Where they coach, how they coach, IF they coach...

Lentwood

Full Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2015
Messages
7,273
Location
West Didsbury, Manchester
Most will be familiar with Jose's infamous "see where they play, how they play, IF they play" 'football eritage' rant...and he had a point...of sorts...although, that point would have been stronger had he not contributed to the signing of so much deadwood himself...anyway...I digress.

Some posters seem to think we're cursed. That changing managers is pointless because we've changed managers before and it hasn't worked. Well, that argument is stupid, in my opinion, and it got me thinking about how previous United managers have done since leaving and whether we can apply a similar sort of logic, i.e., 'see where they coach, how they coach, IF they coach' logic to suggest they were probably just bad appointments.

David Moyes - two poor spells at Sociedad and Sunderland, followed by a period of mediocrity at West Ham and ultimately being sacked because of his dour, regressive football.

LvG - never managed another club side

Jose Mourinho - sacked by Spurs, sacked by Roma...now managing in Turkey.

OGS - hasn't managed another club side

I mean...it's hardly like these coaches have gone on to prove that their tenures at 'cursed' United were mere blips on their CVs. If anything, it's been all downhill for them.

Next up...EtH...with a stellar CV of managing Bayern reserves and winning some trophies with Ajax*, heroically losing to Tottenham in the Champions League, plus his abysmal tenure at United...it will be very interesting to see 'where he coaches, how he coaches, IF he coaches" next...

*Frank de Boer won four in a row with Ajax, and, as we know, thanks to the ever-quotable Jose, he is "the worst manager in Premier League history"

TLDR : we hired 2nd rate coaches and got 2nd rate results. How about...hire a good coach?
 
Lentwood said:
Most will be familiar with Jose's infamous "see where they play, how they play, IF they play" 'football eritage' rant...and he had a point...of sorts...although, that point would have been stronger had he not contributed to the signing of so much deadwood himself...anyway...I digress.

Some posters seem to think we're cursed. That changing managers is pointless because we've changed managers before and it hasn't worked. Well, that argument is stupid, in my opinion, and it got me thinking about how previous United managers have done since leaving and whether we can apply a similar sort of logic, i.e., 'see where they coach, how they coach, IF they coach' logic to suggest they were probably just bad appointments.

David Moyes - two poor spells at Sociedad and Sunderland, followed by a period of mediocrity at West Ham and ultimately being sacked because of his dour, regressive football.

LvG - never managed another club side

Jose Mourinho - sacked by Spurs, sacked by Roma...now managing in Turkey.

OGS - hasn't managed another club side

I mean...it's hardly like these coaches have gone on to prove that their tenures at 'cursed' United were mere blips on their CVs. If anything, it's been all downhill for them.

Next up...EtH...with a stellar CV of managing Bayern reserves and winning some trophies with Ajax*, heroically losing to Tottenham in the Champions League, plus his abysmal tenure at United...it will be very interesting to see 'where he coaches, how he coaches, IF he coaches" next...

*Frank de Boer won four in a row with Ajax, and, as we know, thanks to the ever-quotable Jose, he is "the worst manager in Premier League history"

TLDR : we hired 2nd rate coaches and got 2nd rate results. How about...hire a good coach?
Click to expand...

Ten Hag was considered an excellent choice and he still failed so far, you won't know who's gonna workout until it actually works, Pep, Ancelotti and maybe Klopp are the only ones you can bet your house that can actually succeed, anyone else is a risk.
 
Yeah it's 100% a good point. It's not just a case of bad signings and bad structure... the simple truth is also that we just haven't appointed the right managers either.

A top manager would still show he is a top manager even with a shit structure and an average squad. We haven't had that. We actually have a solid structure now (it seems), and I think we have a good squad. Let's see how Ten Hag manages elsewhere when he's sacked here. People can change but here, his system is a disaster and he seems mentally lost as well.
 
OmarUnited4ever said:
Ten Hag was considered an excellent choice and he still failed so far, you won't know who's gonna workout until it actually works, Pep, Ancelotti and maybe Klopp are the only ones you can bet your house that can actually succeed, anyone else is a risk.
Click to expand...
I wanted EtH...but it's clear he's a deluded crackpot who should have been shown the door 18-months ago.

There's nothing wrong with giving managers a chance, we need to get better at moving them on much quicker when it's clearly not working.

Case in point, the next hire (assuming Emery wouldn't come mid-season) should be McKenna. Free pass until the end of this season, must achieve top five next, if he doesn't...rinse repeat.
 
I mean, you’ve missed out the part that made ETH attractive - that he hadn’t just done a De Boer - and had got one side promoted and Utrecht to a final.

When you put context in, LVG wasn’t supposed to coach again, nor did he want to domestically and was supposed to lead onto something.

Then Woodward what the bed and hired a series of pointless coaches with no interest in doing anything but spending big and counter attacking.

ETH was probably the first highly rated manager (managing a CL club when hired) we hired since SAF.
 
bosnian_red said:
Yeah it's 100% a good point. It's not just a case of bad signings and bad structure... the simple truth is also that we just haven't appointed the right managers either.

A top manager would still show he is a top manager even with a shit structure and an average squad. We haven't had that. We actually have a solid structure now (it seems), and I think we have a good squad. Let's see how Ten Hag manages elsewhere when he's sacked here. People can change but here, his system is a disaster and he seems mentally lost as well.
Click to expand...
Could not agree more with all of this, nails it for me
 
Tbf, Jose and Moyes both won the conference League which is a pretty big achievement for their respective clubs but I agree with the point overall.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
I mean, you’ve missed out the part that made ETH attractive - that he hadn’t just done a De Boer - and had got one side promoted and Utrecht to a final.

When you put context in, LVG wasn’t supposed to coach again, nor did he want to domestically and was supposed to lead onto something.

Then Woodward what the bed and hired a series of pointless coaches with no interest in doing anything but spending big and counter attacking.

ETH was probably the first highly rated manager (managing a CL club when hired) we hired since SAF.
Click to expand...
Yeah well I'd argue hiring a manager who's publicly stated he's three seasons from retirement to oversee a rebuilding job, whilst maintaining the "achieve top four" pressure was by definition a bad appointment.

Also, as I said to another poster, I also wanted EtH. Nothing wrong with hiring him per se' but he should have been moved on 12-18 months ago.

My point about his CV is that, after a failure at United, it will look pretty flimsy and I can't see a real top club being interested. Let's see where he coaches, how he coaches....(I'm sure he will coach!)
 
I kind of agree. We keep looking for deeper answers and go into inquisitions about why are our managers are failing instead of just accepting that maybe they aren't/weren't good enough and move on. Sometimes it's that simple.

Good coaching & teams can make mediocre players look good whereas bad coaching & bad teams can make good players look mediocre.

Don't give 200m to every manager to start their regime. If we think the previous manager failed because he wasn't able to get the best out of the players then let the new manager do better with those players before giving them a war chest & carte blanche to discard the players as "Deadwood".

Let's hope the mandate for the new guy on Monday will be to improve this team and personnel.
 
Would be interesting to see if ETH had all his coaching staff at Ajax come along with him to United.

There could have been a key element missing. Jose wasn't the same manager after his assistant Rui Faria left.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.