There's no way to completely avoid risk when appointing a new boss. You can make all the plans in the world but you never truly know how someone will perform until they're actually in the job.
I do think you can narrow the risk by effective succession planning, but United are prone to mistakes; why in the world would you appoint a man like Moyes with his limited experience (at the time). Or a man like LvG who was almost retired when we brought him in. Then there was Jose who had experienced his top days ( winning a treble) at Inter and his success in the PL with Chelsea, and at times he looked like he was actively seeking the sack and one big clue, we somehow missed, was he was never going to stay anyway, as he lived out of the top floor suite at Manchester hotel
all the time he was manager at United. Ole was a great temporary appointment, lifted the gloom, instilled some confidence got a few playing with a smile on their face, but he was never going to be the long term answer when the 'Bon Ami' he introduced, ran out... but we made him permanent because the noise from some sections of the fans.
I would argue all these mistakes could have been avoided with proper succession planning approaches, had there been a VAR in terms of management selection, it would have flagged up a 'clear and obvious mistake.
Also with ETH', he made his name in Dutch football and it would be 'clear and obvious' he would need time to acclimatize to the EPL.
Of course 'acts of God', including perhaps unheard of lists of long term injuries, do occur, and are difficult for anyone to manage, but they can be factored into succession planning, especially how individual managers react under pressure, do they adapt and/ or try play to their strengths, or do the stick to their ideas come what may and soldier on?
While it has worked for them its not really a great example that we could replicate.
We can learn from it, especially the selection of a known quantity that has had success in given circumstances.
Pep's career to date is almost entirely built on taking jobs where he knows his demands will be met /capable of being met, before he signs up; he doesn't worry where the money comes from or how it does, as long as its available to him when he wants it, for who he wants. Pep said recently that everything he asks for he gets from City.
I am not saying we can compete with City in providing everything our chosen manager asks for, but we have to get very close to it if we want that sort of success we had under Fergie and under Busby. It was a different time and circumstances for both of them, but the key thing was both men were visionaries, Busby want to be in European football and wouldn't let the football League prevent us taking that step. Alex Ferguson understood about the impact the PL would have and he steered a path that has led to the clubs record of 13 PL titles still not bettered.
We need another such visionary for our next manager and it wouldn't be through tossing the dice and/or not properly assessing risk, we get one.
