I think at United, this is where we've failed. Our fans and the media seem to think that recruitment is our issue and blame the club. But when you really look into it, it's the concept of time regarding our managers.
We've been really relaxed about evaluating our managers. We constantly give them the benefits of time, normally not even commenting on team performance until 8 months after the managers arrival. That's way too much time and not enough urgency from the club to ensure success. The managers are given far too much unearned trust; which in the last 10 years has proven to be a mistake each and every time.
It's quite clear that the Glazers have taken a passive stance since becoming owners at United. This might be due to the nature of how they took over the club and the fact that under Fergie, the club didn't need to be active as Sir Alex could monitor himself and the team. However, that hasn't been the case for quite some time; the fear of being active hasn't actually helped the club, but just made us incredibly slow to act. As a result of this, I actually think the club may have been too generous with our managers. We've had issues with style of play and getting results with each manager we've had since Fergie left. All of whom had these problems from very early on in their tenures.
Moyes didn't show anything performance-wise for a whole season, we finished 7th and he was only sacked in April. Van Gaal experimented with a poor 352 till December, had one month of good football in March 2015, made a boatload of rubbish signings, and still lasted until May 2016. Mourinho had a poor league run in his first year. He won some trophies, but these were overly celebrated by the club in my opinion. We still finished 6th and were miles off where we wanted to be. Where the board of a team like Chelsea could let Benitez leave in 2013, after securing a Europe League victory, United were overcelebrating winning the same competition. Using this as a tool to justify why we brought in Mourinho, rather than actually evalutating the manager. For me, that stance is the problem. The manager and the club shouldn't be nearly as closely connected until the manager proves he is actually good enough, through performances and results, to manage the club. At United, the club and fans already start defending the manager before they've even had a chance to evaluate him. Essentially, they are loyal for no just reason. That can be great if you hire a really good manager, but under a poor or selfish manager that can lead to a long, drawn out period of suffering on the road to nowhere.
We give every manager we get the same grace we'd give to Sir Alex, yet none of them are him and should not be afforded that much respect. ETH managed in the Eredivisie. There is every chance that the Premier League may be too physical for his tactics. His man-management and communication in English may not be up to standard due to the language barrier. So many factors can exist, as would be the case with VDB and Antony, yet his sharpness as a manager is never questioned. I'm not saying he's not going to turn out great for us. My problem is the lack of evaluation, both from the fans and the club. Our managers never seem to be under any pressure until its too late. We used to laugh at Real Madrid, Chelsea and City without realizing that we were simply blessed. I'm not saying we should be Chelsea and sack a manager for finishing 2nd place. But we should have standards of where we expect to be and how we expect to perform, and we should hold managers to that account, no matter how sorry we feel for them.
I think that's my issue with this idea of a 3-year rebuild. It should not exist at United. We should always be evolving and trying to get better. However, we should ALWAYS be playing decent football. Every manager we hire should be able to show us almost immediately how their style can translate to us scoring goals and controlling games. There should be evidence in a lot of games that we can get to that level, and that's something none of our managers have shown.