Managerial contingency plans?

We'll beat Sunderland on Saturday and the bandwagon will keep rolling on - with hope of one day winning two games in a row under our current management. The glory days could just be around the corner.
 
How I wish we could get Ancelotti. The type of character that can handle the pressure at United. No rigid ‘philosophy’ either. Hopefully we don’t get a Pep wannabe.
 
Have the people calling for Glasner actually watched how his teams play football? They are always some of the most direct, defensive, counter attacking teams in their leagues, and always in the bottom 5 for possession. Would he steady the ship in the short term? I guess probably he would. But there is a limit to how far that approach can take us.

We have no evidence he can play any other style of football. So it's basically guaranteed that in 2-3 years everyone will be sick of hoofball and 40% possession, all the smaller teams will know to sit in against us as we can't break them down and eventually he'll be sacked. By which time we'll have spent 400+ million on a load of counter attacking players.

Then we'll try to change approach AGAIN by bringing in another Amorim style manager, none of the player will be able to do what he wants and it'll be another disaster. We'll be in this exact position in approximately 5 years. We have to stick the course and go for another progressive manager. Amorim may not be that guy, but it can't mean we flip flop to a completely different style again.
 
TonyShneak said:
Have the people calling for Glasner actually watched how his teams play football? They are always some of the most direct, defensive, counter attacking teams in their leagues, and always in the bottom 5 for possession. Would he steady the ship in the short term? I guess probably he would. But there is a limit to how far that approach can take us.

We have no evidence he can play any other style of football. So it's basically guaranteed that in 2-3 years everyone will be sick of hoofball and 40% possession, all the smaller teams will know to sit in against us as we can't break them down and eventually he'll be sacked. By which time we'll have spent 400+ million on a load of counter attacking players.

Then we'll try to change approach AGAIN by bringing in another Amorim style manager, none of the player will be able to do what he wants and it'll be another disaster. We'll be in this exact position in approximately 5 years. We have to stick the course and go for another progressive manager. Amorim may not be that guy, but it can't mean we flip flop to a completely different style again.
Click to expand...

It's a fair point.

Did he play the same way, have low possession with his previous teams?

Genuine question.
 
Invictus said:
Presumably, stability in that context means arresting the freefall we seem to be in and re-establishing United as a Champions League outfit. Stabilization of our expected competitivess, so to speak (as one of the most financially advantaged clubs, in a sport where money can cure a lot of ills). Being in the Champions League is of critical importance, from sporting and financial standpoints, so a pragmatic step-by-step approach, where the appetite for risk-taking is suppressed (instead of extravagant daydreaming about the long term, which is divorced from reality) might be just what the doctor ordered. Even if he does not last more than 2 years, but succeeds in re-establishing United as a Champions League club, half the battle would have been won.

Subsequent half of our mission = making us bona fide challengers at both Champions League and Premier League level, like we were in the past, and to that end, the club could pivot to someone else. For example, Luis Enrique's current contract at Paris Saint-Germain expires in 2027. He takes a sabbatical from time to time so things might line up perfectly in our favor, if we get our ducks in a row and move proactively, like Bayern Munich when they stole a march on Guardiola's signing.

Luis Enrique signs new PSG deal as club announces four first-team contract extensions

Say what you will about Conte, the man is a league football specialist; and given the right tools, very few are as adept at securing Champions League football. Actual record to date in the competition is not the most flattering but that's beside the point, considering where we are in the present moment (and where we are, in all likelihood, going to be in the near term). He might not prove to be a viable medium term solution, but given his body of work, his tenure could well be a springboard.
Click to expand...

Good post!
 
I'm honestly beginning to think that United need a big personality at the moment more than anything else.

Managing this club is much more than tactics and scouting, you need to have that personality that can handle all this. Amorim looks defeated most of the time, and you see that in the players a lot. We might not have liked the Van Gaal and Mourinho eras, but they did better than most of up and coming next big thing type of managers we seem to be after.

We need someone like Conte. He knows how to deliver given the right resources.
 
UnitedSofa said:
Mokbel coming in hot!

Click to expand...

The thing with Glasner is that you never know what the hell he is going to do. All his career decisions so far have been somewhat surprising and idiosyncratic, including going to Palace in the first place on the back of an EL win with Frankfurt.
 
dwd said:
I genuinely think we will lose to be honest.
Click to expand...

Certainly can’t be confident given the form but we’ve been a lot better at home overall.

Arsenal, Burnley and Chelsea all had significantly better performances than Fulham, Grimsby and Brentford.
 
TonyShneak said:
Have the people calling for Glasner actually watched how his teams play football? They are always some of the most direct, defensive, counter attacking teams in their leagues, and always in the bottom 5 for possession. Would he steady the ship in the short term? I guess probably he would. But there is a limit to how far that approach can take us.

We have no evidence he can play any other style of football. So it's basically guaranteed that in 2-3 years everyone will be sick of hoofball and 40% possession, all the smaller teams will know to sit in against us as we can't break them down and eventually he'll be sacked. By which time we'll have spent 400+ million on a load of counter attacking players.

Then we'll try to change approach AGAIN by bringing in another Amorim style manager, none of the player will be able to do what he wants and it'll be another disaster. We'll be in this exact position in approximately 5 years. We have to stick the course and go for another progressive manager. Amorim may not be that guy, but it can't mean we flip flop to a completely different style again.
Click to expand...
The 'limit to his approach' so far has been qualifying Wolfsburg for CL, winning the EL with Frankfurt, and the FA Cup with Crystal Palace while having them on an 18 games unbeaten run currently. I.e. having each of his clubs punch massively above their weight, more so than 'steadying the ship short term'.

I'm a bit wary of his transition focused style myself, but the ironic thing of course is that, while our fan narrative might be that in both ETH and Amorim the club hired 'progressive' managers, none of them actually worked to implemented this so-called progressive style, instead we've dabbled in some half-arsed version of transition football since many years, the kind of football in which Glasner is an expert.
 
I've just been looking at Glasner's record with the german teams he managed (Wolfsburg and Frankfurt)

- In the season 20/21 Wolfsburg finished 4th in the Bundesliga which is their best league ranking in the last 10 years

- Won the Europa league with Frankfurt in 21/22 by beating Betis, Barcelona, West Ham and Rangers in the knockout stage

- In his first season with Wolfsburg they finished 7th and in the second season they finished 4th in the Bundesliga

- In his first season with Frankfurt they finished 11th and in the second second they finished 7th in the Bundesliga

- In both of his 2nd seasons with Wolfsburg and Frankfurt his teams were the 4th highest scoring teams in the Bundesliga

Also an interesting stat is that if we look at the Premier league table for the whole 2025 calendar year, Crystal Palace is 4th on the table (only Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City got more points through the whole year) and he also managed to win 2 trophies with Crystal Palace this year.
 
I cannot believe I’m warming to the idea of Southgate.
 
hellhunter said:
Maybe that was the plan all along
Click to expand...

I don’t think our senior management team are clever enough to play that kind of 4D chess!

Jokes aside, I’m coming around to the idea that we need a manager to make sure we’re good at doing the basics again.

He’s such a boring and uninspiring choice though that it’s hard for me to get fully behind the idea of Southgate as manager, but somehow I’m warming to it more and more.
 
Cee90 said:
I don’t think our senior management team are clever enough to play that kind of 4D chess!

Jokes aside, I’m coming around to the idea that we need a manager to make sure we’re good at doing the basics again.

He’s such a boring and uninspiring choice though that it’s hard for me to get fully behind the idea of Southgate as manager, but somehow I’m warming to it more and more.
Click to expand...
Southgate is a good man manager, as he showed when taking over a very toxic England team. He is a limited football manager though. Perhaps he'd be ok if he had a good coach working alongside him. Someone who isn't Steve Holland.
 
United are concerned Amorim would step down? Is this a joke? I presume he's only still there because it might be too costly to get rid now, surely him resigning would solve that problem.
 
Southgate isn't a good Premier League manager. He did alright for the national team, because he obviously provided the England setup with some stability and created a decent environment, but tactically he's shown time and time again to be quite limited and far too cautious. England also had a fantastic team over the last two major tournaments, among the very best in the world. Give that squad to someone else and one of those two finals might've maybe resulted in a actual trophy for once.

If Jim really suggests Southgate is worth a look and thinks, that this guy could come in and do anything else other than cement the continuous decline of this football club, he should be institutionalized. Good old Gareth would get eaten alive here. For England you can hide away most of the year. There's no hiding in club football and certainly not at Manchester United, where you have to do an interview every week and everything is micro analyzed to death.

Hopefully people stop bringing up his name again, before it someday, somehow manifests this idiocy into existence.
 
Reds Under The Bed said:
United are concerned Amorim would step down? Is this a joke? I presume he's only still there because it might be too costly to get rid now, surely him resigning would solve that problem.
Click to expand...
You would have to replace him. And it feels as if discussions on here about that are far more detailed and advanced than what the club is doing.
 
There seems to be some noise around Glasner being unhappy at Palace so my early hunch will be he might be the guy.

No idea what’s a good managerial choice anymore. ETH completely nosediving after winning the League Cup and highly rated Amorim never really getting going has frazzled me. I guess he’s proven to be adaptable and does have Premier League experience now so makes sense.
 
Invictus said:
Presumably, stability in that context means arresting the freefall we seem to be in and re-establishing United as a Champions League outfit. Stabilization of our expected competitivess, so to speak (as one of the most financially advantaged clubs, in a sport where money can cure a lot of ills). Being in the Champions League is of critical importance, from sporting and financial standpoints, so a pragmatic step-by-step approach, where the appetite for risk-taking is suppressed (instead of extravagant daydreaming about the long term, which is divorced from reality) might be just what the doctor ordered. Even if he does not last more than 2 years, but succeeds in re-establishing United as a Champions League club, half the battle would have been won.

Subsequent half of our mission = making us bona fide challengers at both Champions League and Premier League level, like we were in the past, and to that end, the club could pivot to someone else. For example, Luis Enrique's current contract at Paris Saint-Germain expires in 2027. He takes a sabbatical from time to time so things might line up perfectly in our favor, if we get our ducks in a row and move proactively, like Bayern Munich when they stole a march on Guardiola's signing.

Luis Enrique signs new PSG deal as club announces four first-team contract extensions

Say what you will about Conte, the man is a league football specialist; and given the right tools, very few are as adept at securing Champions League football. Actual record to date in the competition is not the most flattering but that's beside the point, considering where we are in the present moment (and where we are, in all likelihood, going to be in the near term). He might not prove to be a viable medium term solution, but given his body of work, his tenure could well be a springboard.
Click to expand...
Ah, so you are thinking Conte as some sort of competent stop gap, whilst we actively think about and pursue a top long term manager e.g. Enrique in 2017.

Do you think the club are capable of thinking that strategically? They couldn't even plan that someone in their late 60s was probably edging towards retirement. I know that succession planning isn't big in football but I see that as the biggest failure that the club has made. People tell me that big managers wouldn't come to be someone's assistant for 2 or 3 years so that there could be a smooth transition, big managers want to be number 1.

But, back to your point, the sort of planning you suggest would be a massive improvement over what we've done in the last 10 years or so.
 
If it’s true about us being concerned he could step down then I’ve put my faith in the wrong guy. Hope that’s not anywhere near true.
 
dwd said:
I genuinely think we will lose to be honest.
Click to expand...
I posted yesterday that they are 5th in the league so we shouldn't be sure about beating them, but they have basically played some of the worst teams in the league so far. I watched them on MOTD last night v Forest on Saturday. They were absolutely awful. Worse than awful. If we don't beat them it will be embarrassing. They were like a Sunday morning pub team.
 
Rista said:
Just because Amorim has been historically bad does not mean hiring a manager mid season was a "mistake" that we need to avoid to repeat. What a weird logic.
Click to expand...

Your argument is with the owner and CEO of Manchester United, not with me. If they agreed with you then they would act now, and yet they haven’t.
 
sp_cgb said:
Southgate isn't a good Premier League manager. He did alright for the national team, because he obviously provided the England setup with some stability and created a decent environment, but tactically he's shown time and time again to be quite limited and far too cautious. England also had a fantastic team over the last two major tournaments, among the very best in the world. Give that squad to someone else and one of those two finals might've maybe resulted in a actual trophy for once.

If Jim really suggests Southgate is worth a look and thinks, that this guy could come in and do anything else other than cement the continuous decline of this football club, he should be institutionalized. Good old Gareth would get eaten alive here. For England you can hide away most of the year. There's no hiding in club football and certainly not at Manchester United, where you have to do an interview every week and everything is micro analyzed to death.

Hopefully people stop bringing up his name again, before it someday, somehow manifests this idiocy into existence.
Click to expand...
Could someone copy SJR on this post please.
 
Is it true that Glasner's had disagreements with his past clubs about his style of play? In terms of being too reactive/not playing on the front foot?
 
TonyShneak said:
Have the people calling for Glasner actually watched how his teams play football? They are always some of the most direct, defensive, counter attacking teams in their leagues, and always in the bottom 5 for possession. Would he steady the ship in the short term? I guess probably he would. But there is a limit to how far that approach can take us.

We have no evidence he can play any other style of football. So it's basically guaranteed that in 2-3 years everyone will be sick of hoofball and 40% possession, all the smaller teams will know to sit in against us as we can't break them down and eventually he'll be sacked. By which time we'll have spent 400+ million on a load of counter attacking players.

Then we'll try to change approach AGAIN by bringing in another Amorim style manager, none of the player will be able to do what he wants and it'll be another disaster. We'll be in this exact position in approximately 5 years. We have to stick the course and go for another progressive manager. Amorim may not be that guy, but it can't mean we flip flop to a completely different style again.
Click to expand...
This is why i want a possession manager. Dont know who's the best/attainable
 
Silas said:
Is it true that Glasner's had disagreements with his past clubs about his style of play? In terms of being too reactive/not playing on the front foot?
Click to expand...
His time in Frankfurt ended over disagreeing with their DoF about the future development. However it has to be said that that was not only about tactics but also about transfer strategy etc. The EL winning team 2022 was relatively old and needed a complete rebuild, only a single regularly used player (Knauff) is still at the club, as well as the third choice keeper (Grahl) and local lad but for years irrelevant on the pitch RB (Chandler).

I'm not really aware of "tactical only" issues with him, both in Frankfurt and Wolfsburg it was more about transfer strategy as far as I understand and remember.
 
TonyShneak said:
Have the people calling for Glasner actually watched how his teams play football? They are always some of the most direct, defensive, counter attacking teams in their leagues, and always in the bottom 5 for possession. Would he steady the ship in the short term? I guess probably he would. But there is a limit to how far that approach can take us.

We have no evidence he can play any other style of football. So it's basically guaranteed that in 2-3 years everyone will be sick of hoofball and 40% possession, all the smaller teams will know to sit in against us as we can't break them down and eventually he'll be sacked. By which time we'll have spent 400+ million on a load of counter attacking players.

Then we'll try to change approach AGAIN by bringing in another Amorim style manager, none of the player will be able to do what he wants and it'll be another disaster. We'll be in this exact position in approximately 5 years. We have to stick the course and go for another progressive manager. Amorim may not be that guy, but it can't mean we flip flop to a completely different style again.
Click to expand...
I don't think most people are really too worried about what comes in 2 or 3 years time, given that's longer than the life cycle of a manager at most clubs. He wouldn't be my first choice and would almost certainly come with a shelf life, but it's difficult to believe it can get worse than what we're seeing right now. The priority has to be stopping the bleeding and getting the fundamentals right.

Iraola is a good option but I'm even warming to the idea of someone like Conte because we really need to cement the idea that a manager is not for life with this fan base. And as much as he can be a destructive presence, he certainly wouldn't have us languishing near the bottom of the table.
 
TonyShneak said:
Have the people calling for Glasner actually watched how his teams play football? They are always some of the most direct, defensive, counter attacking teams in their leagues, and always in the bottom 5 for possession. Would he steady the ship in the short term? I guess probably he would. But there is a limit to how far that approach can take us.

We have no evidence he can play any other style of football. So it's basically guaranteed that in 2-3 years everyone will be sick of hoofball and 40% possession, all the smaller teams will know to sit in against us as we can't break them down and eventually he'll be sacked. By which time we'll have spent 400+ million on a load of counter attacking players.

Then we'll try to change approach AGAIN by bringing in another Amorim style manager, none of the player will be able to do what he wants and it'll be another disaster. We'll be in this exact position in approximately 5 years. We have to stick the course and go for another progressive manager. Amorim may not be that guy, but it can't mean we flip flop to a completely different style again.
Click to expand...

So you don't think replacing Amorim mid-season with another manager who also plays 3 at the back would be a good idea ?
 
CM said:
I don't think most people are really too worried about what comes in 2 or 3 years time, given that's longer than the life cycle of a manager at most clubs.
Click to expand...
Especially true for Glasner in his top jobs. He is in his second full season with Palace and did manage Frankfurt and Wolfsburg for two full seasons each.
 
There are things I now understand what makes a manager most suitable for United:

A household name - managing players who earn too much money per week need management skills, meaning they need to have big egos, big names, and respect from the players. If we look at the past, ETH didn't have anything to show compared to United's history; only Mourinho and, sort of, Van Gaal are the ones who had some history and titles to show. It's United, and players and the fans, and the media behave differently, because it's a big club. It's like Bayern, or Real Madrid, or Juventus. It has different pressure, a different environment, and a trophy cabinet.

Willingness and skill to adapt - coaches who are total specialists (like Pep) can be successful only if they have total backing from the club and bottomless pits of money. But it's a huge investment without any guarantee of success. Instead, a very adaptive manager, who can play on the strengths of the players and find the most suitable tactics for them, is the one United needs the most. What's the benefit of playing players out of position and getting worse results while being stubborn to your fundamentals, that don't work? Yes, I have turned against Amorim now, although being supportive until the loss to Brentford.

An eye for looking great staff. Good managers choose great staff who help them out and whom they can trust. I am not sure if United has even tried to hire the best defensive/attacking coaches or the best tactical/video advisors. It seems like the staff consists only of yes-men who just blindly follow the wants of the manager.
 
When Amorim leaves, we should be looking for an interim manager. Huge mistake to go after a permanent manager mid-season. This season was always the gamble by sticking with Amorim, and we lost again. Regroup and try to get it right at the end of the season when better candidates can be made available.
 
PieCrust said:
When Amorim leaves, we should be looking for an interim manager. Huge mistake to go after a permanent manager mid-season.
Click to expand...
WHY?!
It is beginning of October. A new manager can easily still qualify for Europe this season and there is a winter transfer window to fix issues with the squad. There is no reason to write off the season.
 
PieCrust said:
When Amorim leaves, we should be looking for an interim manager. Huge mistake to go after a permanent manager mid-season. This season was always the gamble by sticking with Amorim, and we lost again. Regroup and try to get it right at the end of the season when better candidates can be made available.
Click to expand...

If he leaves, I suspect that will be the only option given that everyone else is already employed. If United are interested in Glasner, they're more likely to wait until summer and roll with an interim than attempt to sign Xavi just because he's available.
 
stefan92 said:
WHY?!
It is beginning of October. A new manager can easily still qualify for Europe this season and there is a winter transfer window to fix issues with the squad. There is no reason to write off the season.
Click to expand...
Exactly, people forget how fast a new manager can turn the tables.
If the rebuild saga starts again when a new manager comes....
 
PieCrust said:
When Amorim leaves, we should be looking for an interim manager. Huge mistake to go after a permanent manager mid-season. This season was always the gamble by sticking with Amorim, and we lost again. Regroup and try to get it right at the end of the season when better candidates can be made available.
Click to expand...
Why? There's no good reason why mid season managerial appointments can't be good. It has its risks and even if it fails, surely it's better to appoint the wrong man now than wait to appoint the wrong man in the summer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.