What was the plan after sacking Mourinho?

Amir said:
I guess it depends on how you read into something like this and the title 'head of football'.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...ll-news/man-utd-director-of-football-15566188
Click to expand...
The official statement when sacking Mourinho didn't anything about restructure or appoint a DoF. It might be guesswork or brief to the press to calm the situation, but as we see how thing played out, Woodward didn't want to give up his power.

"The head of football would report to executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward."
"John Murtough is currently United's head of football development"

Sound like just change job title just as it played out till this day too. Never intended to actually make outside appointment that may rock the boat. In normal circumstances, CEO is still the boss, but DoF was supposed to be empowered to make decisions on many matters without having to report every little detail and take order from CEO. Just like manager decide training, formation, tactic, starting XI, sub....
 
I don't think there was a plan, if there were he'd never have been hired in the first place.
 
It's interesting to think, looking back, had we not gave Ole the job full time, what he would've done afterwards. His reputation as a manager would've been at an all time high. Also, assuming the man appointed failed, would we have brought back Ole again.
 
Offside said:
Anybody who knows football knows the new manager bounce phenomenon.
Click to expand...

While it's true that the "new manager bounce" is a real thing, I wonder how much it would really apply to an interim manager who, as far as the players knew at the time, would only be there until the end of the season.

Now, I don't necessarily think Ole had it in him to be a successful long-term manager at United; but aside from Moyes, we've done quite well every time we got a new manager. Granted, LvG and Rangnick didn't have a particularly long "new manager bounce" phase, but if we look at Ole, Mourinho and ETH in particular, we did well for quite a while when they arrived. Then it fell apart after about a year. That's a long bounce.

But then we also see the same with players. They arrive, and usually they do well for about a year. Then their form vanishes without a trace and they become shit. Not every player does well upon arrival (e.g. Mount, Donny, arguably Sancho although he was at least better in the beginning than later), but it's definitely a trend. It's a trend that encompasses the whole club: new arrivals do fine for a while, but then as the new guy veneer wears off, it all falls apart and they seem to become mired in the same shit that engulfs the rest of the club.

For that reason, I have a hard time accepting the idea that we've just been appointing one useless manager after another, and signing one dud after another. Certainly there have been some where it seems clear that we did in fact get the wrong guy, but can it really be true that this was the case just about every time for a decade? That seems unrealistically improbable.

Seems more likely that there's something toxic going on at the club that prevents anyone from doing well in the long term. They tend to do fine when they arrive and then the thing, whatever it is, wears away at their capabilities. While I can't sit here and pinpoint the exact problem with total certainty, I think it spans all aspects of MUFC, from the ownership down to the general atmosphere at the club.

The state of the stadium, having to work under the parasitic Glazers, answering to people appointed not for their footballing credentials but for their business world resumé. Even basic things like us apparently being (up until relatively recently) the last PL club to not pay its rank and file staff a living wage. These things all contribute to the way people feel about playing for United because the psychological aspect plays a huge part of football, and if you come into work every day and are met with grumpy, unenthusiastic staff and a stadium that's falling apart, I'm convinced that these sorts of things can have a knock-on effect that can be seen on the pitch.
 
SER19 said:
It was very hard not to offer solskjaer the contract after the run of form. Its easy looking back but I remember at the time, there being an argument that not giving it to him was just undermining him at a time when things were finally going well. Even so, we shouldn't have done it mid season. Things tailed off not long after. The funny thing with solskjaer is that he didn't actually do that bad, even if people won't admit it.
Click to expand...

He was given the permanent contract at a point where things already tailed off, wasn't he?
I'm almost sure of it.

quite some of the games we won on that crazy run of form were games where we looked rather bad but managed to win anyway.
I seem to remember a lot of talk about how the results will start reflecting our poor football, which they eventually did...
and that's when Woody gave him the 3 years contract, I believe.

Shambles.
 
RedOrange said:
Yes, that's right folks, the hinge point was not hiring Pochettino! Forget that he failed miserably at PSG and is now struggling with a £1.2 billion squad consisting of all the transfer muppet binkies of the last 2 seasons, if he had signed here in February of 2019 instead we'd surely have won the treble by now!
Click to expand...

You can change Pochettino with any name that fits the "good potential & (if possible) PL proven" criteria, and it would make very little difference. Poch just happened to be the hottest name back then. I maintain that they're still making it up as they go. There's no overarching strategy, that's why we look so reactive as a club. What they took from LvG's tenure was to not allow a complete overhaul over a short period of time. When they were forced to sack Mourinho, the lesson probably was to hire a manager who would be thankful to have the job and therefore willing to play along with the decision makers. Solskjaer basically admitted that. Poch looked like a safe option for them. Levy is not an easy man to work with, and i believe that's one of the reasons both PSG and Chelsea were interested in him. Anyway, he had the right profile for what they were searching back then. Until Solskjaer provided them with an easier and less costly option. That's their way to obtain what they understand as a sense of stability. I believe ETH was appointed on the same premise, too. Not to implement anything, just to emulate the good periods of Solskjaer and Mourinho and prolong them. I don't think it's a coincidence that names like Potter and De Zerbi are being circulated as potential candidates for the job, either. It hurts how underwhelming they both seem for a behemoth club in crisis. But that's the thing. We don't really know how to fix the problem, so we focus on alleviating its symptoms while hoping the "right man" for the job (we have turned into an impossible task) will land on our laps by accident. And lots of fans on here are more than happy with that.
 
ScholesyTheWise said:
He was given the permanent contract at a point where things already tailed off, wasn't he?
I'm almost sure of it.

quite some of the games we won on that crazy run of form were games where we looked rather bad but managed to win anyway.
I seem to remember a lot of talk about how the results will start reflecting our poor football, which they eventually did...
and that's when Woody gave him the 3 years contract, I believe.

Shambles.
Click to expand...

In hindsight, yes, things were tailing off.

However, the only games we'd lost were the first leg against PSG (which was ultimately inconsequential), a league game against Arsenal, and an FA Cup tie away to Wolves (who were quite good that year, and we had beaten Arsenal and Chelsea away in the previous two rounds).

The mistake was obviously doing it mid-season (if at all), as we went on to win just two of 10 after he was given the job properly and before the season ended.
 
The issue with Ole wasn’t that he was hired or given the season but that he was given a contract mid-season. Nobody was after him anyway and then the wheels came off near the end and showed some issues that would continue to show under his reign. A judgment should have been made in June, not in the middle of the hot streak.

Having said that overall Ole didn’t do too bad a job, there’s no guarantee other managers would have done better with Woodward, the worst football director in the league, at the helm.
 
Alex99 said:
The club sacked Jose on 18.12.18 and hired Ole as caretaker a day later.

Who were we looking at as our next permanent manager before Ole went on a mad run of 14 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss and got given the job himself?

Or did the club simply not have a replacement in mind and Ole's vibes fc saved them the hassle of finding one?
Click to expand...

As you just said, do you sack a manager with a CV of 14 W 2D 1L?
 
It was hard to not give Ole the job after his run. You know the topics would be “what if we gave Ole a permanent contract” whenever the manager we chose instead of him was sacked.
 
cyril C said:
As you just said, do you sack a manager with a CV of 14 W 2D 1L?
Click to expand...

He didn’t need to be sacked but there was nobody else after him so see out the season before making a decision, after we beat PSG the results were 2 W 2 D 8 L
 
cyril C said:
As you just said, do you sack a manager with a CV of 14 W 2D 1L?
Click to expand...

Well, he wasn't technically hired at that point.

He was the caretaker and we had no real reason to jump the gun and offer him a contract with only eight league games to go.

Molde were certainly not in a position to even match any offer we could make, and it's not as if he was fielding offers from other clubs.

We could have waited to see how the season panned out, and we ultimately reverted to type a bit.

It was fanciful to think he could keep it up long-term.
 
Alex99 said:
Well, he wasn't technically hired at that point.

He was the caretaker and we had no real reason to jump the gun and offer him a contract with only eight league games to go.

Molde were certainly not in a position to even match any offer we could make, and it's not as if he was fielding offers from other clubs.

We could have waited to see how the season panned out, and we ultimately reverted to type a bit.

It was fanciful to think he could keep it up long-term.
Click to expand...


If I remember correctly, we did have a good run on season 2 (1st season was only half a season, which was so so). As soon as Ole got the contract, our form dropped ( a bit like Rooney and Rashford's new contract). Perhaps the contract should have been finalised in June instead of middle of season, for a complete view of result. Perhaps Ole would still got the deal, but may be not.
 
Hindsight, hindsight, hindsight...

It's so easy to say that it was the wrong decision to hire Ole permanently when looking back, but at the time it was a very reasonable decision. 14 wins, 2 draws, 1 loss and beating PSG in the CL over two games is such a crazy 3 month run that it will never be matched by an interim again. It's also safe to assume that the dressing room loved him at that stage. At one point you as an employer will look overly cautious and cynical if you keep your cards so close to your chest.

But it's hilarious how quickly things went to shit that season after he signed the contract. The ink had hardly turned dry. The whole thing is a bizarre story that other clubs for sure will take wisdom from. Hopefully our club too, although I wouldn't count on it.
 
KeanoMagicHat said:
The issue with Ole wasn’t that he was hired or given the season but that he was given a contract mid-season. Nobody was after him anyway and then the wheels came off near the end and showed some issues that would continue to show under his reign. A judgment should have been made in June, not in the middle of the hot streak.

Having said that overall Ole didn’t do too bad a job, there’s no guarantee other managers would have done better with Woodward, the worst football director in the league, at the helm.
Click to expand...

This was an even bigger issue considering the way things went for the rest of the season. We missed out on top4, then lost in the next round of CL, and then had a tail off (which was always a worry)
However, I would have had no issue giving Ole the role, if the lack of experience was compensated with the player purchases.
To only bring in AWB, Maguire and Dan James was ridiculous. We needed a bit of an overhaul at the time (especially after Oles speech after the everton loss).
We needed 5-6 players in at the time to compensate (and negotiations should have started as soon as Ole was hired so we could get it completed before pre-season) and play more towards what Ole wanted in terms of pace, and pressing.
The maguire deal, how long it took and how much we paid in the end was crazy.

Back to the original question, im certain as most people are, we wanted Poch in the summer, but as usual, there was no real plan so we just went with the flow. Insane.
 
The plan was to remove his malignant negativity so it wouldn't infect the squad any further. In this case shooting first and asking questions later was the right move.
 
MackRobinson said:
The plan was to remove his malignant negativity so it wouldn't infect the squad any further. In this case shooting first and asking questions later was the right move.
Click to expand...

I agree but the decision to ignore the effect lifting that air of negativity had on the club and subsequent results was not considered. It was fairly obvious that releasing unhappy players from the shackles Jose put on them would cause and upswing in results and morale, Pogba being the most obvious beneficiary of Jose getting sacked.

The board should have absolutely considered that when the offer was made to Ole. Hindsight in 20/20 but there were a lot of clear reasons for that initial unbeaten run. Woodward jumping the gun on the back of fan sentiment was symptomatic of the issues surrounding the club for the last 10 years; bending to external pressure to give short term optimism whilst ignoring the root of most of the problems.
 
b82REZ said:
I agree but the decision to ignore the effect lifting that air of negativity had on the club and subsequent results was not considered. It was fairly obvious that releasing unhappy players from the shackles Jose put on them would cause and upswing in results and morale, Pogba being the most obvious beneficiary of Jose getting sacked.

The board should have absolutely considered that when the offer was made to Ole. Hindsight in 20/20 but there were a lot of clear reasons for that initial unbeaten run. Woodward jumping the gun on the back of fan sentiment was symptomatic of the issues surrounding the club for the last 10 years; bending to external pressure to give short term optimism whilst ignoring the root of most of the problems.
Click to expand...
I believe people are judging the name and not the results. He won 14 out of 19 matches, a half-season of matches. Never heard of a 19-match new manager bounce and if his name was Tuchel I don't think anyone would feel this way. The one argument I could see being made is waiting until the end of the season to hire a new manager, but again given the job he had done up until that point, I can forgive the decision.

There is also a faulty assumption that the next manager would have done better in the time period Ole was in charge. United ended up 3rd and 2nd in his full seasons in charge. The wheels fell off in the third season. Could happen to any manager.
 
MackRobinson said:
I believe people are judging the name and not the results. He won 14 out of 19 matches, a half-season of matches. Never heard of a 19-match new manager bounce and if his name was Tuchel I don't think anyone would feel this way. The one argument I could see being made is waiting until the end of the season to hire a new manager, but again given the job he had done up until that point, I can forgive the decision.

There is also a faulty assumption that the next manager would have done better in the time period Ole was in charge. United ended up 3rd and 2nd in his full seasons in charge. The wheels fell off in the third season. Could happen to any manager.
Click to expand...

An awful lot of revisionism here.

The first dozen games were good, the wheels fell off in the wake of the PSG results and the subsequent upswell of support for Ole to be made permanent. We then ended that season in atrocious form and continued that well into the next season. The Bruno signing at the end of January was what reinvigorated the team and we hit a purple patch both pre and post lockdown.

Then the same pattern emerged the following season; absolute shit on a stick football and poor results.

The succession should have been thought out much more than, " he won 11 games and supporters and pundits alike want him made permanent." In those wins we didn't perform exceptionally well and a lot of the results were very fortuitous. The original plan of a full analysis of the footballing structure and background checks (for lack of a better phrase) into the next manager should have been taking place and no discussion of an extension should even have been considered until the season had ended.
 
b82REZ said:
An awful lot of revisionism here.

The first dozen games were good, the wheels fell off in the wake of the PSG results and the subsequent upswell of support for Ole to be made permanent. We then ended that season in atrocious form and continued that well into the next season. The Bruno signing at the end of January was what reinvigorated the team and we hit a purple patch both pre and post lockdown.

Then the same pattern emerged the following season; absolute shit on a stick football and poor results.

The succession should have been thought out much more than, " he won 11 games and supporters and pundits alike want him made permanent." In those wins we didn't perform exceptionally well and a lot of the results were very fortuitous. The original plan of a full analysis of the footballing structure and background checks (for lack of a better phrase) into the next manager should have been taking place and no discussion of an extension should even have been considered until the season had ended.
Click to expand...
Do you know the meaning of revisionism? What did I say that wasn't true?

You are assigning all the credit for his wins to circumstances around him (i.e., new manager bounce, purple patch, signing Bruno), but blaming him for poor results. I just don't subscribe to that philosophy and never will. It's called begging the question.

He won 14 of 19 matches, not 11, and if he didn't perform well, why was there nearly universal agreement it was a good thing he was given the permanent job? Ole started off really well, did ok for 2 full seasons, then the wheels fell off when he ran out of ideas. Philosophizing about a football structure that flawlessly picks the best manager is a pointless exercise.
 
b82REZ said:
An awful lot of revisionism here.

The first dozen games were good, the wheels fell off in the wake of the PSG results and the subsequent upswell of support for Ole to be made permanent. We then ended that season in atrocious form and continued that well into the next season. The Bruno signing at the end of January was what reinvigorated the team and we hit a purple patch both pre and post lockdown.

Then the same pattern emerged the following season; absolute shit on a stick football and poor results.

The succession should have been thought out much more than, " he won 11 games and supporters and pundits alike want him made permanent." In those wins we didn't perform exceptionally well and a lot of the results were very fortuitous. The original plan of a full analysis of the footballing structure and background checks (for lack of a better phrase) into the next manager should have been taking place and no discussion of an extension should even have been considered until the season had ended.
Click to expand...

Yep. He averaged 1.32 points over 32 games after being made permanent until Bruno was signed. It was by far the worst longest run of any United manager post-fergie.
 
Pretty brave of you to think we had a plan. We had no plan. Which was why Jose was hired after LVG. And then randomly stopped being backed. And then Ole given permanent job. It is all "let's do random things and hope it works". Even the ETH appointment was because good amount of fanbase were clamoring for ETH.
 
Scandi Red said:
Hindsight, hindsight, hindsight...

It's so easy to say that it was the wrong decision to hire Ole permanently when looking back, but at the time it was a very reasonable decision. 14 wins, 2 draws, 1 loss and beating PSG in the CL over two games is such a crazy 3 month run that it will never be matched by an interim again. It's also safe to assume that the dressing room loved him at that stage. At one point you as an employer will look overly cautious and cynical if you keep your cards so close to your chest.

But it's hilarious how quickly things went to shit that season after he signed the contract. The ink had hardly turned dry. The whole thing is a bizarre story that other clubs for sure will take wisdom from. Hopefully our club too, although I wouldn't count on it.
Click to expand...
Unless you meant us, then it's not.

Hiddink first interim record was 16 win 5 draw 1 defeat. 4 draws came in CL against Liverpool, Barcelona, Juventus. The leftover draw came from Moyes's Everton who finished 5th this season and as FA Cup finalist. The only defeat came from a derby with Tottenham. Seconds away from making CL final. Won the FA Cup.

Di Matteo 13 win 5 draw (counting CL final where they won on penalty. Draws came from Barcelona away; Tottenham; Arsenal; Fulham) 3 defeats (in the league: Liverpool; Man City and Newcastle, who had a stronger season where they're only 5 points from 3rd place. In the same season, Newcastle also beat us 3-0 at their ground). Ended up with FA Cup and CL (flukes but significant as it's the first ever for Chelsea).

Had 11 win 4 draw and 6 more defeats (2 comes from community Shield and UEFA Super Cup) in all competitions the following season before get the sack because (highly likely) CL elimination (which happened even though FSW won their final CL group stage game). Chelsea was still third in the league when Di Matteo sacked. FSW took over as interim went on to win EL in this season. Finished 3rd in the league. Reached semi final in both League Cup and FA Cup despite crazy congested schedule with Club World Cup extra round in EL and FA Cup replay (one against Brentford and one against us!)

In comparison, when Di Matteo was given the permanent manager job, it was after he completed the season with those double cup triumph. It's not "let's give him a job, so as to not undermine him, to relieve him some pressure going into season end business"!!!

I suspect it's a case of Woodward being reactive to "we have found our Zidane" fan's bandwagon. Our fans love to compare favorable to the extreme cases, while conveniently dismissing ugly possibilities. Happening now with ETH using Klopp, Arteta, SAF too
 
Last edited:
Woodzy said:
The club bottled it. Their eyes lit up when it looked like they had to put zero effort into finding a new manager.

They took the easy option at a time where almost everybody knew it was the wrong decision deep down.

That PSG victory ended up setting us back years (or probably not, considering we never really learn our lesson anyway).
Click to expand...

That sums it up nicely.
 
No plan just vibe.
Woodward probably had an Ole's singning in his bedroom. Thinking he finally hit a jackpot after rolling dice for so many years
 
Last edited:
Yagami said:
It's interesting to think, looking back, had we not gave Ole the job full time, what he would've done afterwards. His reputation as a manager would've been at an all time high. Also, assuming the man appointed failed, would we have brought back Ole again.
Click to expand...

Ole might've got a job somewhere else, but he'd have ballsed it up, somehow.
And he would then be either jobless or managing a club of the level of Molde.
Without doubt, he was the worst manager in the EPL and no fan in the EPL would replace their manager with ours.
 
sunama said:
Ole might've got a job somewhere else, but he'd have ballsed it up, somehow.
And he would then be either jobless or managing a club of the level of Molde.
Without doubt, he was the worst manager in the EPL and no fan in the EPL would replace their manager with ours.
Click to expand...
Seriously? Ole wasn't good enough for us and I probably wanted him out before most fans did, but that's clearly not true when he's in the same league as Lampard for one. And Lampard got multiple chances in the PL and likely will get more in the future.

Ole did better with us than Moyes or LVG did, and is still the only manager since Fergie to finish in the top four two seasons in a row. While we didn't end up winning any of them we regularly went deep into cup competitions, reaching three semi's in his first full season then a final and another semi in his second. Plus we scored more goals under him than under any other manager since Fergie. That's not to mention managing Molde to their first league championship in the clubs history, then turning around and winning it again the following year.

He certainly wasn't close to being one of the best managers in the PL (which is obviously what we should be looking for), but he clearly wasn't the worst manager either.
 
There hasn’t been a plan at United since Moyes was announced, we left everything to Sir Alex including his successor then expected modern day managers to do it all like Sir Alex did and it’s only now a decade on from Sir Alex we’re realising we need a proper structure in place.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.