Hiring managers with different styles

Someone

Something
Joined
Oct 21, 2007
Messages
8,586
Location
Somewhere
Why do we always hire managers that are so different from one another?

I swear every manager post Fergie was the complete opposite from the previous one in terms of playing style.

Moyes > Van gaal > Mourinho > Ole > ETH > Amorim

Why do we do that to ourselves? Each one came with new principles and new players required. And you just know it that the next manager will be playing a different system and we'll end up trying to accommodate all the WBs and 10s we've signed to fit the current system.

I feel like each time we go all in, in the hope that this is the one. But that's no way to run a club in the modern era.

Rant over.
 
Why do we always hire managers that are so different from one another?

I swear every manager post Fergie was the complete opposite from the previous one in terms of playing style.

Moyes > Van gaal > Mourinho > Ole > ETH > Amorim

Why do we do that to ourselves? Each one came with new principles and new players required. And you just know it that the next manager will be playing a different system and we'll end up trying to accommodate all the WBs and 10s we've signed to fit the current system.

I feel like each time we go all in, in the hope that this is the one. But that's no way to run a club in the modern era.

Rant over.

We have a structure in place now and a blueprint by INEOS Wilcox and Berrada.

This is the painful period so we just have to embrace it, better than another 10 years of crap.
 
We have a structure in place now and a blueprint by INEOS Wilcox and Berrada.

This is the painful period so we just have to embrace it, better than another 10 years of crap.
That remains to be seen, to be fair. It's still early days so the jury is still very much out on them.
 
The styles / systems are overplayed.

We’re shit because we’ve constantly signed bad players, or players at the wrong end of their career.

Ten Hags signings haven’t ruined us because they’re a different system to Amorim. They’ve ruined us because the players are shit.

Other than one or two specific wingbacks, good players are flexible from system to system.

We don’t have system players. We have bad players.
 
That remains to be seen, to be fair. It's still early days so the jury is still very much out on them.
We’re making more sensible signings and structuring the squad better, but yes in terms of ability (which is the most important thing) the jury is still out
 
Do we? They were both here when we kept ETH.
It comes off as a statement of faith more than anything else.

I remember long essays being posted here when Murtough was promoted to DOF, about how we finally had a structure in place, specific details on personnel and their roles, and how all our problems were finally solved.

Then the transfer window came around and they all went right back to "sign whoever the manager wants and inshallah".
 
We have a structure in place now and a blueprint by INEOS Wilcox and Berrada.

This is the painful period so we just have to embrace it, better than another 10 years of crap.

Wow, that’s a bit of faith there.

Appears to me Ashworth didn’t at all believe this manager was in line with structure he was putting in place and lost his job due to it.

Seems absolutely nuts to decide mid season that we’d now be 5-2-2-1 team, can’t for a second believe any of that was planned.

Reckon more likely is that City wanted him, so our none football CEO did a Woodwood and went over Ashworth to hire him.
 
We’re making more sensible signings and structuring the squad better, but yes in terms of ability (which is the most important thing) the jury is still out
Yes, as far as transfer strategy goes, early signs have been positive
 
Knowing how broke we are, it was a terrible call to go for a dogmatic manager with an exotic style mid season.

It won't work without heavy investment, and even then it might likely fail and leave us with a new badge of deadwood. Our footballing structure doesn't deserve the name
 
I feel like the last three before Amorim were not exactly the same but preferred to be the underdog and were most comfortable on transitions or a deeper definsive line with a target man (Jose). This mentality has probably set us back the most.

Amorim does feel like a bit of a throwback to LvG in some ways.
 
The styles / systems are overplayed.

We’re shit because we’ve constantly signed bad players, or players at the wrong end of their career.

Ten Hags signings haven’t ruined us because they’re a different system to Amorim. They’ve ruined us because the players are shit.

Other than one or two specific wingbacks, good players are flexible from system to system.

We don’t have system players. We have bad players.
Yes they're overplayed but you can't possibly deny that constant change hurts. Most top clubs now sign players for the long term and hire managers that fit their current squads. We completely ignore that when we make managerial decisions. I don't think Slot is necessarily is a great manager, nor is he a carbon copy of Klopp, but the squad matched his ideas so it worked.
 
We dont normally, but we have this time

From Vaal Gaal through to ETH being fired and even with Ruud, we played 4-2-3-1

Amorim is our first change to that first choice formation. Obviously its tougher to do mid season and to get players who dont know the system to understand it
 
I think amorim is somewhat similar to what rangnick wanted.

I think ETH started down the path, and in what I would consider a fairly cowardly move, and perhaps seeing the spells of brilliance oles teams had, turned away from it.

Lets be clear on one thing - 3 or 4 at the back is not an important part of the style. It goes no way to explain the performances we are seeing. The issues are the work rate and bravery that the players aren't displaying. the coach needs to work on that with them.

the important thing for the future is that we don't turn away from this style - again, 3 or 4 at the back is not important, but the underlying tactics are style should be what we build on
 
We have a structure in place now and a blueprint by INEOS Wilcox and Berrada.

This is the painful period so we just have to embrace it, better than another 10 years of crap.
neither have done a director of football job. need to appoint a director of football and then berrada needs to forget about trying to make those decisions.
 
We haven't had a structure in place. We had fecking Woodward calling the shots for years. Then we half-arsed it with Murtough.
 
I think amorim is somewhat similar to what rangnick wanted.

I think ETH started down the path, and in what I would consider a fairly cowardly move, and perhaps seeing the spells of brilliance oles teams had, turned away from it.

Lets be clear on one thing - 3 or 4 at the back is not an important part of the style. It goes no way to explain the performances we are seeing. The issues are the work rate and bravery that the players aren't displaying. the coach needs to work on that with them.

the important thing for the future is that we don't turn away from this style - again, 3 or 4 at the back is not important, but the underlying tactics are style should be what we build on

Let’s be clear… we’re currently playing 5 at the back.
 
I think all the managers were quite similar in terms of they all either started out or resorted to pragmatism and counter attacking/direct football. Only exception is LVG who resorted to cautious possession football.

We’ve been completely behind the curve on recruitment and our coaching. The league has moved on and left us behind, I think we genuinely have the least physically capable squad in the league.

I think RR and Amorim recognise it but it’s almost too big a job and will take multiple transfer windows and probably managers to resolve.
 
We also seem happy to hire managers who either don’t know the league (ETH ,Amorim, LVG) know the league but not successful (Moyes, Solskjaer) or successful but past it (Mourinho)
 
Apart from Van Gaal who adopted a possession game with players who struggled to progress the ball forward,
the rest of the coaches have been similar where we look to play direct football.

Erik ten Hag's idea was to create a more dominant team but he did adapt due to the lack of quality in the build up phase and the possibility was there last summer to upgrade the weaknesses in the build up phase where he could possibly succeed in implementing a more dominant brand of football by signing the right CBs and midfielders. But they definitely got it wrong and you do not sign midfielders who are limited on the ball. It was easy to see those mistakes and spending the Ugarte/Zirkzee money on midfielders who raised the physicality and athleticism along with having the ability to thread the lines was a must.

Two midfielders with the aforementioned attributes straight into the first 11 and it will make a noticeable difference imo.
 
Only LVG has ever really changed how we play and we bailed on the style and went for Mou and that's kind of where we still are. Amorim is very likable but he's bloody risk adverse from the minimal data we have, add that to playing 3 at the back and taking a player away from the middle/advanced areas of the pitch and it's no wonder we struggle to score goals. It will cost him unless he changes something in terms of selection - we have a good crop of attacking players but they need to be coached and we have to take a lot more risk, it's not like we're solid defensively playing 5 defenders.
 
We're shit because we don't have any functional goalscorers and haven't used a left back in 2 years and half of our depth players are 30+ and/or injury prone. When there are 17 other clubs in the league with better starting strikers and many of them better back up strikers, it's really not a good situation.
 
It's completely stupid, will INEOS now only go for another 3421 playing manager if Amorim leaves in 2 years at the end of his deal?

We'd be left in the same situation needing another overhaul of the playing squad.

I have no issue with us going to 3421 if it makes us better, but we either need to tie down Amorim to a longer term deal too, or commit to playing a similar system for the next 6 or 8 seasons regardless of who the manager is.

There's no point in disrupting the academy or playing squads so much just for one manager and then the next.
 
Just wait until a years time when we end up transfer listing the wingbacks we’ve stockpiled because the new manager wants inverted fullbacks.
 
Just wait until a years time when we end up transfer listing the wingbacks we’ve stockpiled because the new manager wants inverted fullbacks.

You just know it's going to happen!
 
Just wait until a years time when we end up transfer listing the wingbacks we’ve stockpiled because the new manager wants inverted fullbacks.
Amorim is looking an even bigger punt than ETH, I bet Ashworth is laughing into his cocktail while enjoying his pay off. Its a terrible, terrible decision to go for such a system obsessed manager. It goes against the approach of all the best run clubs in the PL and I think may condemn INEOS to failure. As you note, we are already buying wingbacks and they may not survive a new manager. They are neither great defenders or great attackers, so may well not suit a new regime. We are digging ourselves into an ever deeper hole.
 
Why do we always hire managers that are so different from one another?

I swear every manager post Fergie was the complete opposite from the previous one in terms of playing style.

Moyes > Van gaal > Mourinho > Ole > ETH > Amorim

Why do we do that to ourselves? Each one came with new principles and new players required. And you just know it that the next manager will be playing a different system and we'll end up trying to accommodate all the WBs and 10s we've signed to fit the current system.

I feel like each time we go all in, in the hope that this is the one. But that's no way to run a club in the modern era.

Rant over.
That's been a very British thing for many years - and is happening a little less the more the European structure of 'the club buys the players, the manager coaches them' is getting adopted more. That way, you tend to appoint similar type managers as the players and philosophy remain the same.

The British - financially unsustainable approach - tended to be that if old type of manager failed, you went for the exact different instead. So if you'd just tried a young, inexperienced type with a passing style, you went for an older, experienced more pragmatic one; If the last had been a disciplinarian who you felt had lost the dressing room, you went for a 'nice guy' to bring harmony (actually Ancelotti says he noticed that throughout his career, so maybe that happened all over).

The big financial problem with appointing different styles of manager, and letting them assemble their squads, was that they tended to need / want totally different types to their predecessors which led to regular and expensive squad overhauls.

Up until recently, we hadn't really moved on as a club - due to the very successful but old school Fergie regime - and didn't have that more modern structure and philosophy in place behind the scenes. Hopefully the new team assembled suggests we've come up to date to some extent. Though the decisions made so far have very much been a mixed bag. And obviously the move away from an ETH type to an Amorim style of play is likely going to need another squad overhaul - but at least one that feels justified, as the squad culture really does need a reset this time.
 
We have a structure in place now and a blueprint by INEOS Wilcox and Berrada.

This is the painful period so we just have to embrace it, better than another 10 years of crap.
I have a feeling that this is the last role of the dice. Amorim and his system is either going to work out and we'll look very good in a couple of years. Or, he fails and we're really going to struggle to be anything much better than in and about the top ten.

I've no real evidence based basis for this, I just feel like we won't be able to tear everything up and start again from scratch.

Whether through finances or just not being an attractive option, we can already see the quality of players joining has gone down over time whilst we still paying big fees for them. Can't help feeling it needs to go right this time.
 
Do we? They were both here when we kept ETH.
Most reports were that Wilcox wanted ETH replaced as soon as last season ended. It was Ashworth that was the main one pushing to give ETH more time, and that may have played a part in Ashworth ultimately being given the axe and Wilcox now apparently stepping up to the main role.

At the end of the day, whatever came before doesn't matter. That includes ETH. Thank god, because ETH's style was basically the exact opposite of what we should be moving to long term. Bringing in somebody with a similar style to that tragedy wouldn't have taken us anywhere.

It starts now with Amorim. Future managers should have a style that is similar enough that it a fairly easy transition. That doesn't mean that they need to play the exact same formation or anything, which is the mistake a lot of people make. Two teams who play the same formation can do it in completely different ways, while two teams with different formations can be much closer if the rest of their style is similar. If you have a team of good players, the majority will be fine in most different formations. Yes there will be the odd player who might struggle to transition to a certain formation, but that's fine as long as it's only a couple of players.

That doesn't mean that formation doesn't matter at all, but it's not as big a deal as some people make out. Yes we could have went for a 4231/433 manager and we wouldn't have had the issue of no suitable wingbacks, but every other issue we've got would still have been there. Perhaps we should have went that way so it would have been a bit easier, but let's not pretend that the formation is the main problem that we're having.

neither have done a director of football job. need to appoint a director of football and then berrada needs to forget about trying to make those decisions.
WIlcox was DoF at Southampton. Admittedly for less than 18 months and most of that was in the Championship.
 
Last edited:
That's been a very British thing for many years - and is happening a little less the more the European structure of 'the club buys the players, the manager coaches them' is getting adopted more. That way, you tend to appoint similar type managers as the players and philosophy remain the same.

The British - financially unsustainable approach - tended to be that if old type of manager failed, you went for the exact different instead. So if you'd just tried a young, inexperienced type with a passing style, you went for an older, experienced more pragmatic one; If the last had been a disciplinarian who you felt had lost the dressing room, you went for a 'nice guy' to bring harmony (actually Ancelotti says he noticed that throughout his career, so maybe that happened all over).

The big financial problem with appointing different styles of manager, and letting them assemble their squads, was that they tended to need / want totally different types to their predecessors which led to regular and expensive squad overhauls.

Up until recently, we hadn't really moved on as a club - due to the very successful but old school Fergie regime - and didn't have that more modern structure and philosophy in place behind the scenes. Hopefully the new team assembled suggests we've come up to date to some extent. Though the decisions made so far have very much been a mixed bag. And obviously the move away from an ETH type to an Amorim style of play is likely going to need another squad overhaul - but at least one that feels justified, as the squad culture really does need a reset this time.
All this whilst we harked on about the "Manchester united way".
 
We’ve hired a manager with a system that actually requires talented and skilful players rather an archaic counter attacking system. Now we need to actually get him said players.

Of course most people have no patience.
 
We have a structure in place now and a blueprint by INEOS Wilcox and Berrada.

This is the painful period so we just have to embrace it, better than another 10 years of crap.

Was switching to 343 part of this blueprint though?

Amorim was available last summer. We didn't go for him.
 
So that every manager can give excuses they need 3 years and half a billion to buy their players before their style of play can be implemented.
 
Whatever happened to the "game model"? After INEOS took control last season we heard that term every day, as they kept stressing the importance of having a game model throughout the club to define how we'll set up, play, and recruit. Haven't heard much about it anymore.
 
We have a structure in place now and a blueprint by INEOS Wilcox and Berrada.

This is the painful period so we just have to embrace it, better than another 10 years of crap.

The structure that decided to keep ETH after last season? I have 100% faith in this structure...
Why do we always hire managers that are so different from one another?

I swear every manager post Fergie was the complete opposite from the previous one in terms of playing style.

Moyes > Van gaal > Mourinho > Ole > ETH > Amorim

Why do we do that to ourselves? Each one came with new principles and new players required. And you just know it that the next manager will be playing a different system and we'll end up trying to accommodate all the WBs and 10s we've signed to fit the current system.

I feel like each time we go all in, in the hope that this is the one. But that's no way to run a club in the modern era.

Rant over.
Ole wasn't even planned, it worked out with him as an interim and they gave him a longer contract and then, we played the best football post Fergie. Totally surprising the manager who everyone expected to fail did ok.

The board tried different type of managers because they had no footballing skills or knowledge to put a plan in place and stick to it, at the end all failed. All were bad decisions.
 
Need to finish getting the wrong players out if the club then we'll have a lot more money and in a couple years once old PSR heavy spends go then we can spend bigger again.

Patience is needed by all. This will be the painful period. No point expecting us to have long winning spells it just won't happen.
 
Yeah it is starting to look like a mistake to trust that our fanbase has any patience at all.

I hope Amorim manages to ignore it. He's getting hammered by the press, but I'd imagine it's the lack of support from the usual suspects among the fans which will really make it tough for him.