club and recruit some excellent players, however tactically that leaves him out of his depth.
 
BoltonWanderer said:
Solskjaer
Van Gaal
Moyes
Mourinho

Solskjaer's issues are all tactical, and I have no issue with anyone thinking he's well out of his depth at this level, but he's definitely left a more solid platform than any other United manager has since Ferguson. The club seemed absolutely toxic when Mourinho left, the squad was pulling in several different directions, he'd alienated many players and so on.

The job is better now than at any other times Moyes was appointed, by a long way too. The next manager is walking into a dressing room with better characters, less deadwood, more depth in key areas, good young talent and solid players brought in. The next manager doesn't need an overhaul, they might just need one or two starters and that's all. I feel like a lot of the anger at Ole has been so vociferous that people have had to go beyond him just being "tactically inept" and start criticising the "shit squad", "awful signings" etc.. I think that's unfair, I think Ole did everything right at United off the pitch and even though that will never win you trophies, it might win the next guy trophies.

As I said though, Ole did a lot of the hard work off the pitch and the next manager has something solid to build off. No more radical changes in direction are necessary, just an improvement tactically may be enough for this squad to start winning things. Other managers were detrimental off the pitch, which is why United ended up with Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger, Fellaini, Di Maria, Bailly, Falcao, Valdes, Mkhitaryan and so on, the alienation of Shaw, the treatment of Pogba. The squad now is in a much better place and Solskjaer deserves credit for that. Hopefully the next manager can add a couple, improve tactically and take this squad to winning trophies.
Click to expand...
While I agree with your general sentiment, I think Ole failed at the main task of actually managing the squad. That's his ultimate job and responsibility.

We can't applaud Ole for doing the job that a DoF really should have been doing, while ultimately failing at what was his responsibility as Manchester United manager.

I've said this many times, but Ole reminds me of Rodgers at Liverpool. He came in and steadied the ship after the disasters of Daglish and Hodgson, but couldn't take the next step. Now we need to find our Klopp to build on what Ole left.
 
Ole made us a laughing stock and every other fanbase in the country was praying he wouldn't be sacked. If that's your best, it's pretty damning.
 
Louis van Gaal - Football was worst I ever seen but team was clearly coached to play a certain style. We either sacked him too soon (on the back of FA cup win) or too late, should've gone all in for Klopp.
Mourinho - Outdated football. He won some stuff but ended up making everyone upset.
Ole - No identity, free style football. Anyone but Glazers could see the team didn't progress after 2nd Europa cup.
Moyes - A waste of time. Maybe Moyes could've done much better with two or three transfer windows, who knows.
 
It's hard to rank them but I would probably go with this.

Mourinho - Because of the two trophies. Left us in a bad state though.
Ole - Had some memorable moments under him but this third season has been a complete disaster.
LvG - Won a FA Cup but his football was fecking dreadful and he set us back years with his decisions.
Moyes - Dragged a title winning squad down to mid table.
 
The Bloody-Nine said:
Ole made us a laughing stock and every other fanbase in the country was praying he wouldn't be sacked. If that's your best, it's pretty damning.
Click to expand...
I think it’s the sentiment speaking. In fact perhaps I’m quite jealous of those that saw the CL final live at Camp Nou and those who have such an affection for Ole, that’s some real passion out there.
 
Mourinho easily first and Moyes easily the last. The other I cannot really decide, LVG football was really really horrible, he also had bad transfer, but he won FA cup, while Ole sometimes produces good football, his transfer has been okay, but he won nothing and this season is definitely the worst I've seen from any managers post SAF, even worse than Moyes'
 
Mourinho - won stuff, joint highest finish, most points
Solskjaer - joint highest finish, 3 top fours on the bounce, most goals in a season
Van Gaal - Won FA Cup but only 1/2 CL qualifications, tumescent 49 goal season, bad transfers
Moyes - disastrous
 
Last edited:
I still think the best football we've played since SAF was that run of about five games we played in Van Gaal's first season, which started with winning away at Anfield (with the best performance at Anfield I'd seen for years). We beat City and Spurs too iirc. But that was never built on and I don't think there was anything like it in his second season.

I struggle to rank any of them. None of them were the problem, but none were ever going to be the solution either.
 
Net spend according to transfermarket

Mourinho 341m (113.6m/season)
Ole 326m (108.6m/season)
LVG 203m (101.5m/season)
Moyes 77m

I think it would be more interesting to see the difference in wages between the LVG era and the 2 after him.
 
The Bloody-Nine said:
How can you rank a guy who spent half a billion and won nothing, over two managers who achieved actual, tangible success.....trophies. It's crazy.
Click to expand...
It’s not black and white. He’s left the squad in a much better place than when he arrived. A new manager will have less tweaking to do

and this money complaint is what I hate about United fans. Complaining there’s no investment and complain if too much is spent.

let’s wait to see what a new manager can do with the same players before writing them all off as crap buys
 
golden_blunder said:
It’s not black and white. He’s left the squad in a much better place than when he arrived. A new manager will have less tweaking to do
Click to expand...
He left with the captain of the side publicly saying we lack belief in ourselves and the longest serving player in De Gea publicly saying we don't know what to do with the football. If players had said similar things when Jose went they'd still be getting quoted to this day.
 
Ixion said:
He left with the captain of the side publicly saying we lack belief in ourselves and the longest serving player in De Gea publicly saying we don't know what to do with the football. If players had said similar things when Jose went they'd still be getting quoted to this day.
Click to expand...
The players didn’t even speak to Jose
 
golden_blunder said:
The players didn’t even speak to Jose
Click to expand...
I dont really care if a manager is mates with the players, that's not what they're there for. And even not speaking to them Jose still had more points at this point than Ole has,
 
Man-United said:
LvG's signings make him clear clear bottom.
Click to expand...

LVG is the hardest one to place for me. On (rare) occasions we played excellent football and he won a trophy. You could see glimpses of what he was trying to implement, and he brought some youngsters through which was exciting. But his decisions didn't all add up. He bought players and then misused them, bought some dross, got rid of some decent players, changed tactics frequently, moved players position, and generally the team was incredibly risk averse and boring. Logically there were more cons than pros, but somehow I still want to place him higher than Ole. Oles great moments were smash and grab wins, or dramatic come backs. Under LVG we went to Anfield and played played off the pitch like I've never seen us or any other team do.
 
Mourinho
Solskjaer
LVG
Moyes

Mourinho at least appeared to have a system and we did win the Europa league under him. But he lost the backing of the players and became toxic.

Solskjaer brought a bit of life back to the team but should have stayed a temporary caretaker for that one season. Change has come way too late - too many wasted seasons now.

LVG served up the worst football I have ever witnessed bar Moyes. Passed ourselves to death without actually doing anything with it. How we even managed an FA cup win is one of the great modern mysteries.

Moyes was a mistake from start to finish. Should have kept that winning back room staff that had just won the league! But no. Tried to turn us into his Everton model that were ‘hard to beat’ and relied on crosses as attacks.
 
red4ever 79 said:
Just based on trophies which is the benchmark of being successful
1. Jose
2. LVG
3. Ole
4. Moyes
Click to expand...

If it's based on trophies why is Moyes below Ole? He stayed months, and won 1 (small) title, Ole stayed 3 years, was more backed than anyone, and won feck all.
 
What LBG did except blowing money on so many average players and an FA cup

At least Ole's signings setup a platform for next manager

Sancho/Rashford/Gereenwood/Bruno/DVB/Fred/Bissaka/Varane/Maguire/Shah/DDG not a bad team to work with for any new manager and he might need few tweakins like bringing in a DM and a striker

Jose/Ole/LVG/Moyes in that order for me
 
Ixion said:
I dont really care if a manager is mates with the players, that's not what they're there for. And even not speaking to them Jose still had more points at this point than Ole has,
Click to expand...
No one is arguing that this season has gone tits up.
I just think that this should be revisited in time because there’s a lot of anger around. Look at the players, all being called crap buys but we don’t know what a new manager might get out of the same players. So we need time before we know if they are truly crap or just need picked up and given new direction
 
People talk about how both LvG and Mourinho won trophies. LvG won FA Cup via a Lingard screamer after the team had gone down to 10 men. Throughout that FA Cup campaign, the team had played poorly, turning around games in the last minutes. Mourinho's United were so close to getting knocked out of Europa League cup on multiple occasions and made it to final via some sheer luck and some individual brilliance (Rashford Free-kick) and, in that sense, he was as lucky to win the Europa League as Solskjaer was unlucky not to win it. All the managers we have had served abject performances and have to be rated equally bad.
 
Vaibhav Raj said:
People talk about how both LvG and Mourinho won trophies. LvG won FA Cup via a Lingard screamer after the team had gone down to 10 men. Throughout that FA Cup campaign, the team had played poorly, turning around games in the last minutes. Mourinho's United were so close to getting knocked out of Europa League cup on multiple occasions and made it to final via some sheer luck and some individual brilliance (Rashford Free-kick) and, in that sense, he was as lucky to win the Europa League as Solskjaer was unlucky not to win it. All the managers we have had served abject performances and have to be rated equally bad.
Click to expand...
Ole not winning the Europa league was nothing to do with luck though, it was because he played for penalties against Villarreal.
 
Urgh it's like choosing between dumb and dumber but probably

Mourinho
Lvg
Ole
Moyes
 
Vaibhav Raj said:
People talk about how both LvG and Mourinho won trophies. LvG won FA Cup via a Lingard screamer after the team had gone down to 10 men. Throughout that FA Cup campaign, the team had played poorly, turning around games in the last minutes. Mourinho's United were so close to getting knocked out of Europa League cup on multiple occasions and made it to final via some sheer luck and some individual brilliance (Rashford Free-kick) and, in that sense, he was as lucky to win the Europa League as Solskjaer was unlucky not to win it. All the managers we have had served abject performances and have to be rated equally bad.
Click to expand...
And we won the CL under SAF aided by a John Terry slip. Luck/bad luck is a part of football. Ole would have had his fair share of good fortune as well. But fact is when Manchester United trophy haul is looked at, even though they disappointed at least those two have contributed to our success.
 
Let’s revisit this at the end of the season when the emotion surrounding Ole has subsided. No way he’s worse than Moyes ffs
 
You must log in or register to reply here.