OK guys hear me out…
For me, the key issue in the post-SAF era was the lack of continuity. Sir Alex created the template and the foundations for United to dominate English football, and when the competition got richer, there were structures in place and a winning professional culture that enabled us to, at the very least, be conteders. This was in spite of the Glazers austerity and leeching.
I thought Moyes shot himself in the foot by getting rid of the entire SAF backroom staff, especially influential coaches such as Rene Muelensteen and Mick Phelan. Moyes did not achieve enough and have credit in the bank to be given a free reign to shape United in his image. The club should have put some checks and balances on his power and conditioned his acceptance of the job on keeping SAF’s coaches at the club, at the very least for a transitionary period in order to preserve the culture that was cultivated across 26 years.
LvG did have enough credit in the bank to shape the club in his image. We had growing pains with LvG and there were lots of decisions that did not make logical sense, but I feel that we were getting somewhere. In my view, LvG should not have been sacked. While missing out on top 4 was unfortunate, it was more down to that horrible period we had at the end of 2015. Progress is not always linear or chronological and by the end of LvG’s final season, we had a clear way of dominating games and there were emerging talents to build around.
Jose also earned the right to shape the club in his image given all of his achievements. However, the club had changed by then. His demanding nature was not suited to a squad in which the remnants of our last title winning team were both a minority and not key players.
It is no surprise then that our most stable post-SAF period was under Ole. As much as people complained about Ole’s lack of stature as a manager or his (alleged) tactical ineptitude, the feel-good factor was back and it started to feel like we were on the road to being United again. There was the run of wins in his first season, followed by third and second placed finishes, a kick away from a European trophy, we were able to stage those comebacks again and there were times when we won games by large scores.
But it wasn’t just Ole. It was a team effort, and central to this was the continuity. There was Mick Phelan from the SAF era. There was Carrick from the SAF, LvG and Jose eras. McKenna was also kept after his talent was spotted by Jose and he is currently showing his tactical aptitude and studious nature at Ipswich where he is on course for back-to-back promotions.
Of course, Ole could have been stronger in resisting the Ronaldo signing. Ole and his staff should have foreseen that Ronaldo’s inability to press and lack of mobility may have ruined the project they were working towards, but everybody is a genius in hindsight.
Ten Hag bringing in Steve McLaren wasn’t the best move for continuity given that he wasn’t at the club for long and he had departed around two decades ago. In addition, Ten Hag does not have enough credit in the bank to shape the club in his image.
Thus, in my view, the solution would be to try to bring back people from the SAF era so that we can have a semblance of stability again.
It would be difficult for the fans to accept Ole again given that many never gave him the benefit of the doubt anyway.
It would be good to have McKenna or Carrick back but I’m not sure they would take the step back to be coaches again given that they have already started managerial careers, and many fans would not accept them as managers given their inexperience.
The next best possible options in terms of continuity would be Rene Muelensteen, Carlos Quierioz and Mick Phelan. Perhaps they don’t have individual stature in the game, but our greatest manager of all time delegated a lot to them during our most successful period.
If it still fails after this, then we may just have to follow the Chelsea / Real Madrid model of hiring managers and then firing them as soon as their bounce is over. I say this because there was a ship for us to maintain continuity from the SAF era and with 10 years having passed now, it might just have sailed…