Rate the post SAF managers

Robbie Boy said:
The delusion around Ole's tenure on here should be a scientific study.
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Is it worse compared to the delusion around EtH's first season, which gets consistently called great season, the best ever post SAF etc.

In that season, we reached 75 points, a GD of just +15. Got hammered 7-0 by Liverpool, has several other heavy defeats including an embarrassing exit in Europe, no single away victory against top 10. What was a fairly good season somehow got put into pedestal mostly cause we won a third rate trophy playing mostly shit against mostly shit teams.
 
Revan said:
Is it worse compared to the delusion around EtH's first season, which gets consistently called great season, the best ever post SAF etc.

In that season, we reached 75 points, a GD of just +15. Got hammered 7-0 by Liverpool, has several other heavy defeats including an embarrassing exit in Europe, no single away victory against top 10. What was a fairly good season somehow got put into pedestal mostly cause we won a third rate trophy playing mostly shit against mostly shit teams.
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Absolutely. Our fans are very fecking weird about managers.
 
Robbie Boy said:
The delusion around Ole's tenure on here should be a scientific study.
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tomaldinho1 said:
'Like goals, hate trophies'

I thoroughly dislike Mou but anyone not putting him No1 given the sorry shambles we've seen post SAF needs to remind themselves of how crap we played under all of these guys.
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It's not like we've had any runaway successes in terms of managers, Ole is effectively guaranteed to be one of the top two given his league consistency.

Really it depends how highly you rate Jose's second place that was almost entirely because of DDG being superhuman, and throwing away the league to win the EL, compared to Ole consistently being a nearly man who's team ran out of gas at the business end of competitions (partly due to being in too many).

Personally the tie breaker for me is that Ole wasn't nearly as self-promotional at the expense of the club.
 
MadDogg said:
Also a worse loss ratio than Ole and LVG.

Points per game are the way to judge, where the West Ham result dropped him into 3rd:

Mourinho: 1.97
Ole: 1.845
ETH: 1.843
LVG: 1.81
Moyes: 1.73

In saying that, the cups are doing a lot of heavy lifting for ETH. If we limit it to just the PL then he drops to the bottom of the pile.

Mourinho: 1.89
Ole: 1.80
LVG: 1.78
Moyes: 1.72
ETH: 1.71
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The league PPG is exactly why I rank the managers this way.

1.71 is horrendous.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
I can't tell if this is a wum, it worryingly looks legit.
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What is there to WUM about, he had 2.5 seasons where he was genuinely good for us and we should have moved on in summer 2021 before it collapsed. In terms of rebuilding and getting us performing at a relatively high level for the longest period of time, he easily did that for us more than others. Nobody else had 2 full good seasons
 
Points per game (all competitions):

Mourinho: 1.97
Ole: 1.845
ETH: 1.843
LVG: 1.81
Moyes: 1.73

The cups are doing a lot of heavy lifting for ETH. If we limit it to just the PL then he drops to the bottom of the pile.

Mouinrho: 1.89
Ole: 1.80
LVG: 1.78
Moyes: 1.72
ETH: 1.71

-------

In terms of how I'd rate them for overall:

1. Mourinho - Despite being a toxic prick who absolutely needed to go, clearly has to be #1.
2. Ole - Second best results overall, played the most fun football at times (although did have other times where it was poor), got deep into quite a lot of cups. The big negative of course is that he couldn't get us over the line in those cups.
3. LVG - Won the FA Cup and had a playstyle that could have set the stage for a brighter future if we'd replaced him with the right manager. Boring football, poor transfers both in and out.
4. ETH - It never got so bad for so long under any other manager. Two domestic cups and about four months of good performances in his first season, but the league is the bread-and-butter and he failed miserably there. He's also probably got the worst results in Europe which is the second priority. His tactics last season made no sense whatsoever.
5. Moyes - Took the defending champions to 7th. They were aging and we obviously needed a complete rebuild of the team, but there were simply no positives from his time whatsoever.

If we'd sacked ETH earlier I might have had him in 3rd, but he just lingered on for far too long.
 
1. OIe
2. ETH
3. LVG
4. Jose
5. Moyes

Ole because it's the only time I've enjoyed watching us play - during the good times at least. The only time we have played any kind of attacking, exciting football. The only time I've looked forward to a United match in ten years. Didn't win anything but a season lasts nine months and aside from trophies, I actually want to enjoy watching my team play.
ETH next despite everything, because he won two trophies and although I can't say it was ever remotely exciting or entertaining to watch, at least I didn't want to hang myself with boredom watching us play, unlike....
LVG/Jose - I didn't think it was physically possible to want to cry tears of boredom any more than I did when LVG was manager, and then Jose took over and I realised that I was wrong. Won two trophies but feck me, we were utter dogshit to watch and he was toxic af. An affront to the traditions and the history of this club.
Moyes - Simply because the drop off from SAF to him was so high. That said, I was at the last away game before he got sacked and we won 4-0 away to Newcastle. Also won 5-0 away in the CL. Can you fecking imagine us winning 4-0 away to anyone these days? That's about a quarter of a season's worth of goals in one game.

Conclusion: I hate football
 
1. Ole - Only manager post Fergie to get back to back top 4 finishes (3rd and 2nd). Several deep cup runs. Best football post Fergie. Wheels came off after Ronaldo signing. 6/10
2. Jose - Dreadful football, toxic man. Had a second place and two trophies before 3rd season meltdown. 5.5/10
3. LVG - Had a clear plan. Looked most consistent and solid under him but football was a snooze fest. Would’ve kept him longer tbh. 5.5/10
4. Moyes - 9 months in the job. Impossible taking over from Fergie, but shot himself in the foot when he replaced all the back room staff. 2/10
5. ETH - Spent a fortune and oversaw the worst ever PL season in our history. Was on course to do even worse this year. Holder of so many records of the worst kind. Oversaw some of the most embarrassing result in club history, including the 7-0. Decent first season, and two cups overall, but neither of which detract from him being the worst manager of United in the last 30 years. 1.5/10.
 
They’re all shit but Ten Hag is dead last for me. fecking hell

He also received the most support from the club
 
The only two manager eras which drove me to actively avoid watching United were LVG and EtH. LVG’s approach to passing for the sake of passing and not playing attacking football was soul destroying. EtH’s united is one of the most disorganised teams I’ve seen in football.

With Moyes it obviously got progressively worse and felt shitty at the time, but there was always a moment of magic in that squad still, whether it was Evra smashing in a screamer, van Persie turning up when fit, Wayne Rooney having a good season.

With Jose, we won things in his first season and it was a fun EL run, we got much better domestically in the second season and then we knew it would go wrong in the third.

With Ole, particularly at the start and during Covid it was actually watchable, albeit old school and simplistic.
 
Bastian said:
Timely? Or is there another thread for this?

Jose 7
ETH 6
Ole 5.5
LVG 5
Moyes 4

It was only with Jose where I thought for maybe a season and a half that we could start doing something. I had that feeling with ETH for the majority of his first season. And not at all with the other three. The expectations were maybe highest for Moyes on the back of SAF winning the league and Jose due to his pedigree. Everyone bar Moyes saw huge club spending, but I would say money spent is on the club and not the managers, we have overspent regardless of who is manager, and we have given ludicrous wages to players for 10 years straight years (starting with Mata in January in Moyes' season). Maybe I'm too generous with Jose, the football wasn't pretty, but we won two trophies in the first season and improved in the league the following season, which looks better and better as time passes and lesser managers get crushed by the expectations at United.
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Point of clarification: What are we ranking exactly? Their general qualities as a manager? What they achieved with United? How much (or how little) we enjoyed their tenure?
 
LVG and Mourinho must have caused some major PTSD to some of our fans, to the point they found our football under Ole enjoyable :lol:
 
None of the were good, but would rate

1.Ole
2. Jose
3. Van Gaal.
4. Rangnick
5. ETH
6. Moyes

A little worrying that only Ole has managed to get us top 4 in two consecutive seasons. The lack of consistency is alarming.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
'Like goals, hate trophies'

I thoroughly dislike Mou but anyone not putting him No1 given the sorry shambles we've seen post SAF needs to remind themselves of how crap we played under all of these guys.
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Is the Europa League that important to you? I can see holding the FA cup quite high because the best teams are actually in it, but the Europa League, nah. It is essentially a top 4 trophy since it gives you CL.
 
  1. Mourinho
  2. Solskjær
  3. Moyes
  4. van Gaal
  5. Erik ten Hag
Moyes, van Gaal & Erik ten Hag order doesn't matter, they were equally shite
 
1. Ole - made me enjoy watching United again. Shame about 1) the Europa League final, they deserved a trophy, if De Gea could have saved one of 12 penalties... 2) the board's indulgent Ronaldo signing, which led to a squad disharmony that he couldn't fix.
2. LVG - they were real highs under van Gaal, dominating Liverpool and City come to mind in the first season, and a good FA Cup win. Left before it really got bitter. It was just boring more than really bad, that period in the second season when we couldn't score a goal in the first half for 2 months in particular. At least there was a structure and might have been the best coach of the lot, but he had too much say on transfers - Kroos should have joined, and he let a lot of decent squad players leave for very little money.
3. Mourinho - won two trophies and finished second in the league, it was never even that bad when he was manager but he was such a toxic piece of shit that I couldn't hack him. Didn't really want him in the first place after watching him as a rival growing up for Chelsea. Football wasn't great but it was off the field stuff that rankled - the football heritage speech was unnecessary and ruined any good will left for him from me.
4. Moyes - he did a pretty terrible job, especially getting rid of all the backroom staff from a team that had been champions. I think he might have done better in a second season though, he was a slow burner and showed after United he can be a good coach. Job was just too big for him at the time.
5. Ten Hag - Won two trophies so should be higher but the way he set up his teams, my god it was absymal. Set them up to fail constantly, I've never seen the likes from any manager post-Ferguson or of any top team. Leaving 40 yard gaps in the middle of the pitch, conceding 15-20 shots a game on multiple occasions. Came to supposedly bring the Ajax style, yet nothing of the sort. Incredibly frustrating, and a stubborn and difficult man.
 
Enjoyment:

1. Ole
2. Jose
3. ETH
3. LVG
5. Ralf
6. Moyes

Success:

1. Jose
2. ETH
3. Ole
4. LVG
5. Ralf
6. Moyes

Top 3:

1. Jose
2. ETH
3. Ole
 
Eplel said:
LVG and Mourinho must have caused some major PTSD to some of our fans, to the point they found our football under Ole enjoyable :lol:
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We had periods under Ole where we played great football, almost certainly the best we've played since Fergie. We also had periods under Ole where it was boring football where we looked lost. Anyone focusing on just one of those two aspects is only looking at half the story.

Of course, every manager had periods that looked at least as bad (if not worse) than the bad times under Ole.
 
In terms of actual achievements which is where it should be judged:

Jose- Three finals, two cup wins, , highest points total- 81 points
EtH- three cup finals, two cup wins, highest points total- 75 points
LvG- one cup final, one cup win, highest points total- 70 points
Ole- one cup final, no trophies, highest points total- 74 points
Moyes- no cup final, no trophies, points total 64 (sacked just before the end of the season)

I do think EtH's first season is better than most give credit for with two cup finals and our second highest points total (although that's really nothing to shout about). Almost everything after the cup final was dire. The cup final victory against City is undeniably our best moment of the last decade, and beating Liverpool was sweet too.

It's really not a high bar though.
 
If we are talking enjoyment as a supporter, Ole by some distance.
The football under LvG was boring enough to almost make me stop liking the sport.
Football under Jose was slightly more entertaining but jeesus did i hate the stupid antics, players diving, delaying the game fakeing injuries and shit. Ultra defensive setup in some bigger games. Jose picking fights with everyone on the planet. Yuck. Moyes was decent but was always going to be a shock after Fergie left.
EtH had one good spell after the wc in his first season, culminating in a impressive win over Barcelona. Really enjoyed that run, felt like we actually were cooking something. It was a short spell though and it fizzled out to nothing and we have been consistently midtableish ever since. Chasing cloggers like Antony and Mount and ending up spending about 150m on them will never not get under my skin.


Ole was never good enough but there was atleast some sort of positivity, around most of his time here, we tried to score goals and we mostly did. Loads of great comebacks and late goals.
 
justsomebloke said:
Point of clarification: What are we ranking exactly? Their general qualities as a manager? What they achieved with United? How much (or how little) we enjoyed their tenure?
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When I'm thinking about the context I am thinking about the squad they inherited, the expectations around the club at the time, the level of the cultural malaise they had to deal with, off the pitch issues to contend with, money spent (adjusted for inflation, though I also think this is on the club more than the managers), style of play, results, trophies won, how they dealt with the scrutiny and expectations. To name a few components.
 
PL Stats:

Manager​
PL Games​
W​
W%​
D​
D%​
L​
L%​
GF​
GFPG​
GA​
GAPG​
GD​
Pts​
PtsPG​
ETH​
85​
44​
51.76%​
14​
16.47%​
27​
31.76%​
123​
1.45​
112​
1.32​
+11​
146​
1.72​
Ole​
109​
56​
51.38%​
29​
26.61%​
24​
22.02%​
195​
1.79​
126​
1.16​
+69​
197​
1.81​
Jose​
93​
50​
53.76%​
26​
27.96%​
17​
18.28%​
151​
1.62​
86​
0.92​
+65​
176​
1.89​
LVG​
76​
39​
51.32%​
19​
25.00%​
18​
23.68%​
111​
1.46​
72​
0.95​
+39​
136​
1.79​
Moyes​
35​
18​
51.43%​
6​
17.14%​
11​
31.43%​
59​
1.61​
41​
1.17​
+18​
60​
1.71​

ETH's metrics in the above are abysmal. He got us 2 cups but our day to day form under him was atrocious.

He's got the 2nd lowest Pts PG, 0.01 above Moyes, the worst GD, the highest Loss %, highest GA PG and lowest GF PG. The only stat he isn't bottom is W% where he's barely above the other three.
 
None of them were good enough in the end, so they are all 5/10 at best.

The only one who might've worked was Mou, but we hired him too late - he was already well on his downward trajectory by then. Ole was fun, especially initially, we played the best football under him, but it wasn't sustainable. LVG was so boring, really depressing stuff. Moyes was never good enough, we completely set up to fail.

I think weirdly since ETH was kept on well past his sell-by date, he's made to look even worse compared to the others. He was genuinely awful for the majority of his spell here, but the others were put out of their misery long before things were allowed to get this bad. Imagine we hadn't sacked Mourinho when we did?
 
1. Solskjaer
2. Mourinho
3. Van Gaal
4. Ten Hag
5. Moyes
6. Rangnick
 
RedSky said:
PL Stats:

Manager​
PL Games​
W​
W%​
D​
D%​
L​
L%​
GF​
GFPG​
GA​
GAPG​
GD​
Pts​
PtsPG​
ETH​
85​
44​
51.76%​
14​
16.47%​
27​
31.76%​
123​
1.45​
112​
1.32​
+11​
146​
1.72​
Ole​
109​
56​
51.38%​
29​
26.61%​
24​
22.02%​
195​
1.79​
126​
1.16​
+69​
197​
1.81​
Jose​
93​
50​
53.76%​
26​
27.96%​
17​
18.28%​
151​
1.62​
86​
0.92​
+65​
176​
1.89​
LVG​
76​
39​
51.32%​
19​
25.00%​
18​
23.68%​
111​
1.46​
72​
0.95​
+39​
136​
1.79​
Moyes​
35​
18​
51.43%​
6​
17.14%​
11​
31.43%​
59​
1.61​
41​
1.17​
+18​
60​
1.71​

ETH's metrics in the above are abysmal. He got us 2 cups but our day to day form under him was atrocious.

He's got the 2nd lowest Pts PG, 0.01 above Moyes, the worst GD, the highest Loss %, highest GA PG and lowest GF PG. The only stat he isn't bottom is W% where he's barely above the other three.
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Wow, he's closer to Moyes than I thought. And that is after 3 summer transfer windows too! I'm tempted to rank Ten Hag below Moyes now. At least the latter got us to a CL quarter final after cruising through the group stages with some genuinely good performances.

Ten Hag is basically the worst PL and Europe manager post Fergie. There is a limit to how much those domestic cups can save his reputation.
 
Ten Hag is the worst for me. It'll take a few windows to recover from the damage he has been allowed to inflict. I know the appreciation for the Mickey Mouse cups has grown multi-folds amongst the fans of the club from the time we used to make fun of Liverpool for winning the Mickey mouse trebles to this day, but for me their value is always as a complement to the big trophies or on the way to the big trophies. Making the right signings, playing good football and laying the foundation for this club after all the faith we entrusted on ETH was much more important than winning a couple of cups due to the luck of the draw.

My Ranking:

- Jose
- Ole
- VG
- Ten Hag

I don't want to rate Moyes. He didn't have a chance in hell.
 
1. Ole. It’s a feeling, he made United feel exciting and fun again. Wheels came off when Ronaldo was foisted on him, otherwise we were getting there.
2. Mourinho. The only one who seemed to truly understand that United must always be winning or at least competing short-term. It wasn’t pretty, but you could see what he wanted to do and he wasn’t quite backed to do it.
3. Crickets there’s a chasm to the next ones.
4. LVG I guess but his style of football made me want to stop living.
Joint 5th tie Moyes and Ten Hag. Both struggling with dysfunctional environments, but also lost respect from the players for their own faults and flaws. Possibly Ten Hag is worse because he was totally backed - what he did with that money is basically Joker: Folie A Deux in transfer market form. Possibly Moyes is worse because that was a title winning squad and coaching staff and he destroyed it.
 
1. Mourinho - toxic, but a winner, and it’s still been as close as we have felt to a top club again since Ferguson.
2. LVG - able to instill methods and a style of play, which despite his frailties, no one else has done.
3. ETH - Shite, but got two trophies, little else redeemable apart from that. I think he is leaving a good squad too.
4. Ole - Never felt like we would win anything and usually lost big games or inferior opposition. An unbelievably frustrating time under a coach that no other decent side would have considered. Went nowhere for a very long time. Won nothing.
5. Moyes - Starter the trajectory to where we are today with stupid decisions and his own arrogance. The most baffling decision in the clubs modern history and we are still paying for it today.
 
abkmufc92 said:
  1. Mourinho
  2. Solskjær
  3. Moyes
  4. van Gaal
  5. Erik ten Hag
Moyes, van Gaal & Erik ten Hag order doesn't matter, they were equally shite
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That's my list too. Mourinho and Ole were relatively decent. For Mourinho, his anger and the club not backing him was the reason the 18/19 season started the way it did. I actually think his big misstep was signing Lindelof. I also think his tenure spoke to the lack of depth we had. I genuinely believe that with better depth, we wouldn't have tailed off so badly in 16/17 and may have performed better overall in 17/18. He deserved to be sacked because his attitude sucked and was not in line with what we are as a club.

Ole should never have been hired, however the understanding was that he was growing with the club and despite having the weakest squad we've had, he managed to still do relatively decently. We had the best spells under him and he provided the most hope. He was the best symbol for the club and you could tell, unlike the other managers we've had, he genuinely had the best interest of the club in mind with his decisions. He didn't have the attacking tactical knowledge needed to get us to break teams down, but he was much better than people's perceptions of him. The issue with him is that as a club, we knew he wasn't good enough. I believe this is why we weren't willing to invest as much with him as with others at various points. Once we did invest, he proved that he wasn't experienced enough for the job.

Moyes was terrible, should never have been hired. Any other club would have sacked him in December that season. However, he did the least amount of damage to the club. He played poor football with good players, but he didn't waste money.

In comparison, LVG did so much damage to us in the transfer market. Almost all of his buys were mediocre and he did a hatchet job in making it happen. He was a representation of the fan's ire towards the players, and why that line of thinking is always disruptive. He started the trend of Man United managers acting like they were begged to take the position. You can't have managers who behave badly, yet expect players to be perfect, and he was proof of that. He willfully threw our 14/15 season away with his ridiculous test tactics to start the season aand completed gutted our squad of talent. Between December 2015 and May 2016, this was the first time I actively stopped caring about United results. Despite all this, he still had the audacity to act surprised when he was sacked. ETH is a living example of what it would have looked like if we hadn't sacked LVG in 2016.

ETH hasn't had as bad a run in the transfer market as LVG, but the level of disillusionment takes the cake. His first season may have rivalled Jose's 2nd season as our best season since SAF. However, despite the cups, the period between August 2023 and October 2024 has to be the worst I've seen from a big club who is still a financial behemoth. No big club would have kept him past November 2023, yet we managed to drag out poor football for a full season + 9 games with no respite. This period had maybe 4 good games. It's by far the worst football since the SAF era and he put us through that. Despite this, his attitude was as bad as Mourinho's. Making arrogant statements week to week, with people making excuses for him. He provided the perfect example to any club about why Manager's should not be backed when results are going poorly. After his tenure, I think the cult of the manager is finished at United and maybe across Europe, just by how bad and deluded he was. This feeling is not because of being in the moment, but every statistic tells us that he's significantly worse than any of his predecessors. He kept breaking records for the wrong reasons, yet was completely unapologetic about it. He exposed our fanbase. I actually think his failure will have a positive lasting impact.
 
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