Antonio Conte at Chelsea. Rijkaard at Barcelona. Pochettino at Spurs. Mancini at Inter. Even Mourinho at Chelsea. Twice. There’s also a number of relegation threatened clubs who change managers and quickly teach a new way of playing and get on with it. Diego Simeone joined Atletico midway through a season and immediately started winning trophies, including their first La Liga in God knows in only his second full season.
Chelsea are the perfect example for me. Managers are getting a bit of a pass due to a fixation with Ed Woodward on here, but Chelsea are the most successful PL club of the last 10-15 years. This isn’t down to some amazing strategising, deep-rooted club ethos, revamped academy or any other buzzword of the day. They have just gone out and gotten managers who have won things elsewhere before, those managers have come in and seemingly re-energised the players over the course of one pre-season, then gone on to win the league.
I can’t think of anything in how we are structured that has prevented us from having a season like some of the ones Chelsea have had in the last decade since Fergie left. It just hasn’t happened. But it easily could have. Jose could just have easily come in and got the players following him like disciples as he did at Chelsea, added a handful of quality players, as he did at Chelsea twice, and won the league. And if not for us running into a team that achieved the greatest ever PL season, we could have won it last year. And then there would be little of the frustration (to put it mildly) that we have now.
I don’t see any major structural issues that prevent us from getting a manager with a plan, the ability to instil that plan in his squad, getting him a few players that he believes will execute it, and getting on with it. It works for other sides, and I think a new hipster era is over complicating things. Real Madrid have fallen off a bit, but nobody would bet against Zidane adding some quality and them becoming a top side again next year. And if he gets the players he wants and he finishes 5th, nobody will be blaming fecking Florentino Perez either! Unless he refuses to sack Zidane ever. Which he won’t, Zidane will be sacked and they will get Pochettino, he’ll be given some money and be expected to deliver. Only at United the fecking board needs to be changed because we don’t play out from the back well enough, or because a signing doesn’t fulfill their potential. Nobody demands the execs are sacked at any other club UNLESS the accusation is that the board refuse to spend. Even at clubs with magical DoFs, I’ve never seen a campaign to sack a DoF due to underperformance. The manager takes responsibility for the team’s results, and especially for their tactics etc, except on occasions where he says his hands are tied due to lack of funds. Our managers have been gleefully having all sorts of transfer and salary records broken for them, and once the window is closed, they alone must take it from there.
Again, I’m not against a Director as such, I’m all for continuous improvement, but I don’t believe they have the magic wand that is implied, nor do I believe we can be excused for not performing due to the absence of one.