As Leicester City fan I'm quite surprised that Chelsea are considering Maresca. He has less experience than McKenna & struggled to get Leicester across the line. For my money McKenna is the better manager.
Kieran McKenna | Close to signing long term deal to stay at Ipswich
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) was joined by comedian Ali Woods to look back at the best and worst moments of a rollercoaster season with the annual United Hour Awards.
Has Ten Hag been sacked yet? We're not sure and we hope not, but it's looking more likely as the days pass.
Who should replace him and why is it taking so long to make a decision?
He is my first choice to replace ETH even though I’m still torn on whether that’s the right thing to do. Hopefully us having talks with him is just us convincing him to avoid Chelsea and we’ll come back for him in 12 months, unless Eric does something fantastic between now and then obviously.
No obvious candidate to get so I'm willing to give whoever we get a chance
Yeah, it does seem a bit like just going down the list of potential up and coming managers to the next one.
Winning the Championship with a squad that is probably better than 4 or 5 PL teams is barely an achievement, and his only other managerial experience is getting the sack after 14 games at Parma.
We should really stop using Pep as a case study for what can happen when you give a young coach a chance...he is the 0.1%
Arteta?
What about Zidane, Arteta or Alonso?
Not sold on this guy. He did good at Ipswich, but this is another thing entirely. I won't be holding my breath in excitement if he is appointed. From what I have seen and heard from him, he doesn't seem to have that big personality that's seemingly required. I think the job and the squad will prove to be beyond his abilities. Kind of like his senior. Not to mention the club isn't suited to support any manager, nevermind a young manager.
I suppose it's better than some of the other options, like Southgate, Potter, and Pochettino, but if I ask myself if I would be fussed if he goes to Chelsea or Brighton, I wouldn't be.
I suppose it's better than some of the other options, like Southgate, Potter, and Pochettino, but if I ask myself if I would be fussed if he goes to Chelsea or Brighton, I wouldn't be.
Also, this. His achievement, while impressive, proves very little when it comes to managing in the top flight. This is why I think he should actually show he can hack it at another Premier League club first. And Brighton is a good place to do it. Staying at Ipswich wouldn't be bad either.
Also Alonso who had no connection to Leverkusen took over and absolutely delivered. Prior to that he had only managed Real Sociedad B and Real Madrid U14. Other example would be Daniele de Rossi who had trained SPAL Ferrara before taking over at Roma or Xavi who had only managed in Saudi Arabia before becoming head coach of Barca.
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Add to that he is a treble winner as Pep Guardiola's main assistant at City and won the U19 championship with City few years ago. He was also assistant of Manuel Pellegrini at West Ham. I wouldnt call Maresca unexperienced.
Schrodingers talent
Yes?What?! Seriously?
Ferguson, Moyes, van Gaal, Mourinho, and ten Hag were all demonstrably more proven managers at a high level than McKenna. Solskjaer was debatable but I was also against his permanent appointment.
So I’m not sure how anyone can dispute my post - not to say it’s impossible for McKenna to succeed, but I’d say it’s extremely unlikely, and definitely a lower standard of appointment to those previously.
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I’m very curious and positively piqued by McKenna. My impression was really that both did a good job at United as well, but then again I’m not among those who thought we were incompetently lead under Solskjær either.
I’ve not watched more than highlights of Ipswich, the impression I get is that the football has been fairly swift, fairly open, a balance between transition-directness and possesion-control, but I don’t know much. The descriptions doesn’t seem very different from what I remember seeing from the U18s, nor from the periods of the Solskjær reign when there was concerted efforts to play more on the front foot (until the player profile forced us into more weight on transitions once again).The broad strokes are not dissimilar to what Ten Hag has stood for, but some of the concrete tactical go to solutions might be different. I don’t know.
Joe Royle and Graham Taylor were both shortlisted ahead of Terry Venables by the national team comittee despite Venables openly applying for the job, so someone thought they were talented. And tbh, to get to be a head coach even at championship level, you normally have to be very talented. What separate the best from the second best and the second best from the ‘just good’ I think is very hard to predict, and the difference between a successful manager and a disappointing manager is probably mostly down to other factors (staff, players, structures, chemistry, circumstance etc).
To be sure, for my money, I’ve not seen a more surefire chance for a success appointment than Ten Hag was since Ferguson got the job - everything I saw and read about Ten Hag was way more promising than anything I know about the current roster of known candidates, and his first season was still above expectations, so I feel a bit resigned if that‘s the way it peters out.
As for brand modernity, I’m a bit sceptical to that concept as a whole.
Step 1 should be to coach a functional system and have the team play as a cohesive team. Then develop them over time to improve the style and be able to push them higher. The club should improve the player quality more and more, and eventually you get to a point where you decide if the system is limited and the coach can't do more, or just need different/better players to bridge that gap to the very top.
It's not about winning things for us right now. We are miles off that. Ole when he was in charge did the first bit well, but then reached the point where he was limited as a coach. But we were a functional, cohesive and good side under him until he tried changing it the last season. We don't know how much input each coach had on that, but it's not a negative to be a part of that group, because if was actually something that functioned well but Ole wasn't capable of going higher. We'll see if McKenna can, but the first 2-3 years will be getting us back to where we were a few years ago before we self destructed and had some horrible transfer windows.
Sorry but there are too much hypotheticals in your statement. We don't know how much Ole did, how much Kieran did. For all we know is this setup was a failure. I never ever felt we as a tem were in charge of a game, we were always playing on the break. That shape was not Manchester united and certainly not sir Alex's legacy.
I understand the sentiment. But Ole's time was 3 disappointing wasted trophyless years.
This won’t convince him to stay - Man Utd too big of a pull. It’s his boyhood club
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if it happens, they'll absolutely have to back him long-term and be okay with Rangnicks proposed "open-heart surgery".
I'm all for it ... just feels like a very un-United thing to do.
I'm all for it ... just feels like a very un-United thing to do.
If he does come, he can bring Leif Davies with him. 18 assists last year. Lads a player.
We need Paul McKenna with these bunch of players
Everyone said the same when ETH was appointed.
I wonder if there’s a clause in McKenna’s contract about United approaching him as manager or them being informed on any approach from premier league clubs which triggered the movement?
ETH did not want an open heart surgery and was quite stubborn in his ways. That is not a good trait in top level management
If you say so. He wanted FDJ and Harry Kane. But you reckon he preferred loanees from Burnley?
we chased big name players like DdJ all summer and then spent a fortune on players like Casemiro and Antony. Didn't feel like open-heart surgery to me, but the usual papering over cracks.
And there will be the same red flags if Mckenna starts asking for £85m for George Hirst.
I agree with all this, people have been saying Mckenna would better off going to Brighton and then United but I really do not see any logic in that whatsoever Brighton won't prepare any better for us than what he has done already
ETH to be fair dealt with quite a few problems, but he has also made our squad a little worse with some of his signings lets be honest.
Mckenna ...no thank you
No experience at the highest level, I don't feel he has the personality to stand up to player power and the biggest Club.in the world .
No experience at the highest level, I don't feel he has the personality to stand up to player power and the biggest Club.in the world .
That's not on him. Our buying and selling of players has been appalling for years.
So... Roy Keane then?
I'm not sure what he achieved last season was worse than what he inherited. People have short memories. I'm not saying we should definitely keep him, just pointing out how ridiculous the chains of backing McKenna long term are because the club needs open heart surgery.
FDJ didnt want him or United though. And thinking Spurs selling Kane to us is utopia. Pretty sure Mbappe was also not realistic. But he got Anthony.
Again, ETH doesn't do the negotiations.
He doesn't have a veto?
Players like Rashy and Bruno will walk all over him, just like they did with our last 2-3 managers. We need a strong character and KM doesn’t seem to fit the bill for me.
The only risk with him is some of the massive egos in our dressing room deciding to undermine him for lack of name recognition, but as long as the board back him to kick out all the players he doesn't want there should be no issue. Very exciting to see how he develops the young players. Dalot's continued deployment should be fascinating as well.
All successful coaches are the 0.1%, whether they worked their way up the docks or got fast tracked