Mike Phelan - Assistant manager

PlayerOne

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Four: Phelan, Dempsey, McKenna and Carrick unless the role of any of the latter has changed.
I'm unconvinced about that coaching team. Too inexperienced for me, while Dempsey hasn't coached at top level. I really want Ole to bring someone experienced in and a goalkeeping coach.
 

villain

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Four: Phelan, Dempsey, McKenna and Carrick unless the role of any of the latter has changed.

Pep has Kidd, Borrell and Arteta
Would be good to know what each of their respective roles & responsibilities are.
McKenna's style of play as part of the youth set up was praised, likewise Carrick was one of the most intelligent midfielders in his generation.
It would be a waste if they're simply there just to be there and have no real influence on our progression going forward.
 

Celoti23-81

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Right okay, sack them both right now then. Go troll somewhere else!
I just think it's an uninspiring appointment. I genuinely think solskjaer needs a no.2 that knows more about modern football. I hope I'm wrong, but I think Phelan does not have the tactical acumen to be able to push us forward.
 

JPRouve

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I like it because I remember it being mentioned that Phelan's main role under SAF was day-to-day man management, he is supposed to be good at that he has empathy and good social skills which I suppose will allow him to spot the issues and maybe fix them.
 

passing-wind

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Don’t get the praise he gets on here. Querioz, Kidd and McClaren were miles better as assistant managers. Phelan was assistant manager around the latter part of Fergies era when our football wasn’t as great.

If he was highly rated as some people have it on here he wouldn’t have been in Australia being a director of football for some team. Hull probably would have survived if they had sacked him faster.
I partly agree and disagree, I do remember in the latter stages Phelan was getting blasted week after week by fans for the football that was being displayed. I have no idea how others don't remember this. SAF made it clear that he delegated his assistants with taking care of the coaching aspect of training etc.

However the good news is Phelan's complaints about the structure of the club has echoed the fans perspectives, so him signing must mean there are immediate changes taking place which is a huge positive.

It remains to be seen if him and Ole will be successful but atleast the hierarchy of the club should start to transition to footballing people.
 

Pexbo

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Whether he’s the right man or not for the modern game I’m not 100% convinced.

The positive I will take from this though is that I don’t think he would have signed on if he didn’t think the club had a plan to get it’s shit together.
 

Revaulx

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The poor (but successful) football of Sir Alex’s final years was surely down to René Meulensteen rather than Phelan.

If there’s any truth in his apparent reluctance to sign up straight away, that might at least be a sign that he’s no yes-man and isn’t afraid of challenging Woodward. Let’s hope so anyway.
 

dave1956

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His record after leaving the club is not one of resounding success either as a coach or manager.
 

PlayerOne

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You mean like someone who has been coaching for almost 25 years?
Like Mike Phelan and Emilio Alvarez :lol:
Phelan has been out of top level football for years now and and he's working with people are new to this level of football themselves. Alvarez was only brought in for DDG, Mourinho had another goalkeeping coach, not sure why that's funny.
 

crossy1686

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Phelan has been out of top level football for years now and and he's working with people are new to this level of football themselves. Alvarez was only brought in for DDG, Mourinho had another goalkeeping coach, not sure why that's funny.
Yeah, he must have forgotten everything in the last 5 years. :houllier:
 

dove

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I don't mind Mike staying but we desperately need to add someone else who is a good tactician, I think we will fail again if we don't.
 

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If there’s any truth in his apparent reluctance to sign up straight away, that might at least be a sign that he’s no yes-man and isn’t afraid of challenging Woodward. Let’s hope so anyway.
Might be the reason as for why he did not get the DoF job. And given his willingness to speak about the "structure", changes to how recruitement should be done, creating history (actually trying to align the club with footballrelated goals)... I can understand why Woodward would be reluctant to give him a potential powerful and public role as DoF.
 

cyril C

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I don't mind Mile being TD a few years later if he is not too old by then. I just don't feel comfortable with his experience for the job (same applied to Rio or Scholes).
 

crossy1686

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Might be the reason as for why he did not get the DoF job. And given his willingness to speak about the "structure", changes to how recruitement should be done, creating history (actually trying to align the club with footballrelated goals)... I can understand why Woodward would be reluctant to give him a potential powerful and public role as DoF.
Phelan's no mug, he doesn't exactly need this job. He had a cushy number out in Australia as a DOF. If he wanted to semi retire and spend most of his time scouting he could have. Show's his desire to help rebuild United.
 

Fosu-Mens

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Why do we need to play possession football?
We are likely going to play high pressing, high intensity football next season. Similar to how Klopp prefered to play at BVB. Even with the fitness the Liverpool players have, this is not sustainable. City also prefers the high press, but are able to keep the ball for longer periods of time and thus not needing to run gung-ho for 90 min. Even Klopp has adapted a more possessionbased approach this season...

Being able to press high when off the ball and keeping the ball when on it, are complimentary approaches.
And being able to do both to a decent degree is the most likely way for a team to be successful in modern football.

When one have achieved this, the next step is to be able to unlock balanced defenses. An issue City are far better on than Liverpool, but they are also improving.
 

devilish

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Great. Ole need to surround himself with all the experienced heads he can get
 

Grande

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I partly agree and disagree, I do remember in the latter stages Phelan was getting blasted week after week by fans for the football that was being displayed. I have no idea how others don't remember this. SAF made it clear that he delegated his assistants with taking care of the coaching aspect of training etc.

However the good news is Phelan's complaints about the structure of the club has echoed the fans perspectives, so him signing must mean there are immediate changes taking place which is a huge positive.

It remains to be seen if him and Ole will be successful but atleast the hierarchy of the club should start to transition to footballing people.
Based on quite a lot of interviews around the times and later, I think it’s clear that at the time of McClaren, Ferguson was confident in his own tactical knowhow, while when he aquired Queiroz, it was because of his tactical accumen in the developping European football. After Queiroz, Meulensteen was the man entrusted mostly with developping the football tactically and in training, but after the naive yet fantastic start to the 2009/10 season collapsed, Ferguson reigned him in, reverting to more Queiroz-like cautiousness. The players were not as good anymore, though.

Phelan apparently never was a lynchpin for tactical style or implementing it, yet he was a first team coach under our best period (2005-09), and apparently very good with people and understanding the running of a club.

Solskjær is very much a modern coach, and he’s developped both possesion based and high press direct alternated with counterattacking football. I am guessing him and McKenna will be the most up-to-dated from a tactical viewpoint, and will need other kinds of output from Phelan, Carrick and Dempsey. Phelan and Carrick knows what kind of work it takes to win. I’m expecting someone will be brought in as a physical coach capacity, seeing as Mourinho took that part of his team with him out the door.

I’m surprised with the many people on tje forum questioning Solskjær’s tactical ability, as that was a) always his strength and b) even in the bad months, we generally started our games well, most of the starting tactics seemed to work, and also many of the in-game corrections seemed to improve play. The problems were mostly players reverting to old sins, individual errors, some players giving up/losing heart in the face of adversity and not being physically up to it for full games. Nothing to to with tactical acumen.
 

Smores

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Bad news for all those who really wanted him as DOF, good news for the rest of us not off our rocker.
 

Skills

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Don’t get the praise he gets on here. Querioz, Kidd and McClaren were miles better as assistant managers. Phelan was assistant manager around the latter part of Fergies era when our football wasn’t as great.

If he was highly rated as some people have it on here he wouldn’t have been in Australia being a director of football for some team. Hull probably would have survived if they had sacked him faster.
Also can people now finally stop the crap about how him and Rene would've made Moyes look competent. He's hardly doing that with Ole now.
 

stu_1992

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Good news to hear Phelan is staying on. I think that's the right move, knows what the role is about and what's needed. Some experience in that coaching staff too. Also I guess it brings us a step closer to resolving the DOF stuff.
 

Regalia

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Ugh. Living in the past. And not even the good part about the past. Desperate times indeed.
 

Legendary

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I'm fine with Mike being Ole's full time assistant.

But what I believe is more important is getting a new fitness coach, and goalkeeping coach, since I don't think it's a coincidence that since De Gea's buddy from Atletico became head goalkeeping coach he's has regressed back to the level he was when we first signed David.

Also a new fitness coach I believe is self explanatory.
 
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Thank feck the nonsense of him being appointed DoF died a quick death. Was bizarre to see some people even push for that.