What should INEOS do next?

devilish

Juventus fan who used to support United
Joined
Sep 5, 2002
Messages
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Its pretty evident to many that ETH's reign is heading towards its end. This is, off course, bad news. At least 1 person is going to lose his job, the club will have to fork millions in severance pay and then more millions to bring a new manager in and the project will reset again. While failure is inevitable at some point in life, the difference between success and more failure depend on what sort of lessons are learnt from it.

A- Gather as much data as possible. What had ETH improved, how he constructed the squad, what he's doing wrong and why? That's the information recruitment team need to choose the next manager. The last thing we need is for us to bring in a manager with the wrong characteristics and with tactics that are completely opposite to ETH's. That would render half of the squad redundant!

B- Fans are important for the club. They generate the cash needed by the club but they also provide a countless number of views on how United are performing. That can't be ignored. However fans views is also biased, it lack the full picture and it can be knee jerk or polluted by those in the media with an agenda. Clubs can't allow that view to be the major say in terms of decision making. SAF took some very controversial decisions in the past which, if taken by ETH, would be crucified for. Take for example Michael Owen's signing or replacing Stam with Blanc. Yet the club stuck to that decision and the fans simply adapted to it.

C- The class of 92 likes to remind us about how SAF ran a tight ship. Till this very day, Gaz wouldn't dare calling SAF with his name. Yet when United is concerned most of our former players do not mind throwing the kitchen sink at us. You don't see Carra or Souness do the same with Liverpool or Henry doing that with Arsenal. That's particularly damaging as the last thing a new signing needs is to have a living legend telling him that he's not good enough. Thus maybe United need to bring some of that discipline back even among ex players. Do they want to be kept in the loop and enjoy the perks provided by United? Well they better behave.

D-- Prior to sacking ETH we need to analyze everyone and everything. Are there players/coaches throwing the towel? Did they do the same under Rangnick and Ole? People are different and you'll find persons out there who will raise their game only when needed (ex appraisal, contract renewal, a big change). We need to identify those people as they are bound to raise their game again once there's a change in management. That would be the ideal time for us to sell them before their stock dip once again.

E- Build a detailed plan so that the new manager would know to expect, were the club is heading to and how that plan is set to be achieved. That wouldn't be a definitive plan as the manager would want a say on it. However no manager will succeed if he fumbles in the dark
 
The 1st issue is that this isn't news, and the structure and ethos that INEOS supposedly are trying to implement should already be doing all of the above.

The 2nd issue is keeping ETH whilst you do all this serves no purpose, we are very unlikely to improve under ETH at this point, but could still lose vital points against Porto and Villa, worse still should be scrape a win or even draws in those games it could prolong firing ETH. Better to just get rid now, give the 2 games to Ruud, what is the worst that could happen, we play poorly and get beaten? best case scenario we get a bounce, Ruud gets back to basics, surely the first step for any manager taking over and we might not be shite, this might even continue for a few more games allowing INEOS to get a permanent replacement
 
Get rid of Bruno & Rashford. What difference if the next manager is forced to play them.

Hire a manager who plays a similar style to ETH so we don’t need another rebuild. Only players signed over the past 2 seasons that the new manager should be able to immediately replace (if he desires) is Onana.

Beyond that carry one. The whole point of what INEOS have been doing is to make the manager just a piece of the puzzle , not the engine that runs the car. So really if INEOS have been operating strategically they should be able to replace ETH with no major issues. The players signed in the summer were identified not only by ETH, but also Wilcox, Answorth etc as being part of a project.
 
Ineos need to repair damage with fans right now because their decision making and Billy big balls approach seems to be failing rapidly. Realistic fans now acknowledge the relegation fight we are in and are concerned.
 
Ineos have been pretty sensible so far in my opinion. There’s no chance that when backing Ten Hag in the summer, and assessing the managerial landscape, they weren’t also planning for this exact scenario. They’ll have some candidates in mind.
 
INEOS have made a bit of a mess of things so far and the club has been more embarrasing that it was under the Glazers at times with things like the pursuit's of Dan Ashworth and Jason Wilcox that were leaked to the press well before any agreement was reached with thier clubs, the silly drawn out review this summer, interviewing other managers behind Erik Ten Hags back over the summer, deciding to stick with Ten Hag and giving him another 200m when they knew he should bave been sacked.

I just hope the reason they are dragging their feet over sacking Erik now is because they want to ensure a succession plan is in place first.
 
They could let us know what this game model is they have hyped up that any Manchester United manager will have to play. Unless it's let Fernandes run about wherever he wants and leave the midfield wide open and have the full backs dragged out of the game with ease, I think we're yet to see it.
 
JediSith said:
Get rid of Bruno & Rashford. What difference if the next manager is forced to play them.

Hire a manager who plays a similar style to ETH so we don’t need another rebuild. Only players signed over the past 2 seasons that the new manager should be able to immediately replace (if he desires) is Onana.

Beyond that carry one. The whole point of what INEOS have been doing is to make the manager just a piece of the puzzle , not the engine that runs the car. So really if INEOS have been operating strategically they should be able to replace ETH with no major issues. The players signed in the summer were identified not only by ETH, but also Wilcox, Answorth etc as being part of a project.
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It is so easy to say get rid of Bruno and Rashford, but reality is that they our most consistent attacking players in the last 5 years. Ups and downs yes, everybody expects them to carry us every game but 1. they are not the greatest of all time and 2. we are a dysfunctional team and we always were since they started playing for us.
Good luck to us hoping that Garnacho, Zirkzee, Hojlund or Amad will bring us loads of goals every season from now on.
 
I read the thread title as a question, turns out is is a memorandum.

Anyway, "we need to analyse" has been Erik's mantra for 2 years, maybe it is time to start oralizing.
 
2 man midfield said:
Ineos have been pretty sensible so far in my opinion. There’s no chance that when backing Ten Hag in the summer, and assessing the managerial landscape, they weren’t also planning for this exact scenario. They’ll have some candidates in mind.
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Seems to me they looked at what was available in the summer and weren't convinced, so stuck with ETH. Not much has changed since then in terms of available candidates, other than the obvious one.
 
Realistically you separate the squad from the coach.

The coach you have a baseline of what your looking for - given Brailsford’s involvement is suspect they essentially will assess ETH purely off stats over periods. I assume he is well below where they’d hope him to be.

Squad. This is where you already know who will be up for sale this summer and likely next. And who they deem of the required quality to ‘make’ the team they plan on assembling for 2028.

Part of me thinks they don’t think any of our squad are good enough and will sell most of them as time goes on but you’d hope they are envisioning Dalot, Garnacho, Ugarte, Amad, Zirkzee, Hojlund, Mainoo, De Ligt, Martinez as the core. Rashford (unless he miraculously finds form again) and Bruno are the two I think they will actively try to shift this summer as we will need funds and they are top earners.
 
devilish said:
Its pretty evident to many that ETH's reign is heading towards its end. This is, off course, bad news. At least 1 person is going to lose his job, the club will have to fork millions in severance pay and then more millions to bring a new manager in and the project will reset again. While failure is inevitable at some point in life, the difference between success and more failure depend on what sort of lessons are learnt from it.
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Specific to the bold points, the structure INEOS put in place is solely to suppress the associate role of a manager and aggrandize the responsibility of a coach, the very essence of those changes is to be able to handle volatility correctly.

So in the event the pre-existing coach fails it's easy for the hierarchy to pivot and find another coach without having to do a factory-reset every so often, which happens when a conventional manager is operating the team from the standpoint of being a technical director, coach and scout assembled through one conduit.

I think the direction with the new owners is correct but ultimately as is the case you can have world class staff off the pitch and a semi-decent team and none of it has any significance to a coaches competence, modern football still lives and dies by the pedigree of individual managers / coaches.

So the biggest question for INEOS is do they have the nous and expertise to correctly identify the right coach to take the club forward.

There's plausibility to make an assessment from Chelsea, Liverpool and Spurs who haven't hired coaches on the basis of being the most reputable but rather making decisions on being cohesive with the club's philosophy.

I think Erik was hired on a similar sentiment but ultimately failed to deliver, given United didn't get anything in similitude to what he demonstrated at Ajax subjectively by his own admission he could only play a certain way with Frenkie De Jong so if an entire ethos is viable off the back of one player the said coach was never the right individual in question to begin with.

This is the next phase that INEOS need to get correct.
 
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RedRocket9908 said:
INEOS have made a bit of a mess of things so far and the club has been more embarrasing that it was under the Glazers at times.
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More embarrasing? Let's be honest The Glazers are the ones that left United in embarrassing mess and while we are led to believe they no longer have control of the football side of things they are still the club owners and hanging around like a bad smell.


Jim Radcliffe he said this back in March when asked about the timeframe to make United truly competitive again.

"It's not a light switch. It's not an overnight change – it's going to take two or three seasons.

"You have to ask the fans for some patience. I know the world these days likes instant gratification but that's not the case with football really. It's not a 10-year plan. The fans would run out of patience if it was a 10-year plan. But it's certainly a three-year plan to get there.

---------

I think with the amount to fix it will likely take longer than three years and getting rid of the Glazers fully might speed up things.
 
JediSith said:
Hire a manager who plays a similar style to ETH so we don’t need another rebuild. Only players signed over the past 2 seasons that the new manager should be able to immediately replace (if he desires) is Onana.
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We dont need to replace Onana any time soon, there are players like Casemiro, Hojlund, Shaw, and Eriksen who should be replaced first.
 
Next? Sure there's some more office staff somewhere they can sack too.
 
Our recruitment and related decision-making is worse than most of decent team in top 4 or even top 10, and it's the reason why we fail to qualify to UCL in past years and now.
Even this summer is not good like many guys said. If we don't do much better in this area, it'll setup loop of failure no matter who is the manager.
 
RedRocket9908 said:
INEOS have made a bit of a mess of things so far and the club has been more embarrasing that it was under the Glazers at times with things like the pursuit's of Dan Ashworth and Jason Wilcox that were leaked to the press well before any agreement was reached with thier clubs, the silly drawn out review this summer, interviewing other managers behind Erik Ten Hags back over the summer, deciding to stick with Ten Hag and giving him another 200m when they knew he should bave been sacked.

I just hope the reason they are dragging their feet over sacking Erik now is because they want to ensure a succession plan is in place first.
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Agreed with this.
 
Sack Ten Hag now before it’s too late and the season is dead.
 
Unfortunately Ineos are paying the price for the sins of the past. Not just a poor squad and a failing manager, but a badly run club.

Picking a manager in the past was akin to spinning a roulette wheel. That has to stop, we need to get a manager who aligns with our pre-determined way of playing football. Not just in the broadest sense. No point just saying "good in possession, good at pressing" since the describes how a majority of clubs these days. We need to be very clear about the way that the club should play football, so that we can build everything around that. Inverted wingers and wide full backs, or vice versa? Centre back who steps into midfield or midfilder who drops into a back three? False 9 or true 9? Who leads the press? What to do when you recover the ball? Keeper always play it short or sometimes long? There's wiggle room in any one of these, but we'll be buying players to fit that model. If we buy three false 9s, we can't then pick a manager who doesn't use them, for example.

There's a zillion and one factors, and that's just the on the pitch tactics. How does the manager interact with the analytics team, who decides what data matters and what we should do about it? What about the medical dept, who decides when a player is fit? What about the Academy, who decides when a player is ready to step up to train with the first team? Hell, who decides what the players eat and what their travel arrangements are?

The club's hierarchy needs to understand the way each dept in the club is set up, so that they can get a manager who fits as well as possible. The problem is, it seems almost every department in the club is in a state of flux after years of disorganisation at best and inadequacy at worst. So they probably didn't want to choose a new manager until they had a handle on the new shape of the club. They also don't want to pick a new manager at short notice and build around him.

Unfortunately events dear boy means they might have to make a decision sooner rather than later. And its part of football that you don't always get to make decisions in ideal circumstances. So they may be taking what they've learned and going with it. However they need to make a whole club approach to appointing a manager.
 
To be honest I've no faith in them to turn things around. All these new people they've put in to various roles seems to be causing more issues than it fixes. A real case of too many chefs trying to cook up something but each of them having different taste and ingredients and is simply confusing what should be a more simple approach.

Football is not rocket science, yet the approach were taking seems to be too many changes and not enough practical solutions to issues which clearly need fixing first. Such as we need to see players given 100 percent commitment from the first minute to the last, I think all fans can see the lack of desire and determination is why we're struggling, the opposition always seem quicker and stronger, we lose so many battles all over the pitch. You can look at all sorts of ideas regards the type of football you want to play and the fine detail, but if players aren't commited it doesn't matter about how you've set up tactically.

I really don't think standards have been set high enough and that is leading to mass complacency from everyone involved on the training ground. There is no consequence to a bad performance, players don't get fined or dropped, they simply get told it's a process and everyone is together. It sends the wrong message to everyone, because that's how standards fall. It's about time we become ruthless, no more accepting bad performances, if the players don't improve and the attitude is wrong, they get demoted to playing with the reserves etc. I get the feeling very little has changed with the running of the first team, I've not seen.any changes since last season and I'm waiting to see one week where I see a tangible difference to the previous weeks performance.
 
Start with sacking the manager today.

Every addiitonal game we go into with this manager makes the job of making top 4 or Europa league harder for the next manager. I firmly believe our squad can challenge for top 4 with a competent manager and that there is enough time to recover. This isn't some unlucky period EtH is going through, we have a very large sample set which shows he is a shite manager on top of failing the eye test of course.
 
They need to act, although guys like Wilcox and Ashworth have solid reputations, failure at United will also affect how they are viewed eventually. If they can't turn United around, that's what they'll be remembered for, not what they did at Newcastle, Southampton or Brighton.

Ten Hag came here as the "next big thing" and a hipster darling, but will leave as arguably our worst manager post SAF. He's been shown to be naive, stubborn, egotistical, overly rigid, a poor man manager and completely uncharismatic when dealing with the press in less than two and a half seasons.
 
A - think they've done that already.
B - fan sentiment was crucial to him staying on in the summer. Not saying it drove the decision but if they let him go and the new manager got off to a bad start then everyone questions the decision. At this point we have confirmed ten Hag isn't it.
C - how do you control what people with no direct, current connection to the club have to say? Ridiculous. Those ex players care about United, too.
D - another ridiculous notion. Professionals don't throw in the towel but the set up and tactics employed by the manager can certainly make appear that way.
E - as with A, it seems like INEOS have a clear plan. They someone who can execute on that, though.
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
A - think they've done that already.
B - fan sentiment was crucial to him staying on in the summer. Not saying it drove the decision but if they let him go and the new manager got off to a bad start then everyone questions the decision. At this point we have confirmed ten Hag isn't it.
C - how do you control what people with no direct, current connection to the club have to say? Ridiculous. Those ex players care about United, too.
D - another ridiculous notion. Professionals don't throw in the towel but the set up and tactics employed by the manager can certainly make appear that way.
E - as with A, it seems like INEOS have a clear plan. They someone who can execute on that, though.
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We've seen our players literally do this to multiple managers. In the NFL the Raiders coach said a week or so ago players are making business decisions. It happens in all sports to bad teams with a bad culture and not enough leadership.
 
RedRover said:
Seems to me they looked at what was available in the summer and weren't convinced, so stuck with ETH. Not much has changed since then in terms of available candidates, other than the obvious one.
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I think they were ready to sack him but basically couldn’t after the cup final. The ‘we looked around and realised we already had the best guy’ was spin as far as I can tell.

Ashworth and Wilcox now basically have the job of finding a coach out there who can work with these players. I can’t imagine they’ll just go for the biggest name available and ask him ‘so what players do you want?’. Whoever comes in will surely be someone ready to make use of Ajax 2019.
 
fergiewherearethou said:
It is so easy to say get rid of Bruno and Rashford, but reality is that they our most consistent attacking players in the last 5 years. Ups and downs yes, everybody expects them to carry us every game but 1. they are not the greatest of all time and 2. we are a dysfunctional team and we always were since they started playing for us.
Good luck to us hoping that Garnacho, Zirkzee, Hojlund or Amad will bring us loads of goals every season from now on.
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That's the exact problem isn't it. We have enjoyed Bruno's and Rashford's peaks. We know they are only going to get worse from here. We are seeing that they are not able to contribute in terms of numbers or performances right now. We also know that they are both a big reason why we are playing the disjointed style of football that we do. We concede so many goals when we needlessly lose possession in attacking positions (e.g. the first goal against Spurs started from Rashford overrunning the ball) and Bruno and Rashford are our biggest culprits in that area. So why not take the loss, accept that we are not going to score a lot of goals (with or without them) and focus on playing a more progressive style with the likes of Amad? At least when we lose we have the solace of knowing that we are trying something new and not persisting with something that has not worked for the last hundred games.
 
Theres a chance they still think ten hag can achieve the fairly modest goal of top 4.

But if not, and if none of the summer options appealed to them, then their only option is to go with van nistelrooy - who presumably ticked boxes they wanted as they brought him to the club. Hope he can deliver top 4 while calmly continuing their other goals in terms of off field aims for this season, while also arriving at their ideal candidate to take over next summer.

In January, or summer, depending on availability, we absolutely still need a new left back and striker.
 
Desert Eagle said:
We've seen our players literally do this to multiple managers. In the NFL the Raiders coach said a week or so ago players are making business decisions. It happens in all sports to bad teams with a bad culture and not enough leadership.
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Personally, I think that's just the frustrated fans perspective. If your boss hands you a screwdriver and tells you to get on assembling something that requires a wrench, you're going to look like you're throwing in the towel, too.
 
They're going to have to do something, there really isn't much hope of ten Hag turning things around. Whether it be RVN or an interim (my preferred option), something needs to happen to change the atmosphere and the narrative around the club. I really don't think the squad is that bad and a few good performances under a more coherent system could be enough to instill a bit of belief in them. Top 4 isn't completely out of the question if this happens. Unless the perfect candidate is there now, any decision on a permanent manager can wait until the summer.
 
Dr. Dwayne said:
Personally, I think that's just the frustrated fans perspective. If your boss hands you a screwdriver and tells you to get on assembling something that requires a wrench, you're going to look like you're throwing in the towel, too.
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I think its a naive perspective that just because someone is a professional sports person, that means they always give maximum effort or that it's all on the boss/coach/manager.

Of course you're going to look worse in a crap system with bad coaching but you can't tell me that Rashford not challenging for a header in the FA Cup final is because of ETH's tactics. He does it when he feels like it. Some of our players track back when they feel like it. It's what happens when a culture of mediocrity and no accountability sets in. We have players getting paid some of the highest wages in world football who have achieved feck all and feel entitled. I still remember Maguire saying something like I have nothing to prove. There is such a thing as a winners mentality or competitive edge and unfortunately we have a team (manager and players and owners) who are lacking there along with their other deficiencies.
 
2 man midfield said:
I think they were ready to sack him but basically couldn’t after the cup final. The ‘we looked around and realised we already had the best guy’ was spin as far as I can tell.

Ashworth and Wilcox now basically have the job of finding a coach out there who can work with these players. I can’t imagine they’ll just go for the biggest name available and ask him ‘so what players do you want?’. Whoever comes in will surely be someone ready to make use of Ajax 2019.
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I think they could have, the league for justified it. It seems they met with Tuchel and sounded out others. You can conclude they weren't convinced and/or the candidate they wanted wasn't an option. They never backed ETH, they just activated his option to avoid him only have a year left. However it come about, it now looks like a mistake.

I think the players this summer weren't necessarily his choice, even if he had the ability to veto a transfer, and I don't think any manager comes in going forward and is picking his own players. Clearly they'll have a say in it, but that's now how any top club works anymore.
 
I’m not so sure they are doing a great job thus far.
Look at this summer.
Sign Zirkzee who everyone told us is not a true 9. Play him as a 9. Continue with Bruno who plays in zirkzee’s best position and who has stunk the place out for the last 18 months+
Some of that is on ETH for sure but if the fecker is never dropping Bruno then Zirkzee is a £30m (or whatever it was) bench warmer.
Does not compute.
 
fergiewherearethou said:
It is so easy to say get rid of Bruno and Rashford, but reality is that they our most consistent attacking players in the last 5 years. Ups and downs yes, everybody expects them to carry us every game but 1. they are not the greatest of all time and 2. we are a dysfunctional team and we always were since they started playing for us.
Good luck to us hoping that Garnacho, Zirkzee, Hojlund or Amad will bring us loads of goals every season from now on.
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Bruno maybe… Rashford a consistent attacker? Are you high!?
 
What I expect Murtough / Woody to do is the following

- Keep backing the manager
- Poor results against Villa / Porto (say D + L with some decent counter attacks)
- Do nothing in the international break
- Get smashed by Brentford 3-0
- Panic and sack the coach and replace with RvN

So don't do that. Have the wisdom to do what's right here. Prep for these contingencies. Have some red lines and stick to them and ignore what the rest of the world is saying.
 
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