Would we have been better off if we just sacked managers at the right time?

stefan92 said:
It's not the timing of the sacking that's the problem, but the lack of a problem for what happens next. In theory you are right, sacking early enough before a complete downward spiral happens makes sense and can be useful. But the problem is the "full reset" United every time did. Each new manager was a completely different type who wanted a much different style of play and so there was rebuild after rebuild.

Clubs that have a better structure and vision adjust their course slightly to improve and then everythings fine, but United has been bouncing all over the place. Under these circumstances sacking managers quicker would probably just have resulted in the list of failed managers being one or two names longer by now.
Click to expand...

Part of the reason for the full reset is that we let the situation get so bad. The fans, media and even in the club everyone believes the only way to solve it is a complete reboot. The narrative actually does matter.

We let the situations get so toxic and unbearable, that everyone around the club wanted something that's completely the opposite.
 
Skills said:
Part of the reason for the full reset is that we let the situation get so bad. The fans, media and even in the club everyone believes the only way to solve it is a complete reboot. The narrative actually does matter.

We let the situations get so toxic and unbearable, that everyone around the club wanted something that's completely the opposite.
Click to expand...
Hm... you might be right about this. My impression was just always that the club is completely clueless anyway, so I didn't even think about the possibility that there could be actually an idea behind going from van Gaal to Mourinho for example.
 
stefan92 said:
Hm... you might be right about this. My impression was just always that the club is completely clueless anyway, so I didn't even think about the possibility that there could be actually an idea behind going from van Gaal to Mourinho for example.
Click to expand...

By the time Van Gaal was sacked, everyone was sick of his football. People even thought Mourinho's brand of shit on a stick was liberating compared to what they had to endure under Van Gaal. Most of the caf, genuinely didn't want anything to do with possession football by the time LVG was sacked.

That was because, we endured through an extra 6 months of Van Gaal than necessary. Van Gaal had come to a natural end of his work about halfway through his second season - he had stalled and he didn't have any solution from that point on.
 
I felt we should have sacked Ole when Poch was available before going to PSG. Who knows how it would have turned out, but I always felt he could have done well here.

I don't think we waited too long with Jose, the problem was not backing him that summer after he had finished second, and overall had done well with the squad.

LVG era is a haze to me, I think I've repressed it, but I think given we were pushing for the FA Cup, probably not.

All in all, I think holding onto below-par players too long has hurt us more (Bailly, Rojo, Fellaini, McTominay, Fred, Lukaku, Pogba, Darmian, Young, Lingard, the list goes on. Too much faith placed in guys never good enough).
 
Big Andy said:
LEts be honest, nobody wanted Ole sacked last summer. We'd finished 2nd, we'd been narrowly beaten in the Europa League, and we'd signed Ronaldo, Varane and Sancho.

Things were looking bright at the time.

We started the season well, and it was only later in the season that we struggled, and I still think a lot of that was playing for Ronaldo to score goals instead of playing as a team.
Click to expand...
:lol: :lol:. Everyone, who was not into "Ole legend stuff" wanted him gone from day one. Becauseevery fan who thought with his head and not heart, knew that he iscompletely out of depth.
 
Ole is the one we should have let go much earlier. The club was foolish to give him the permanent role before the 2018/19 season ended. If we waited until the end of the season like any normal club would do or at least closer to the end, he never gets the job. The end of that season was dreadful and you felt the wheels fall off once the purple patch ended.
 
No, we'd still have the same players who aren't good enough. If we'd have recruited better people wouldn't be so obsessed with managers and expecting them to fix everything.
 
The club's biggest fault is fully entrusting managers they've just hired with £100s of millions worth of spending, that sort of trust should be earned over time through success in their role.
 
Someone said:
I still think the biggest problem is what Ralf highlighted last season, we need as a club to figure out how we want to play, and then hire managers and players accordingly to guarantee continuity. This has been our biggest failure, and if in a year or two we end up sacking ETH just to hire a completely different manager we'll end up in the same position again.
Click to expand...

This is it in a 'nutshell'. Everyone can see the problem except it seems the people who can do something about it...the Glazers... or maybe they just don't want to see... "none so blind..."etc
They hired a consultant then ignored what he said... is there any hope?
 
Real Name said:
With Ole I agree, after the EL final he should have gone.
Mourinho, we couldnt have sacked him after finishing 2nd although the writing was already at the wall when we were poor in the transfer market.
Click to expand...

He should have been sacked after Sevilla, which was months earlier. Mourinho’s tenure was disastrous and far too many people had their heads in the sand with him.

As for the OP, the answer is yes (slightly). Moyes shouldn’t have made it to the December.
 
On paper, Lvg had best ideas regarding rebuilding. He said that he doesn't like having big squad. He said that he needs 17,18 players (i think) and the rest are kids.
Biggest reason why we are in the mess now is that failed Cardiff manager wanted 30 players in the squad. He was like people who have problem with getting rid of junk.
 
Kag said:
He should have been sacked after Sevilla, which was months earlier. Mourinho’s tenure was disastrous and far too many people had their heads in the sand with him.

As for the OP, the answer is yes (slightly). Moyes shouldn’t have made it to the December.
Click to expand...
Theoretically yes, but we were then 2nd in the league and you don't sack a manager for going out of CL and cause if crappy post match comments.
 
Real Name said:
Theoretically yes, but we were then 2nd in the league and you don't sack a manager for going out of CL and cause if crappy post match comments.
Click to expand...
We also gave him a daft new contract a few months before we sacked him. The writing was already on the wall at that point
 
CM10 said:
We also gave him a daft new contract a few months before we sacked him. The writing was already on the wall at that point
Click to expand...
Yeah, that was daft all right. Did the same with Ole, didn't we?
 
The only manager who should've been sacked long before he actually was is Solskjaer.
 
Absolutely.

Hindsight is 20:20 but all of our post Fergie appointments have outstayed their welcome.

The issue is that as a fanbase we have some romantic idea we're somehow better than other clubs. The "if Fergie wasn't given time..." arguments often get trotted out when things aren't going well, often with no irony or understanding of the context of his initial few years in charge.

The levels of sanctimony reached new heights under Ole in regards to getting rid of a manager. Any doubts were met with flimsy excuses; "Just because you can't see it..." often given as a response when pushed on what progress people were seeing with little evidence of any play style or long term planning being evident.

Obviously the issues go way beyond one individual, but the fractious nature of our fanbase and our seeming desire to become peak 2000s Liverpool have seen more divides appear and a generation of fans who think they're better than others that support the club.
 
Skills said:
I honestly, believe the biggest reason we're in this mess is we refuse to put the fire out while it's relatively small. We're repeatedly in the same position because of our stubbornness, and then rather than needing to refurbish it you're rebuilding it brick by brick.

If Ole left in Summer 2021, I think someone else could've picked up and done a job from there without us sinking to our current lows. The morale for one would never have sank to the level it has since.

If we sacked Mourinho in summer 2018, it would've left a better platform for the next to work from. We also wouldn't have gone crazy 8n the summer window of 2019.

The fact that we left things get so bad means we're constantly having to press the factory reset button, rather than just realising it's time for a refresh now.
Click to expand...

Given how each manager's successor performed, I'd say it wouldn't have made much difference when they were sacked.
 
Real Name said:
With Ole I agree, after the EL final he should have gone.
Mourinho, we couldnt have sacked him after finishing 2nd although the writing was already at the wall when we were poor in the transfer market.
Click to expand...
We could have sacked Jose and i assume that's what this thread is about. Calls like that instead of giving them a line of credit over what they've done. "He deserves a chance after xyz.." mentality is killing us. We needed to be ready to tell them to walk before the red flags poisoned the possibility of salvage. Even though the top reds like neville would cry about how it's a disgrace.
 
Last edited:
Depends what you mean by "better off".

If I replace a shabby looking structure on top of a rotten and useless foundation, I'm arguably "better off" than if I just keep the shabby looking structure.

It's all cosmetic, though - the new structure will look shabby enough before long too.
 
Big Andy said:
LEts be honest, nobody wanted Ole sacked last summer. We'd finished 2nd, we'd been narrowly beaten in the Europa League, and we'd signed Ronaldo, Varane and Sancho.

Things were looking bright at the time.

We started the season well, and it was only later in the season that we struggled, and I still think a lot of that was playing for Ronaldo to score goals instead of playing as a team.
Click to expand...
I wanted him gone the summer before but carry on.
 
We’ve discussed managers endlessly here and I doubt we’ll learn anything new today. But this is what I think most of us have know for a long time:

Hiring Moyes was a stupendously stupid decision. He was sacked at the right time.

Hiring Louis wasn’t obviously a bad idea at the time, though most of us had our doubts. He was sacked at the right time.

Hiring José was a bad idea, given the wreckage he had recently left behind. He was sacked too late. An

Hiring Ole as interim manager made sense given we were in midseason, but in hindsight we should have thanked for his services and not made him permanent manager. We sacked him too late. And yes, quite a few here wanted Ole sacked after the humiliation in the EL final, but more than that the time was right to move on.

I hope we’re not thinking about sacking ETH already.
 
Amazing that some of the same people who say ole needed to go after coming second are saying ETH can only be expected to come mid table only 12 months later
 
Crashoutcassius said:
Amazing that some of the same people who say ole needed to go after coming second are saying ETH can only be expected to come mid table only 12 months later
Click to expand...

Ole came second in his third season.Not his first season. It was easier for Ole because he took over a team that was used to playing counter attacking football under Jose. ETH plays a different kind of football. Just the opposite.
This shows the management of United has no clue. If ETH don't succeed for any reason they will sack him and get Jose no. 2.
 
Crashoutcassius said:
Amazing that some of the same people who say ole needed to go after coming second are saying ETH can only be expected to come mid table only 12 months later
Click to expand...
It would actually be consistent logic because it means they look beyond league finish to tell where a manager is trending. Long term prospects wouldn't rest on league position if one employs context and foresight. In fact both times we've finished 2nd have been followed by meltdowns, meltdowns from cracks that had started showing even in those 2nd placed seasons. People would say to move on and avoid disaster only to be met with "but 2nd place".
 
The timing wouldn't have made a lot of difference. The issues stem from the club having no long-term plan and it appears that we do everything on an adhoc basis.

If the thread would have been about waiting too long to move on players which aren't successfull then I would agree. We just keep waiting for a miracle to happen until the player loses all market value and we can't move him on.
 
I believe the reason we are in this mess is because we are too eager to get rid of managers when players down tools. We need to let the players know that if they don't back the manager they are the ones to leave not the manager.
 
Foxbatt said:
Ole came second in his third season.Not his first season. It was easier for Ole because he took over a team that was used to playing counter attacking football under Jose. ETH plays a different kind of football. Just the opposite.
This shows the management of United has no clue. If ETH don't succeed for any reason they will sack him and get Jose no. 2.
Click to expand...
True enough, everything you said.
 
What good does it do when you don't have a clear sense of how you play, which also impacts the types of players your recruit and sign.

I understand the signing of Ronaldo at the time and a big reason was that the club didn't want him to go to City, but the way the team was setup before him wasn't good enough to dictate play for him and abandoned all the good things the previous seasons. Greenwood destroyed his personal, professional, and club all at once which didn't help obviously.

But Chelsea, City, Spurs...all have sacked off coaches many times, but they already had good players who were able to adapt to some subtle tweaks which kept them there abouts if not better especially on City's case.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.