Has the size and duration of the task become too big for one manager?

fastwalker

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Even voices within United seem to be suggesting that a complete root and branch rebuild is required. That is not really news, but it does raise an interesting question.

Complete rebuilds of clubs of the size, scope and scale of United are not as simple as that. In comparative terms it took Sir Alex, seven years from the time of his appointment in 1986 to complete his 'rebuild' and win his first league title. Five years on from his appointment, Mikel Arteta is still rebuilding at Arsenal, although they are clearly almost there. Likewise, it took Jurgen Klopp four years before Liverpool were able to compete for the top prizes again and five years before he won his first Premier League title.

Of course, there are two significant complicating factors for United, the first one being the length of time that managers are given to get things right compared to 40 years ago when Sir Alex was appointed. Patience is not on a managers side. The second factor is the sheer scale of what is required to rebuild. United is in freefall and sits barely above the relegation zone. Structurally, financially and psychologically, the club is in chaos.

On that basis, should the club be thinking about this rebuild as a series of stages and give serious consideration to who might be best placed to take the club forward at each stage? At this stage what is required is someone with expertise talent, skill and confidence in building basic foundations in complex and challenging environments. Someone who can quickly diagnose the problem and apply tried and tested solutions. Once that job is complete, then if necessary, we can identify someone with the skills necessary for the next stage of the rebuild and so on. Whilst it is possible that these people may be the same person, it is just as likely that they are not. Managers come with different skills and capabilities. The task here is not whether we appoint good managers, but whether we appoint the right managers.

Thoughts?
 
Managers ultimately shouldn't be the ones overseeing the rebuilds. Most clubs don't operate that way anymore.
 
I just don't think the club have ever had a manager who was on a decent trajectory who's had the prestige and managerial capability to bring success to the club aside an over the hill Jose.

I think modern football has made fans lump managers into the same category with no real oversight between recognising distinctions from one another. Naglesmann / Alonso for instance subjectively for me are considerably better managers than Amorim and even they (Julian to lesser extent) lack the prestige to manage this club taking over the reigns from the level that SAF demonstrated in being competitive.

Ancelotti, Enrique, Flick and Inzaghi are in mould. They have been at big clubs and have performed with that ridiculously high pressure in both anticipation and expectation. It's like the corporate analogy of thinking that a highly successful leader of a SME can waltz into a position of becoming the CEO of Apple for instance or become an affluent board member.

This comparison is something that intrigues my thinking, observe PSG's managers is the last decade and contrast it with United's and come to deciding factor of which club actually performed relative to expectations and which club did not. Here's the list:

United
Moyes
LVG
Jose
Solskjaer
Ragnick
ETH
Amorin

PSG
Enrique
Galtier
Poch
Tuchel
Emery
Blanc
Ancelotti

Considering the size of the two respective clubs the list PSG have should realistically be the one United obtained. Now to also consider how ridiculous it is compare what the managers have done since leaving their posts, it makes it even more damning.
 
I just don't think the club have ever had a manager who was on a decent trajectory who's had the prestige and managerial capability to bring success to the club aside an over the hill Jose.

I think modern football has made fans lump managers into the same category with no real oversight between recognising distinctions from one another. Naglesmann / Alonso for instance subjectively for me are considerably better managers than Amorim and even they (Julian to lesser extent) lack the prestige to manage this club taking over the reigns from the level that SAF demonstrated in being competitive.

Ancelotti, Enrique, Flick and Inzaghi are in mould. They have been at big clubs and have performed with that ridiculously high pressure in both anticipation and expectation. It's like the corporate analogy of thinking that a highly successful leader of a SME can waltz into a position of becoming the CEO of Apple for instance or become an affluent board member.

This comparison is something that intrigues my thinking, observe PSG's managers is the last decade and contrast it with United's and come to deciding factor of which club actually performed relative to expectations and which club did not. Here's the list:

United
Moyes
LVG
Jose
Solskjaer
Ragnick
ETH
Amorin

PSG
Enrique
Galtier
Poch
Tuchel
Emery
Blanc
Ancelotti

Considering the size of the two respective clubs the list PSG have should realistically be the one United obtained. Now to also consider how ridiculous it is compare what the managers have done since leaving their posts, it makes it even more damning.

This a is a brilliant point, which summarises the main argument of this post. At times I think the sheer size of United and therefore the scale of challenges that it presents appear to overwhelm the managers that have taken over since Sir Alex Ferguson departed. It is worth bearing in mind that the club that Sir Alex took over is not the one that he handed over. In may cases we have appointed several good [and even very good] managers without allowing the challenges that we are facing to guide us to the right one. To that extent they seem more like impulse reactions rather than a strategic response.
 
Yes it’s too big for one manager to do this, but thankfully INEOS have established a footballing hierarchy that could do the job collectively. A major problem the Glazer regime kept doing was trying to fit modern head coaches into the Sir Alex Ferguson shaped hole.
 
There's no reason to think that the manager would or should be given the amount of leeway to identify and fix problems in the way the OP describes.