Fergie’s the problem!
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
- Start date
Did the LVG era not happen?
They follow the wrong Fergie. They should follow the 20 years ago fergie. Not the 26 years later.
"It kind of makes sense" is actually a pretty good summation of Jonathan Liews writing in general. Smart guy, but tends to get carried away by his own metaphors. Takes a certain perspective and develops it as far as it will go, which is unfortunately often further than good sense dictates.
Ah you can't blame Fergie for idiots getting their analysis of what he did wrong or clinging to a glorious past.
It's just conservativism and cronyism, neither of which we can blame Fergie for.
That and Klopp and Guardiola being very bloody good.
I think United being such a huge click bait and not very proactive means we will see many many angles on this.
It's just conservativism and cronyism, neither of which we can blame Fergie for.
That and Klopp and Guardiola being very bloody good.
I think United being such a huge click bait and not very proactive means we will see many many angles on this.
I think its more of a club culture then anything else which is far too sentimental, nostalgic and quite frankly elitist to do anything ruthless or expect high standards from its employees. Sometimes a genius is appointed as manager and he is able to change the tide. However that's rare. In fact 99% of all our success come from 2 people who were so great that they ended up Sirs.
Lazy journalism at its finest.
Fergie stopped playing with proper wingers. He was a progressive manager.
The thing about Fergie was that he was a master of adaptation. For one, had no set style of play. We didn’t play every game like we did against the likes of Wigan and Bolton who we’d routinely stick 4 past, by dominating the ball and only leaving the centre backs at the back. The Arsenal masterclass of 2009, people forget, was done by us sitting back and giving Arsenal the ball, before springing on them at uncontrollable pace. At the moment, I genuinely do not know what our style of play is.
Then, you look at the way he changed his coaching staff as he started to build new teams. McClaren came in to replace Kidd in 1999, Queiroz came in as he was building the team spearheaded by Rooney and Ronaldo etc. He knew that if he didn’t change his assistants as his teams went through cycles, the club would go stale as the same voices and team talks would be heard time after time. Ole has an absolutely incompetent and inexperienced coaching staff with him now, and he isn’t good tactically himself. He’s on a hiding to nothing, and yet he refuses to change it.
Fergie was also a master of rotation. I genuinely think he’d still win the league now at 80 years old with this squad. He would constantly fine tune the tactics, change one or two players every week to keep everyone fresh, and we’d steamroll the league. Someone like Cavani would become his supersub and backup to Ronaldo, like Ole and Chicharito were. Ole’s ability to trust his squad and rotate is awful. Telles plays a good game against Villarreal and hasn’t played a minute since. Lingard scores 2 goals and makes an assist off the bench, and still doesn’t get rewarded with starts. CL semi finalist and Ballon D’or nominee Donny’s situation is simply baffling. Is it any wonder it looks as if he’s started to lose the dressing room? Under Ole, the likes of Phil Neville and coincidentally, Ole Gunnar Solskjær would have never gotten a game.
So no, Fergie’s regime and the current one share absolutely no similarities, as the media like to make out.
Then, you look at the way he changed his coaching staff as he started to build new teams. McClaren came in to replace Kidd in 1999, Queiroz came in as he was building the team spearheaded by Rooney and Ronaldo etc. He knew that if he didn’t change his assistants as his teams went through cycles, the club would go stale as the same voices and team talks would be heard time after time. Ole has an absolutely incompetent and inexperienced coaching staff with him now, and he isn’t good tactically himself. He’s on a hiding to nothing, and yet he refuses to change it.
Fergie was also a master of rotation. I genuinely think he’d still win the league now at 80 years old with this squad. He would constantly fine tune the tactics, change one or two players every week to keep everyone fresh, and we’d steamroll the league. Someone like Cavani would become his supersub and backup to Ronaldo, like Ole and Chicharito were. Ole’s ability to trust his squad and rotate is awful. Telles plays a good game against Villarreal and hasn’t played a minute since. Lingard scores 2 goals and makes an assist off the bench, and still doesn’t get rewarded with starts. CL semi finalist and Ballon D’or nominee Donny’s situation is simply baffling. Is it any wonder it looks as if he’s started to lose the dressing room? Under Ole, the likes of Phil Neville and coincidentally, Ole Gunnar Solskjær would have never gotten a game.
So no, Fergie’s regime and the current one share absolutely no similarities, as the media like to make out.
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He didn’t even go to carrington while Moyes/ LVG/ Jose were the managers as once he said how felt intimidated by Busbys presence in his early years
He is now going there only because ole invites him so it’s not fair to point fingers at fergie
He is now going there only because ole invites him so it’s not fair to point fingers at fergie
Lads, it's Jonathan Liew.
Lots of replies are missing the point — the author isn’t saying Ferguson wasn’t progressive, rather that his former players (disciples?) are entrenched in the idea of what Ferguson would do, without having the actual nous of what he actually did— which is absolutely true when you watch Neville or Scholes on tele, or Ole in his pressers.
Just because I listened live to Plato doesn’t mean I’ll become a master philosopher once he’s gone. At least that’s how I’m reading the quote.
Just because I listened live to Plato doesn’t mean I’ll become a master philosopher once he’s gone. At least that’s how I’m reading the quote.
Fergie himself is not the problem but rather the board as a whole
Sir Alex is never the/a problem
Boring take. We're long past Ferguson now, 4 managers and the guts of a billion pound later. Our recruitment of both players and staff has been mostly poor and now when we have a strong squad at last we have a manager who quite clearly can't use them to their maximum. Put klopp in here and nobody would mention Ferguson
Great followers don't necessarily make great leaders. I see Fergie's ex-players being great drill sergeants who conned themselves into believing they had learned/had great leadership skills from having worked under Fergie & having some authority delegated down to them.
In reality, they all lack the ingenuity, intelligence, vision & charisma to be true leaders. I include Keane in that, as blasphemous as it may sound. Great drill sergeant under the leadership of a Ferguson, but I don't think his own leadership qualities were anything special.
In reality, they all lack the ingenuity, intelligence, vision & charisma to be true leaders. I include Keane in that, as blasphemous as it may sound. Great drill sergeant under the leadership of a Ferguson, but I don't think his own leadership qualities were anything special.
The issue is the club trying to find a new Fergie who will be around for 20 years, that's just not the modern game and we gloss over the fact we sacked numerous managers between Sir Matt and Sir Alex. Do pundits who played for other big clubs and work for Sky or BT ever call out managers who clearly need to be sacked? Or is it just that ours are so present on both channels and are English so get more coverage with their manager protection dogma?
Yeah, exactly. It’s also interesting how each of the managers selected since he retired reflect certain elements of what made Fergie great, over the course of his career, while ignoring the reasons he was hired in the first place.
Excellent post
Sure Fergie wanted Pep I’m sure he would have done just that, the problem is we’ve hired bad manager’s..
Mourinho used to invite him. He's hardly a Sir Matt who had an office at OT which he used everyday of the week. Anyway Fergie sits down after HT, Liverpool score a fifth and Fergie looks flabbergasted...just like every fan, yet the press...
The reality is that the issues at the club are a combination of everything we have read about the last week. Easy to stick the boot in on the club when it is down. Man Utd = clicks
He was Fergie's choice but he was happy at Bayern at the time.
The problem is that we hire below-par managers that underperform. Inevitability, they then get the comparisons to Fergie.
For 20 odd years, Fergie built an empire of domination, and is now forced to watch it fall apart through incompetence and mismanagement.
I guess that is just one of those BS clickbait artists that hold no real substance but is full of vague metaphors that sound clever.
The problem is: Moyes, LVG, Mourinho, Ole. I never felt any of them were the right fit, we're always just waiting for the sack. If we signed a young rising star, like Nagglesman for example, then yes I understand giving him time.
But for the managers we've had, the backing they have gotten for doing average jobs is criminal (excluding Moyes obviously, who should have never been there to begin with).
For 20 odd years, Fergie built an empire of domination, and is now forced to watch it fall apart through incompetence and mismanagement.
I guess that is just one of those BS clickbait artists that hold no real substance but is full of vague metaphors that sound clever.
The problem is: Moyes, LVG, Mourinho, Ole. I never felt any of them were the right fit, we're always just waiting for the sack. If we signed a young rising star, like Nagglesman for example, then yes I understand giving him time.
But for the managers we've had, the backing they have gotten for doing average jobs is criminal (excluding Moyes obviously, who should have never been there to begin with).
It's just light on detail.
Fergie didn't always play with wingers, we don't play with wingers now.
Fergie had so many different types of players, he replaced Keane with Carrick. Ince with Scholes. Chalk and cheese.
It all kind of undereatimates Fergie and doesn't accurately describe what's happened since his retirement.
Fergie didn't always play with wingers, we don't play with wingers now.
Fergie had so many different types of players, he replaced Keane with Carrick. Ince with Scholes. Chalk and cheese.
It all kind of undereatimates Fergie and doesn't accurately describe what's happened since his retirement.
Yup. And Woodward consciously cut him off from decision making post Moyes. It’s genuinely like this place has the memory of a goldfish.
Amen
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy..
More like this place is unable to read linked articles before casting judgement on them. Not once does he imply Fergie is actively meddling in decisions on the pitch. It’s more about decisions being made on the basis “what would Fergie do” when the whole concept of Fergie the manager is so distorted by nostalgia we’ve forgotten what made him great in the first place. It’s Ole and the class of ‘92 who are the real targets of this article, not Fergie.
Fergie himself used parts of Sir Matt's United template. The issue is we've hired duds and the board needs restructuring. Once United started rolling back in the day, it didn't matter whether Sir Matt was at OT or not. Same would happen again.
And again - explain how LVG and his philosophy was anything like Ferguson’s? That was a conscious attempt to change direction after Moyes. How was Mourinho like Ferguson’s supposed philosophy outside of winning? Not known for attacking football or giving youth a chance. He’s retrofitting a narrative.
I have a friend who is utterly convinced Fergie hand hand picked Moyes to make himself look better.
4 managers later and billion spent, and Fergie still getting blame.
It’s in the piece.
Bit of poetic license there, obviously. I don’t really think every managerial hire was an attempt to precisely recreate Fergie all over again. But I’m sure that played a part in the decisions.
Yeah Fergie is the problem, just like penicillin is the reason we have superbacteria.
Sir Alex isn’t the problem, the club living too much in the past however very much is.
Right. So basically we could have hired anyone and he’d able to write that exact article with tenuous links like that. All our managers have had totally different styles - hence why blind was key for LVG but not Jose and why the squad was in such a mess. Our issue is we haven’t had a strategic direction. If from the start we put in a structure designed around playing attacking football with a high intensity built around the top young players in the world and we hired head coaches that met that profile with a transfer committee who signed the players to that model we’d be fine. SAF to my knowledge hasn’t stopped that from happening. I think that’s what we have in place now - but tbh feck knows - Ronaldo went against that and I know very little about Murtaugh and he doesn’t seem to be involved in deciding if a manager change is needed.
Managers like Pep and Klopp have the same plan going into every game. More power to them, if it works then it works.
Fergie didn't, and for that reason it's easy to have the Mandela effect with his management. Classic example: lot of people think we went with Keane-Scholes as a midfield two in most games, but in the five seasons between 1995-96 and 1999-2000, Butt got over 30 league games in four of them. Fergie adapted to each game as it came - but there was always a clear plan and everyone always knew what it was.
Ole doesn't have that - or rather, the plan is incoherent across the team. The Demiral goal for Atalanta was a classic example: Shaw was man-marking, Maguire was zonal-marking, they got in each other's way, goal. Look at the number of times we see half of the team press and the other half stand off - effectively meaning the half who are pressing get passed through and suddenly we're in an even worse position.
There's a difference between tactical flexibility and wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Sooner Ole figures that, the better.
Fergie didn't, and for that reason it's easy to have the Mandela effect with his management. Classic example: lot of people think we went with Keane-Scholes as a midfield two in most games, but in the five seasons between 1995-96 and 1999-2000, Butt got over 30 league games in four of them. Fergie adapted to each game as it came - but there was always a clear plan and everyone always knew what it was.
Ole doesn't have that - or rather, the plan is incoherent across the team. The Demiral goal for Atalanta was a classic example: Shaw was man-marking, Maguire was zonal-marking, they got in each other's way, goal. Look at the number of times we see half of the team press and the other half stand off - effectively meaning the half who are pressing get passed through and suddenly we're in an even worse position.
There's a difference between tactical flexibility and wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Sooner Ole figures that, the better.
And spent poorly in the transfer market.