So I was browsing the link someone posted to old Sid Lowe articles from 2013 in one of the Mourinho threads (an absolute goldmine of telling articles from 5 years.) Anyway, I stumbled onto this one about Poch as he was about to join Southampton, and it details his time at Espanyol.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/jan/18/southampton-mauricio-pochettino
What struck is that although he initially did a great job saving the team from relegation, his time there was hardly a rousing success. It would appear that unlike Pep, and very few others in the history of management, he has had growing pains and has evolved to become the excellent manager that he is now (still my dream candidate for United.)
What's my point? Just that maybe it's not inconceivable to imagine Ole evolving is a similar way. A common sentiment (which I've noticed in a lot of articles and podcasts) seems to be that he is all positive energy and a breath of fresh air, but that his time at Cardiff is damning, and that in short, he'd be in over his head as a permanent manager at United. While Poch's time at Espanyol certainly wasn't as bad as Ole's at Cardiff (then again, did Espanyol have a Vincent Tan to deal with?), it shows that young managers can get better, that instant successes like Pep and Zidane are very much the exception. Furthermore, you could make a case for Ole's work at Molde being a measure of his improvement (didn't they emerge from a very tough Europa league group a season or two ago?)
I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, except to say that the idea of Ole being the one to lead us back to glory is a lovely one indeed. Is it a risk worth taking, particularly if Poch is available? I'm not sure, but at least there is something lovely to dream about again after the Mourinho nightmare.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/jan/18/southampton-mauricio-pochettino
What struck is that although he initially did a great job saving the team from relegation, his time there was hardly a rousing success. It would appear that unlike Pep, and very few others in the history of management, he has had growing pains and has evolved to become the excellent manager that he is now (still my dream candidate for United.)
What's my point? Just that maybe it's not inconceivable to imagine Ole evolving is a similar way. A common sentiment (which I've noticed in a lot of articles and podcasts) seems to be that he is all positive energy and a breath of fresh air, but that his time at Cardiff is damning, and that in short, he'd be in over his head as a permanent manager at United. While Poch's time at Espanyol certainly wasn't as bad as Ole's at Cardiff (then again, did Espanyol have a Vincent Tan to deal with?), it shows that young managers can get better, that instant successes like Pep and Zidane are very much the exception. Furthermore, you could make a case for Ole's work at Molde being a measure of his improvement (didn't they emerge from a very tough Europa league group a season or two ago?)
I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, except to say that the idea of Ole being the one to lead us back to glory is a lovely one indeed. Is it a risk worth taking, particularly if Poch is available? I'm not sure, but at least there is something lovely to dream about again after the Mourinho nightmare.