Time + blind faith = Sir Alex Ferguson.

Fortitude

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Can this line of thinking please, please stop? The amount of times it's posted up with a serious presentation makes it a talking point in itself.

Like a communicative hand grenade thrown into rational enough discourse, it causes discussion to scramble and turn into a chaotic mess.

It's a bizarre line of reasoning that has it down that anyone, given enough time, will be the second coming of what many believe is the greatest manager who has ever lived. It's absurd and offensive to the work and career of the man, and it also throws his story pre-United in the bin, when that part of his career is just as incredible as what he achieved here.

Reductio!
 
The fact Moyes, van Gaal, Mourinho and Solskjear have gone on to do nothing to demonstrate they should have had more time should really kill that argument anyway.

We were right to get rid of them. It will be the same with ten Hag.
 
I agree.

I also think that the "opposite" must be considered. It's of course impossible for me to prove this as I don't have access to jump between alternate timelines, but I genuinely think that very few successful football managers were inevitable. I think that most of them were a bad day away from having a significantly less successful career. Which of course means that on the other side of the coin we have plenty of genuinely good managers who got dealt a terrible hand and therefore never managed to rise to the top.

Basically, if you sack a manager and their career goes downhill from that point, it doesn't necessarily prove that you were right. And the same is true for the managers you choose not to hire who's career never take off. Football is a bit more complex than that.
 
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I've said it many times before but its a mistake that people make too often.

Sir Alex Ferguson was the exception, not the rule.
 
I said this a few years ago:


https://www.redcafe.net/threads/would-you-sack-or-keep-ole-poll-reopened.450911/post-26469263
I mean for the most part it is quite damning for our fanbase. For 26 years, this fanbase got to witness what a supremely talented manager/coach can do at a club of our calibre. The conclusion half of our fanbase managed to reach at the end of that 26 years was that if you give any random bloke enough time, he'll becomes the next Alex Ferguson.

I wonder what Fergie genuinely thinks of it. Must be like Mozart putting on his greatest show, and then only finding out at the end that his audience was actually deaf.
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True to this day and gets worse by the year.
 
Carl said:
The fact Moyes, van Gaal, Mourinho and Solskjear have gone on to do nothing to demonstrate they should have had more time should really kill that argument anyway.

We were right to get rid of them. It will be the same with ten Hag.
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Each of those managers are different in their own way. Ole and Moyes were ill suited to a big club. You could argue that LVG was sacked prematurely whilst Jose we gave up on after he got 81points (?).

What is clear is no hipster manager choice will be a magic fix
 
I don't think anyone, or at least hardly anyone, actually believes that

some people believe managers should be given time, but that doesn't mean they think it guarantees success
 
VP89 said:
Each of those managers are different in their own way. Ole and Moyes were ill suited to a big club. You could argue that LVG was sacked prematurely whilst Jose we gave up on after he got 81points (?).

What is clear is no hipster manager choice will be a magic fix
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LVG was in no way sacked too early. I'm all for a passing style being inculcated as a base, something lacking in subsequent managers, but it was horribly sluggish, slow-minded and without any kind of cutting edge; also, the finding of passing angles seemed to stop in the final 3rd, even when we were allowed to retain possession by sides sitting off. No evidence of a fully-fledged project there, beyond sideways passing, allowing teams to get into0 shape and curbing what instinctive creativity there was, rather than incorporating it into plan. The only real positive was bringing a few young players into the side -something which ETH could look to emulate..
 
Standards keep slipping meanwhile all you hear is “get behind the manager”
 
agreed. it’s like the old saying goes, give enough monkeys enough typewriters and eventually they start wearing turtlenecks and managing united.
 
Baxquux said:
LVG was in no way sacked too early. I'm all for a passing style being inculcated as a base, something lacking in subsequent managers, but it was horribly sluggish, slow-minded and without any kind of cutting edge; also, the finding of passing angles seemed to stop in the final 3rd, even when we were allowed to retain possession by sides sitting off. No evidence of a fully-fledged project there, beyond sideways passing, allowing teams to get into0 shape and curbing what instinctive creativity there was, rather than incorporating it into plan. The only real positive was bringing a few young players into the side -something which ETH could look to emulate..
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Yeah but he won an FA cup and finished 5th so it seemed harsh in the grand scheme of things.
 
More time needs to be earned, not handed out in blind faith.
None of the managers we've hired have been good enough and more time won't change that.
 
Of course they all need time - how much time is very subjective to each, but yeah, not blind faith. I was well and truly behind EtH last season and even during the start to this one....but I don't have blind faith. He's losing me fast/if he hasn't lost me already. So much to be concerned about.
 
Nobody has said this, and I don't think anybody logical thinks this.

This just seems like another thread to take digs at those that don't want Ten Hag to be sacked.
 
I think everyone knows that there is only one Sir Alex Ferguson and no one is expecting that level of success again

Still interesting to compare that it took him 4 years to win a trophy and 7 to win the league though - and there were of course Fergie Out calls from some fans along the way

But more recently examples of managers like Arteta being given time and doing well are more relevant to the discussion of how much time a manager deserves
 
Sir Bobby asked the board to give Sir Alex more time because he could see what he was building around the club. Sir Alex was doing shit, he wasn't just given blind faith whilst relying on hope. When people say "give a manager time" they need to have facts to back up why.

You also can't compare one manager to another, their circumstances are different, people act like ETH is going to turn into Arteta randomly one day, but he won't. His path will be completely different as he's in different circumstances.
 
Let's be real here. It was warranted in Sir Alex's case because what he did at Aberdeen was nothing short of phenomenal. It's not as though we were giving some scrub extra grace, is it? The man did it domestically and then toppled Real Madrid in a major European final with freaking Aberdeen.
 
Scandi Red said:
I agree.

I also think that the "opposite" must be considered. It's of course impossible for me to prove this as I don't have access to jump between alternate timelines, but I genuinely think that very few successful football managers were inevitable. I think that most of them were a bad day away from having a significantly less successful career. Which of course means that on the other side of the coin we have plenty of genuinely good managers who got dealt a terrible hand and therefore never managed to rise to the top.

Basically, if you sack a manager and their career goes downhill from that point, it doesn't necessarily prove that you were right. And the same is true for the managers you choose not to hire who's career never take off. Football is a bit more complex than that.
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Like who? Give examples please. IMO any good manager dealt a bad hand at a club rises back with another club.
 
TsuWave said:
Standards keep slipping meanwhile all you hear is “get behind the manager”
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Someone genuinely called another poster arrogant for thinking that finishing dead last behind Galatasary and Copenhagen is unacceptable
 
Nonsense. It's more about folk cautioning about acting in haste rather than suggesting any manager could be SAF given time.
 
I can be the manager of Man Utd, but you can't sack me within 3 years. Sounds fun.
 
VP89 said:
Each of those managers are different in their own way. Ole and Moyes were ill suited to a big club. You could argue that LVG was sacked prematurely whilst Jose we gave up on after he got 81points (?).

What is clear is no hipster manager choice will be a magic fix
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What is clear to me from the managerial mishaps we have had is that no manager needs their own squad, brilliant players, a billions pounds, more than a year to prove their worth. A good manager turns things around quite quickly and improves the existing squad fairly quickly these days.
 
SouthMancRed said:
Nonsense. It's more about folk cautioning about acting in haste rather than suggesting any manager could be SAF given time.
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It’s not nonsense. Chelsea have had far more success hiring and firing managers than we’ve had giving time and money to clueless managers.
 
MattofManchester said:
Nobody has said this, and I don't think anybody logical thinks this.

This just seems like another thread to take digs at those that don't want Ten Hag to be sacked.
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Plenty of people, time and time again bring the SAF was backed and that’s why he became a success thing every time the current manager is mildly criticised.
 
redIndianDevil said:
IMO any good manager dealt a bad hand at a club rises back with another club.
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Not necessarily. But it's also impossible to prove.

Mourinho experienced an incredible series of lucky events to win the CL with Porto which again landed him the Chelsea job at the perfect possible time and the rest is history. A single slip up at the wrong time leading up to that moment and his career looks very different. I'd wager that his big trophy haul is significantly reduced. There is also a genuine possibility of him not landing a single big job.

These are the fine margins of football. Luck and timing are crucial. A good manager with poor luck can waste his chance to climb to the top. It's not always possible to bounce back.
 
Carl said:
The fact Moyes, van Gaal, Mourinho and Solskjear have gone on to do nothing to demonstrate they should have had more time should really kill that argument anyway.

We were right to get rid of them. It will be the same with ten Hag.
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LVG is the one who really did impose his style on the team, I think there's an argument there that if he had not been allowed to choose players (and we had a semi competent recruitment team) he would have done better. We ended up with so little goal threat, not to dissimilar to now although we never got hammered in the league or Europe, because none of the signings worked out offensively.

Same issue is happening again now re recruitment, we have weak senior management who know it's safer to not make decisions on hiring and so let the manager run recruitment - then the one player ETH didn't know is a prime United old expensive hire in Case - nothing has changed since Moyes came in really.
 
redIndianDevil said:
What is clear to me from the managerial mishaps we have had is that no manager needs their own squad, brilliant players, a billions pounds, more than a year to prove their worth. A good manager turns things around quite quickly and improves the existing squad fairly quickly these days.
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No that's actually BS. Which manager has done that over season one?
 
KiD MoYeS said:
Arteta is the argument for allowing a manager time to cull a squad to be fair.
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He seems a decent manager but I think he got incredibly lucky with Saka and Martinelli coming through at the right time. He has already wasted money on HavertZ. Time will tell how he gets on.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
LVG is the one who really did impose his style on the team, I think there's an argument there that if he had not been allowed to choose players (and we had a semi competent recruitment team) he would have done better. We ended up with so little goal threat, not to dissimilar to now although we never got hammered in the league or Europe, because none of the signings worked out offensively.

Same issue is happening again now re recruitment, we have weak senior management who know it's safer to not make decisions on hiring and so let the manager run recruitment - then the one player ETH didn't know is a prime United old expensive hire in Case - nothing has changed since Moyes came in really.
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But EtH has been allowed to pick transfer targets. He has gotten it wrong.
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
Jose was sacked for bad results and has not survived longer than 3 years at any club since his first stint at Chelsea.
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We stopped backing Jose in year 3 straight after a very good season. Let's not act like Jose was the only issue in year 3. Our structure has disadvantaged every manager, whilst also acknowledging the managers are not perfect.
 
redIndianDevil said:
Plenty of people, time and time again bring the SAF was backed and that’s why he became a success thing every time the current manager is mildly criticised.
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It's barely been mentioned here prior to today.
 
The real talking point of 1986 to 1991 (the year when United started to click) should be why it took such a brilliant and already proven manager so long to turn the ship around.

I find it hard to believe posters are acting in good faith when they still wheel out the line that “you would have had Fergie sacked in 1989”.
 
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