The foundation of success for any ambitious club is a strong unifying vision of the kind of football they want to play, that is tactically progressive given how the game is developing more broadly, and which can inform decisions not just about first team management, but also recruitment, and how players are trained in the academy.
The ideal situation is to have this unifying vision come down from board level but that's not an option for United. So the club really needs a manager with this kind of vision, a tactically progressive younger manager who has a strong sense of the football he wants to play and the qualities needed at each position to play this kind of football.
United has appointed four different managers post SAF without even trying to find someone that fits this profile. The club needs to start trying. Poch may or may not be the answer but at least I can imagine a plausible scenario in which he is the answer. I don't think that is true of Ole. It has never been clear to me what kind of football he wants to play and the qualities of the players he has recruited don't make sense as parts of a cohesive whole. He has just bought a bunch of young talented players who want to come to Manchester United, without any sense of how the jigsaw will fit together and what the final picture on the box looks like. That may be an improvement on past transfer decisions but it is not an approach that will actually lift the club back to the top.
How do you know the players we have ended up with are the players he wanted?
Successive coaches at Man Utd have complained about the way recruitment works and the fact they did not actually end up with the targets they wanted. I have not seen anything to suggest Ole was in for Cavani all summer long.
Being a coach of a football team does not give you complete and utter autonomy to do as you want.
The truth is, even if Pochettino comes in, he will be expected to work within the confines the club sets for him.
The club is not looking to get rid of Ole because it wants a change of philosophy. The briefings over the past week have been clear: The club is not happy with the results we are seeing from this squad and its considering a change of coach to improve the performances of this squad. All this talk of building and philosophy is a million miles away from what the decision makers are thinking.
Any coach who comes in will be expected to work with the players we have, first and foremost. If they can't succeed they'll be fired. Whether the transfer committee wanted the players, whether Joel Glazer thinks X player is the new Pele, whether Woodward has liked Cavani since 2013. If they cannot work with that then they will go.
Replace Matic with Fred and Scot , you can play high press. Maguire would be a problem but with right partner we can get around that issue.
This is wildly optimistic. Fred and McTominay have never succeeded in a high press at United. They have only done well in games where we've set up to counter and used their energy to disrupt the passing lines in our middle third. The first half of last season is a case study of what happens when you ask Fred and McTominay to play on the front foot and it doesn't look pretty.
Even your most basic coach will target Maguire with balls in behind the full back. His lack of pace mean the full backs cannot advance as much as they otherwise would, there's too much risk involved leaving the channel open even if you have a quick player next to him. Maguire's looked his best in games where our full backs have been at their least adventurous. If you try to switch it up too much he gets exposed.