Not convinced they couldn’t have got similar results by actually playing some football and giving us something to watch. It’s not like we played it safe so well every time. We were often hanging on for dear life.
Maybe, but they did "ok" by current standards, and the team has been dire since Fergie retired, even the squad he left Moyes was rapidly aging into decline. Mourinho managed to finagle a 2nd place, and LVG to 4th. It's easy to say they had to go, but, at some point you need to bring in a world class manager, hand over the reins, support them fully, and then step back.
Would Mourinho have self destructed had he been given the full financial backing to keep buying players until he found the right fit? Maybe, maybe not. We don't know. Would LVG eventually been able to bring in the world class players to fit into his system to make it hum like the Netherlands did at the world cup? Probably.
I feel like fans are holding managers to impossible standards. No manager has a 100% success rate on players. None. We're also often comparing our managers, to managers who are in completely different positions. United is in triage, and has been in triage since Fergie retired with a team of soon to be retirees. Triage purchases are different than what Klopp or Pep have been doing. The foundation of Uniteds squad is rotten. LVG and Mourinho brought in a lot of guys clearly as bandaid fixes. They needed someone, so they got what they could get from what was available. Things needed to be stabilized before incremental improvements could be made. We've also snapped up world class players whenever we could, and for one reason or another, most, I'd argue all, have failed to live up to their potential for one reason or another, be it over the hill, or some other reason.