MUFC is a groundhog-day story for the decade. Show me credible available managers who want to join. Some of you are having delusions of grandeur if you believe Zidane or Ancelotti will join.
Thoughts on Tuchel as a potential United manager?
- Thread starter sullydnl
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I counted to ten. This is not the best football we've seen, but it's not the worst. I would say that the Antony signing along with the adamant playing of Rashford is the worst EtH has done.
The team being injured, well I'd need an expert to tell me if that was his fault.
I don't think that's an essential criteria. There have been plenty of examples of managers who don't have the best track record of winning trophies and who succeeded and plenty of examples of ones who did and failed. It's preferrable but it's not the be all and end all. Oh and there are those who come close or even better like Mourinho and Conte. I don't want them either and I am sure plenty of our fans don't so I am not sure there is consistency to your reasoning.
Agree 100%.
I swear some people said the same about ETH when he first joined us in the back of his Ajax team. It’s really difficult to know how a manager would fair. It’s a gamble everytime a new manager is picked - just depends on how big the risk ends up being.
I agree with that. Though, I think there's question marks on ETH's structure too.I honestly don't know at this point
I used to think that we need a progressive manager who excels at coaching pro active football, because apart from Real Madrid, there hasn't been a successful club in Europe over the past decade that did not play very structured pro active football. I still think that but as I said, I think for the English game in particular, an intense almost obsessive character and a personality of a unifier and someone who is ready and happy to immerse himself in the club like Klopp or Arteta did for their clubs is also a requirement in my view. Ten Hag possesses the former but is severely lacking in the latter.
If we look at who fits that criteria this century, they either came unexpectedly and were relatively untested like Pep at Barcelona, Arteta at Arsenal or Alonso at Leverkusen (I am not saying they are the same quality by the way, just that they stand out with varying levels of success) or managers who did superbly well at an inferior league like Mourinho at Poro or Klopp at Dortmund. So I suppose for the profile I think we should be looking for, it should come from one of these sources. The former is very difficult for us because our former players are just not tacticians, they seem resentful of tactics if anything and are big proponents of the throw players at it and let them figure it out school of coaching. It leaves us with someone similar to Ten Hag's profile but with a much a more charismatic personality. To throw a name out there, I really like what Inzaghi is doing at Inter but I am not sure about his command of English.
Inzaghi is interesting, but I feel like sides that utilize wing-backs have a limited ceiling in today's game compared to sides utilizing forwards in the wide channels. And I doubt he'd leave Inter. Seems perfect for him.
How do you feel about McKenna if Ipswich are promoted and they play well in the Premier League? I've no idea what style he has Ipswich playing or anything else. I asked about him in a different thread, but no one answered me
Personally wouldn't hire either of them.
I am like you, no idea to be honestI agree with that. Though, I think there's question marks on ETH's structure too.
Inzaghi is interesting, but I feel like sides that utilize wing-backs have a limited ceiling in today's game compared to sides utilizing forwards in the wide channels. And I doubt he'd leave Inter. Seems perfect for him.
How do you feel about McKenna if Ipswich are promoted and they play well in the Premier League? I've no idea what style he has Ipswich playing or anything else. I asked about him in a different thread, but no one answered me
I actually agree with you on Inzaghi. Who has really done that well with that formation? I can't think of anyone. It's a really tough one. The good thing though is that football has a long history of throwing surprises at us with someone coming out of completely nowhere and doing something extraordinary. It's also worth keeping in mind that the PL will not always be this difficult. I remember in the early '10s, you needed to reach almost a 100 points to win La Liga with Pep, Mourinho, Messi and CR doing insane things. It must have looked back then that it's the most impossible task. But 3 or 4 years later and the standards are not so high. I think this period where you need 90 plus points in the PL is not going to last and football can change really quickly. I don't expect Liverpool to be the force they've been and City can't really get better. We have reached a peak in the past 5 years and that will open the landscape for the likes of us and Chelsea. I guess that's my diplomatic way of saying I honestly can't vouch for someone with any confidence
Pretty much all the top teams in the past decade or so didn't employ a system with wing-backs. Not sure it'll ever lead to a truly dominant side nowadays, but we'll see I guess.I am like you, no idea to be honest
I actually agree with you on Inzaghi. Who has really done that well with that formation? I can't think of anyone. It's a really tough one. The good thing though is that football has a long history of throwing surprises at us with someone coming out of completely nowhere and doing something extraordinary. It's also worth keeping in mind that the PL will not always be this difficult. I remember in the early '10s, you needed to reach almost a 100 points to win La Liga with Pep, Mourinho, Messi and CR doing insane things. It must have looked back then that it's the most impossible task. But 3 or 4 years later and the standards are not so high. I think this period where you need 90 plus points in the PL is not going to last and football can change really quickly. I don't expect Liverpool to be the force they've been and City can't really get better. We have reached a peak in the past 5 years and that will open the landscape for the likes of us and Chelsea. I guess that's my diplomatic way of saying I honestly can't vouch for someone with any confidence
I think Liverpool will decline heavily without Klopp. I'm sure City will decline a good amount without Pep too(whenever he decides to feck off finally), but pipping them to a league title while they have Pep would be sweet.
We’ve scored just 2 goals more in the league than 2015/16 under van Gaal. That’s considered one of the worst seasons we’ve had Fergie left in terms of how attritional football was. It might not be worst, but maybe it is second worst, and after spending close to 400 million pounds that is absolutely unacceptable. Even worse is not recognizing there is an issue and believing we’re playing the most dynamic and entertaining football in the league. Just imagine how you can think that having seen the facts and how we’ve played overall.
Ten Hag’s worst flaw has to be zero tactical flexibility and arrogance believing his methods are good enough and he doesn’t need to adapt tactically to succeed in the league.
I just find the guy annoying but I have to say I have a lot of respect for what Arteta is doing at Arsenal. I mean that club has been absolute joke for almost 20 years. Everything Evra said about them is true, they were babies whenever it was time to compete with the big boys. Yet here he comes and the whole image of Arsenal has changed, they are now achieving a level of consistency only Klopp has managed. I don't know if it will be enough but it's certainly as close as anyone can do to compete with Pep's City. No one would have predicted that when he took over so I guess that's the silver lining. Someone will just be the right fit and there will be no logic to it whatsoever.
People did actually, as early as 2020, they were just ridiculed for it and were a minority even in the Arsenal fanbase until last season
Me neither.
Sometimes I really do not understand the lot of you.
So many people want him to replace ETH. Its the same cycle over and over again. One season manager bounce and then players phone it in.
I really hope unless and until the people who are hired join, get their hands dirty, do a proper open heart surgery, we do not just sack ETH.
As much as I will get slaughtered for my views, I am still ETH in. Football is shit. Players like Rashford, Sancho are phoning it in. Shaw, Martinez injured Rasmus in his first season and seemingly old tired legs in the middle of the field. I just cannot judge a manager on these basis. It is really unfair.
So many people want him to replace ETH. Its the same cycle over and over again. One season manager bounce and then players phone it in.
I really hope unless and until the people who are hired join, get their hands dirty, do a proper open heart surgery, we do not just sack ETH.
As much as I will get slaughtered for my views, I am still ETH in. Football is shit. Players like Rashford, Sancho are phoning it in. Shaw, Martinez injured Rasmus in his first season and seemingly old tired legs in the middle of the field. I just cannot judge a manager on these basis. It is really unfair.
If anything I am pretty convinced if we dont have a manager at the start of the season and let the players play on their own we would have more GD at this point than +1. If these posters mean style of play as end to end basketball style high octane tactics with zero midfield then I guess you can call it a style.
So you think its fair for a club like us to throw a 3-0 lead against a club 20 ranks lower in football pyramid regardless of injuries or whatever ? Also fair to concede 20+ shots every game regardless the opposition level ? Leaving a suez canal sized gap in midfield every game ? Having +1GD at this point of season ? There is no salvaging him here. If he's doing it by design then his tactics are dogshit and if the players keep playing against his supposed tactics then he has zero authority and control over dressing room. Holy crap I am speechless.
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Tuchel will be a huge upgrade but we need to first decide on what style of play we building towards. Tuchel will bring stability but then at the expense of him bringing his players suiting his style. Again we have a mix of players that are more suited to different styles of football.
Bayern avg points per season
2018-19 2.29
2019-20 2.41
2020-21 2.29
2021-22 2.26
2022-23 2.09
2023-24 2.23 (current)
Curent year in the league Bayern are performing at par with last few seasons so not sure why his league form is brought up.
Bayern avg points per season
2018-19 2.29
2019-20 2.41
2020-21 2.29
2021-22 2.26
2022-23 2.09
2023-24 2.23 (current)
Curent year in the league Bayern are performing at par with last few seasons so not sure why his league form is brought up.
I wouldn't mind ETH staying. That would mean he's on the same page with Ineos, and the new co-owners have concluded that United are a career killer for managers, and they can change that into a healthy environment that gives them the best chance of succeeding at the club.
However, I've been warming to the idea of Tuchel coming in, if ETH goes. Think it would be a much better appointment than posters in this thread will have you believe.
It's hard to get excited by Tuchel. He isn't alone in that though. It's difficult to be excited by many of the potential candidates. You either want best in class or you want to be ahead of the curve and appoint someone who you believe can potentially reach the highest of heights. Tuchel is a good manager, but doesn't fit either category in my view.
This is what people are failing to grasp, in our current situation we are a managerial graveyard, we need to rebuild the squad but Woodward and Anorld have allowed managers to piss away £1.5bn on utter garbage so we don't have the money to fund a major rebuild in one summer. This means that we need a manager that is flexible, who can achieve what we need (CL footie) to progress club by blending what we have and a few signings into a competitive outfit.
Currently we are about 15 points off a berth in the top 4, better defensive tactics would have seen us get 7 points more in March/April alone. Whilst a bit more common sense wouldn't have seen us piss away 200m on an edgy keeper we wouldn't have needed if we had kept our veteran keeper one more year, an injury prone Chelsea AM we didn't need and a young striker not ready to lead the line for a club of our stature. If we had invested in different profiles, we could be 20 points better off than where we are right now. Meaning a top 4 finish is not beyond us if we play our cards right in the summer e.g bring in a 20 goal striker, a DM and a couple of CBs.
If we stabilize and remove the clown tag on our club we could attract a young manager looking to make a name for himself or even Simeone Inzarghi down the line. So Tuchel being a short term manager will actually benefit us in this instance because he will improve us whilst Ashworth and Wilcox work on the long term squad issues so that we become a more attractive prospect after he has left.
I'm not convinced Ten Hag necessarily needs to go, there are enough mitigating factors - the insane injury list this season, the poorly balanced squad he inherited, a top 3 finish and 3 cup finals in his first two seasons, vastly overpaid players on long term contracts who are practically allowed to play as badly as they want without consequences.
Now, his record in the transfer market has been nothing short of dire. But if a new set-up is around the corner, that will take care of recruitment and sales of players, then it might be worth giving him until the end of his contract in 2025 to see if he can help the club turn the corner.
I am not convinced he will, far from it, but I think giving him one more season would not be massively unreasonable either, providing the changes to the set-up are in place. One of the biggest issues for me would be dealing with the big time Charlies in the dressing room - I think he's shown some success here already.
Now, his record in the transfer market has been nothing short of dire. But if a new set-up is around the corner, that will take care of recruitment and sales of players, then it might be worth giving him until the end of his contract in 2025 to see if he can help the club turn the corner.
I am not convinced he will, far from it, but I think giving him one more season would not be massively unreasonable either, providing the changes to the set-up are in place. One of the biggest issues for me would be dealing with the big time Charlies in the dressing room - I think he's shown some success here already.
He can still form part of a longer term plan though. I agree that he isn't necessarily exciting but if he can bring a bit of structure and defensive stability over the next year or two, that's half the battle.
We always look at managers being long term successes but it's really difficult to do that if the foundations aren't set. Ten Hag has pretty much ripped away any foundations we might've had with the football he's tried to play this season so we are starting again from a pretty low ebb.
I'd bring Tuchel in with a built in plan of replacing him with a more ambitious pick in a couple of years once we're a bit more settled. I think that gives the manager after a better chance of finding their feet here and it also gives the club the chance to identify the best candidate of the younger managers as many of them lack experience right now.
Myth.
Barring Rashford and maybe martial (hard to tell with him), I don’t think it’s right to say that the players are “phoning it in”. They are making the effort. It’s the tactics which are the root cause. From the worst statistics to players being run down in midfield due to the amount of space they need to try and cover. It all boils back to tactics as the main factor. And that’s on him.
That would mean a relegation battle based on our current level.
I don't think so - even his successful signings from last season have been dreadful this season.
* Onana - Jury is massively out on him, unreliable but extremely talented, reminds me a bit of Barthez there. Flop (so far)
* Mount - Constantly injured since joined us, looks to be an expensive mistake already. Flop (so far)
* Hojlund - Bags of potential but for the price involved you would expect a bit more, seems to be completely reliant on service from other players and seems to have little or no impact most of the time. For a 70m plus striker you would at the very least expect 15 to 20 goals but he has time on his side thankfully to come good. He's certainly not ready to lead the line yet though. Flop (so far)
* Eriksen - He's not the player he was. A free transfer was just about value for money. Flop
* Martinez - Looked like an excellent signing in the first two-thirds of last season, his form this season, in the few games he has been fit for, has been worrrying. Hit (but if his form and fitness don't improve he will ultimately be a flop)
* Malacia - Constantly injured. May as well not have joined us. Hit last season but a Flop and then some this one. Needs to be sold pretty quickly.
* Casemiro - Should have been signed on a short-term contract, superb for the first two-thirds of last season and utterly dire ever since. He is so far off the pace he is more of a hindrance than anything else. Flop
* Antony - A ludicrous signing. The only thing more ludicrous than thinking he's good enough is paying 80m for him. Flop
* Amrabat - Not good enough for a mid-table Serie A team. Not good enough for us either... who knew? Flop
* Reguilon - Again not good enough for someone else, Spurs in this case. Proved to be disappointing as expected, however, the logic in bringing him as cover felt silly when we let him go so early only to play the remainder of the season with no left-back at all. Flop
* Weghorst - Not even close to looking like he was good enough. Flop
People said the same thing about Ten Hag due to his semi-final CL run and winning the league at Ajax. Imo Tuchel is much better, he's gone from Dortmund to Psg (got them into a CL final) to Chelsea where he actually won it and now at Bayern where he's still in with a chance to beat Real and win the whole thing. Some people will say his time at Bayern isn't that great but when's the last time we made a CL semi-final? He won Bayern the league last season as well. Let's not forget about the multiple times he got Chelsea into cup finals which they always lost because they're complete crap at penalties, that hasn't changed after Tuchel left either.
Tuchel is levels above Ten Hag and believe me we'd be lucky to have him here. A top manager like him would easily have us in the competition for CL places and not have us embarrassing ourselves week after week. Asking him to win the league in his first two years is a little unrealistic with how horrible our squad is, but he can certainly be a contender. Tuchel's Chelsea teams were known for how solid they were defensively, and if you watch Manchester United week after week you have to be desperate for some of that.
Does Tuchel play the kind of football INEOS will want though? They only want managers to come in who will play the football they choose… and then if that manager fails it will be another who can implement that rather then bringing in different managers who play complete opposite types of football. This will save us on transfers as we will be signing players to play a specific type of football.
Truth, our rotten dressing room would eat a young upcoming manager for breakfast. We don't have enough players for most modern systems and it will take time for the young ones we do have to come good and for us to bring in others through transfers.
Tuchel is a pragmatic, solutions based manager who gets on with what he has. We can buy four or five players and Tuchel can blend them with the best of a bad bunch we have here to construct a good season, we buy another set of 4 to 5 players in 2025 and we are finally in a position to say we have rebuilt the squad. If, after two seasons, we need to move on then we'd be better positioned having won a Cup or two and qualified for the CL.
I'd take the above any day of the week over wasting a young manager's career by throwing him at the deep end of this vipers' pit.
Winning football is what everyone will want including INEOS. Do you see anyone in Madrid complaining about Ancelotti's football? Players don't play specific football, do you think Scholes/Keane would have failed in Pep's systems? Pep takes players with great technical and passing abilities and moulds them into players for his system but that doesn't mean it's all they know.
Don't want to derail the thread but this is just short-sighted, surface-level nonsense. Onana, Hojlund, Mount, Martínez, Malacia and Eriksen are not flops at all.
Casemiro wasn't identified by him, I thought that much was obvious, but he okayed it, so that's fair, similarly to the Hojlund deal.
Amrabat and Reguilon are irrelevant signings, and so is Weghorst. I also don't see how you class Reguilon as a flop, for example. He was loaned because of an injury crisis and barely played. When he did play, he was alright. Or did you expect him to be one of the best left backs in the world in a dysfunctional, struggling team riddled with injuries? It really boggles me how not only you list him as a relevant signing, but label him a flop as well. What did you expect from a 6 month loan player? Surprised you didn't bring up Dubravka and Butland
Antony is the only real flop here, albeit a huge one, the biggest mistake we've probably ever made in the transfer market if you consider his fee...but wasn't it reported by the Athletic that the Glazers got involved and paid the unrealistic asking price to Ajax out of panic, after we lost the first 2 games last season?
Okay Eric Ten Fanboy...
I've mentioned several times that I don't care if he goes or not. It's in this thread as well, a few replies above.
You labelling players flops after less than even one season in incredibly flawed logic.
I'm not sure you even realize what a "flop" is? You say that Eriksen was "just about" value for free, and somehow he's still a flop?
Contradicting yourself there.I’d much rather we took a chance on a promising manager and gave him time than hiring the likes of Tuchel expecting miracles in the first season. Also, while I’m sure he’s very capable tactically he’s always struck me as quite disinterested in man management. I don’t think he understands other people well so it’s a huge risk to throw him into a dysfunctional locker room - he’d probably enter armed with stick and tough discipline and nothing else. In this regard I think ETH is much more well rounded and capable. It’s hard to know how good he actually is tactically because of injuries, but I’ve seen enough to doubt him - still I’d much rather keep him than hiring Thomas T.
Ive always like Tuchel. I wanted him before Erik got the job.
Yeah but our left back is injured, that alone is worth a 40 goal swing and no manager could play good football without their left back.
Just ignore the two best teams not using a left back.
He's not Pep or Klopp (nobody else is), but he's the bracket below with others like Ancelotti etc. He's probably as close to best in class that we will be able to appoint for a while.
The other option is somebody like Motta, who falls into the potential category, and he's there right now if we want to try for him. So we have good options.
We need to change our mind of wanting managers to build our squad and manage us for years to come. Building squads, how to play, buying and selling players...ect should be for the jobs of the top and everyones involve. Even managers would not want to manage any clubs for too long.
I think alot of us are stuck in the mindset of wanting to be like City the past decades with their football style, players, manager...etc. For me, football style does not need to be uber possession, suffocate opponents or playing pingball infront of their half full 90 mins. If we can be like Madrid, that is enough. Winning is what makes United is today, styles comes second (as long as we are not palying like shite every games, be pragmatic and adjustable).
Theres not many managers that are proven and available come summer and Tuchel with his CV should be top of the list. Others young managers that are playing with styles now would find it very hard to come to United and build us back to the top. They are not proven enough and United is a complete different from their clubs. Just goes for the proven ones and let the top build the squad and if the manager and players are not fit for us then change to the new ones. We need to challeng and if possible win somethings along the way during our new transition just to make us relevant.
I think alot of us are stuck in the mindset of wanting to be like City the past decades with their football style, players, manager...etc. For me, football style does not need to be uber possession, suffocate opponents or playing pingball infront of their half full 90 mins. If we can be like Madrid, that is enough. Winning is what makes United is today, styles comes second (as long as we are not palying like shite every games, be pragmatic and adjustable).
Theres not many managers that are proven and available come summer and Tuchel with his CV should be top of the list. Others young managers that are playing with styles now would find it very hard to come to United and build us back to the top. They are not proven enough and United is a complete different from their clubs. Just goes for the proven ones and let the top build the squad and if the manager and players are not fit for us then change to the new ones. We need to challeng and if possible win somethings along the way during our new transition just to make us relevant.
I like Motta but I think Juve have us to that one unfortunately and we could ruin McKenna with the poison we have floating about in the dressing room. I have my eye, long term on Motta, Inzarghi, McKenna and that young Spaniard at Bournemouth but apart from Inzarghi the rest are not tested at a level decent enough to justify the risk.
Tuchel would be an excellent caretaker for two to three years, we just shouldn't repeat what we did with Ten Hag, we should act as soon as it becomes apparent that he has lost it. If we had brought in a decent veteran manager in January we'd be playing CL next season.
Add Sancho to the list as well. We have one Rasmus who is new to the league and one Garnacho who is to young to be leading every attack.
I think the tactics are designed to what is available at disposal. Its to get the best out of the players, but the truth is their ceiling is very low and the players best is mediocre at best.
ETH can be fired once the structure is in place and the higher ups know the condition of the academy, the available players in the market and whatever other factors there might be.