According to RMC Mourinho, Guardiola and Ancelotti agreed to join their new clubs around December 2012 and they were all discussing with their future clubs before that. So in my opinion United just came too late, they didn't thought that March or April was way too late.
Mourinho in but some will want to know why he didn't follow Sir Alex..
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One of the key questions on my lips is will you be able to get Mourinho's United to tour Malta and what kind of welcome would he receive?
Don't buy that. Moyes was told by SAF to not extend his contract at Everton well in advance.
The old man wanted to craft his mini-me.
TBF I don't think that nationality had anything to do with it. Its more of a legend who retired against his will (his wife's sister died and he was obliged to give something back to his wife after all she had done for him) and who wanted to have some sort of control over the team - the extraordinary commitment that the role entails. Power is a powerful drug especially for someone whose been so good in managing it. It happened to most of the top people who were placed in SAF's situation (Busby but also others such as Sacchi).
The club was naive in letting this thing happening though.
It's simple. SAF and Gill wanted Pep, when Pep didn't come they opt for Moyes because he's Scottish, hardworking and honest. When he fire Moyes, Mourinho was already at Chelsea.
Like Jose said, forget about those 3years, look at our rich history and move on.
I'd like to think that the club sacrificed itself for three years while teaching Mourinho to behave, and to make him want it more. If he was handed the reigns right after Fergie retired, he might not have appreciated it as much, would have made a clown of himself and gotten the boot within three years, and continue his journeyman career somewhere else.
Was just going to write something similar... lots better, but similar.
I think the bit about Jose already decided to go back to chelsea when Fergie retired was just trying to save face cos right until Moyes was announced he was still ass kissing and practically begging for the job.
But he knew one day didn't he? He trolled all the other big english clubs over the years but never with us.
But he knew one day didn't he? He trolled all the other big english clubs over the years but never with us.
That's what I thought and I thought SAF said that too no?
How on earth people are rewriting the history or maybe I am wrong.
The last three years were necessary.
3 years late, but necessary
Jose finally at the end of his entourage, and we will learn to appreciate a good manager (things we took for granted post SAF).
Post SAF anything less than title win will create a riot, but these days the fans will appreciated getting top 3, and challenging for the title, heck I think we'll even appreciate goal scored
Jose finally at the end of his entourage, and we will learn to appreciate a good manager (things we took for granted post SAF).
Post SAF anything less than title win will create a riot, but these days the fans will appreciated getting top 3, and challenging for the title, heck I think we'll even appreciate goal scored
Was really refreshing hearing him say that.
Moyes was always destined for that position no matter what they say now. Premier league manager, had been with Everton for a long time, and was British. Glad it got worked out with Mourinho, but 3 years were wasted.
This is exactly what happened imo.
I always thought Mourinho may have agreed to go back to Chelsea before the christmas period where Sir Alex started to sound out other managers (They sacked Di Matteo early on), and the Real Madrid interview after the game where he was so gushing was down to Sir Alex telling him (mourinho) he was about to retire and Mourinho softening the blow he'd just ended Sir Alex's last European outing..
Ancelotti has said twice now Sir Alex talked to him about becoming the next United manager after him, but he already had an offer on the table from Real.
Because unless you have your back against the wall, Mourinho is not a good appointment. If you want to build a team that plays on the front foot and aims to impose itself on whoever, Mourinho is not your man or at least never done enough in his career to suggest he was. He is the best manager around at getting your results that upsets the established order. Even at Real they were in a situation where they were made to be the underdog to the superior Barcelona which suited him at the time. When Fergie left, we thought we were still the pace setters and aimed to build a side that dominates games instead of one that sits and react which is why it looked like Pep and even maybe Klopp was the first and obvious choice. When they weren't available, we pinned our hopes on Moyes becoming that sort of manager since the argument was that he could never show that part of his skill at Everton so he might be able to show it with more resources. Needless to say that was an utterly incompetent judgement but at least it was done with the right intentions in my opinion. Now we have no such luxury. We cannot afford to be picky in how we want to win as the club is panicking and understandably so. This means they thought we need to get back on track regardless of how and when you want that, there is nobody better than Mourinho.
And he got to Moyes from Ancelotti and Pep... How?
Let's face it, Fergie did sound out the top brass halfheartedly, but in his heart of heart he always did favor Moyes. For a man of his ego, the possibility of crafting a successor in the same mould as himself that would break the norm among top clubs was just too tempting to pass. How else did he not aggressively explore options for his eventual retirement and secure one of the top names?
Klopp rejected the offer while Pep, Ancelotti and Mourinho were already engaged with other clubs. Personally I knew it because it was reported like that in France and when SAF announced his retirement I wanted Pellegrini.
Exactly. Moyes himself said that earlier in that season Fergie told him not to renew his contract with Everton. Fergie wanted his fellow Scot to take over but ever since Moyes failed spectacularly he's changed his tune saying that Moyes was his distant choice after all the other managers declined.
As I said, failing to secure the top 3-4 names on your list isn't a sound reason to get to Moyes.
I'm not Mourinho's biggest fan, but to say that his Real team didn't play on the front foot or impose themselves on their opponents is something I'd vehemently disagree with. I'd argue that all of his teams did that to some degree, except when a more pragmatic approach was needed.
As far as the backs against the wall/upset the established order narrative, what about his time at Inter? When he arrived, they had won the Scudetto 3 seasons on the trot. He was brought in to maintain the domestic success that Mancini achieved and build on it in Europe (which he did).
I think Moyes was identified as someone who could build another legacy at the club. I don't think his teams' style had much to do with it. Moyes wasn't so much an over-romanticized option because he was a hard-nosed Scotsman but because they thought he could come here and potentially stay for a decade. The idea was that he would allow them to transition from one dynasty to another, which was far too much to ask for in modern football. I imagine that's partially why they stayed away from Mourinho the first time around. They viewed Mourinho as a short-term solution and Moyes as a longer-term one.
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Where do you go then? Because Moyes was a decent PL manager, the other options were decent foreign managers too. The real problem is that SAF should have announced his retirement sooner (during the summer), it might have destroyed our season but it would have opened the doors to the top managers.
The board did not want him at the time .And all that talk from Woodward is just the usual PR bollocks.
I understand what you mean and Real certainly went for it against most of their opponents. By playing on the front foot however, I mean building a style that you trust well enough to apply it against the best teams as well. Pep does that. Klopp does that as well. Wenger and LvG think the same way even though they are not as good at it or successful with it as Pep. Being reactive does not necessarily mean defending. It means you apply what you think is needed in every one particular game. Mourinho with Real clearly had a team that is good enough to attack most. When he came up against Barcelona who had the same standard of players however, he changed his approach. Same with Chelsea in his last stint, when his players were playing good enough, he trusted them to play on the front foot. When they weren't or when they played good teams like City or PSG or even us last year, he sat back. This is because he is not a manager who build a team that plays in a clear identified style that he works on honing and developing to the point that it is good enough to go toe to toe with anyone.
Inter certainly were dominant domestically. Moratti wanted European success though and at the time I think you would agree that Inter were not part of the elite in Europe. His job was to stand up to Barcelona and us at the time as the dominant teams in Europe which suited him perfectly as particularly seen in that famous semi final.
I don't disagree with your theory about Moyes's appointment. I just don't think it is the only reason or that it is necessarily mutually exclusive to why we avoided Mourinho. Barcelona had a chance to sign Mourinho in 2008 so did Bayern when Pep announced his departure and I am sure City were looking for a manager since the Sheikhs came to town. None of them did however and he was at best second choice to Pep for all these teams. Why? They have more or less the same record. Mourinho's even better in fact and one can argue he is more proven. So why doesn't he enjoy the same level of adulation from owners and big clubs like Pep? My view is that this is because the biggest clubs want to play on the front foot against everyone. Barcelona set the standards and whether we agree with it or not, clubs everywhere want to play with the same authority and swagger that they did. Mourinho does not work like that and therefore cannot produce a team that dominates every game like that. I think we fancied ourselves to go on and aim to do that as well at the time at least.
Fergie wanted to be the main man. If Jose came in straight after him and won the league and or the CL soon after, Fergie might not have been too happy about that.
Thats what the cynic in me thinks anyway...
Thats what the cynic in me thinks anyway...
Bielsa, Conte, Pellegrini, Henckeys (yes yes I know he retired by the end of that season, but not a stretch we could tempt him with a 2 year caretaker contract and see what possibilities open up)
Those are just the obvious names off the top of my head. Heck, we could even go for 'Arry. Couldn't be worse than Davey Moyes.
Seems as if we tried for most of the obvious candidates, it still seems crazy that the best we could do was Moyes though.
Pep is a football fantasist. He is unique in that regard. Klopp plays counter attacking football, he may have better transitions but in reality they are not imposing their game on anyone. Jose's madrid outscored Peps team in 2 of out the 3 seasons. The seasons they didn't outscore them it was 105 to 115 goals. No one could honestly live with Barcelona in the early Pep years. But by 11/12, Madrid had perfected playing them and proved it by winning the league.
Barca didn't hire Mourinho because they have serious reservations about his public persona and antics, especially with the Frisk episode, not because of some myopic football ideals.
I get the feeling that nobody expected the scope of the job would be so huge, perhaps Fergie and the board thought everything was already in place so that he needed only to make minor changes to continue the success. Maybe nobody expected him to clear out the backroom like he did.
Timing is key, that's why you get rid of a manager if the one you want is available.
Front foot football does not necessarily possession based. Pep once said something Pochettino's Espanyol, I am paraphrasing here but the gist of it was that some teams look for you and Pochettino's team do that. Klopp is the same, even by countering, the idea is to hurt their opponents. Mourinho would happily sit it out at home and take a draw unless a gap opens up and he can exploit it. The thing is this is not only a question of mentality but what you do in training. You cannot simply go out and play on the front foot all the time. It demands high quality players as well as tactical work that can take a long time as well as a staunch belief in those methods. That is why the managers who have an approach to the game like talk mostly about training and coaching and work on the training ground. The other type of managers are mostly about building a solid base and take it one game at a time depending on your opponent. British managers are mostly in that category and Mourinho is as well. He is obviously better than all of them and managed better players throughout his career which means that most of the time he can afford to play front foot. That doesn't however negate the fact that he doesn't a build a team that trusts itself to do that against everyone. As I said before, that is not necessarily a criticism. It simply is unlucky for him that he is managing at a time when that is the trend because of Barcelona. Everyone wants to copy them one way or another and he cannot offer that. Most clubs are not that picky obviously but the very big clubs indeed are.
We played Real Madrid in March and Mourinho was acting a bit odd by giving MUTV an exclusive interview (this seems to be very unusual, don't remember any other manager doing it) and then in the post match conference he kept calling us giants and how we were the better team etc. Ferguson has said that he told Moyes in Febuary to not renew his contract and he made the decision to retire around christmas time. This all makes me think we simply passed over Mourinho because Ferguson made a colossal error in judgement.
http://www.manutd.com/en/News-And-F...nho-interview-on-paddy-crerand-mutv-show.aspx
They indeed do have some very specific footballing criteria. It is the reason they have been hiring people that would feature on nobody's list of top managers from Pep at the time to Rijkaard, Tito, Villanova and Enriqué. You do not simply avoid Capello, Benitez, Ancelotti, Klopp, Mourinho and plenty of other big names just by coincidence. Whether you think that is pretentious or stupid or whatever is another subject but to suggest that they don't care about their identity or perceived identity at least is very strange considering their managerial appointments
3 of the 4 names you supplied followed Pep's crazy successful tenure, when they've had a template and the personnel in place to pursue that particular style of football. Rijkaard on the other hand played attacking football but of a style akin to most top teams at the time, nothing revolutionary or niche in term of stylistic/philosophical approach. Mourinho's tenure with Chelsea was not viewed as parking the bus defensive football at the time. They were tactically astute and defensively extremely organized but gave as good as they got when matching vs big teams, us, Arsenal, Liverpool, the Barca quarter final tie.
It was the 'enemy of football' referee death threat that put them off Mourinho. Barcelona likes to project an image of dignity, for the people club, that's why egotistical persona neither fare well nor desired there, LvG a case in point, despite delivering success. That period also coincides with Madrid lackluster performance in Europe and shit transfers/managerial appointments, so they also feel they have some leeways to give one of their own a chance, especially with a supreme talent like Messi in the rank.
I agree with this. It was pretty obvious after our game in March 2013 with Real Madrid that Mourinho wanted to come to United. The bereavement that caused Fergie to retire happened in October 2012.
Had we wanted Mourinho, it would have been easy for Fergie to meet him way before he'd agreed to go to Chelsea, discuss his plans and informally offer him the job, which he'd have taken.
Even the BBC article at the time (before Mourinho had joined Chelsea) had Moyes as clear favourite. The truth is Moyes was our first and only real target and he was a disaster. All other comments about us sounding out other managers came well afterwards in an attempt to save face so it didn't look like one of the biggest clubs in the world had such awful judgment (going for a friend of Fergie, rather than a proven winner).
I don't necessarily disagree with anything you are saying. The fact remains that at multiple times, they went with the obviously less proven candidate. Regardless of how secure they are about their level, a proven candidate ensures more chances of success than one who isn't. This suggests that success alone was not the only criteria they were looking for. In the case of Mourinho, his image certainly played a big part in their selection. I was however responding to the remark that they do not have any footballing ideals they follow because that is clearly not true.
Whatever the official story is, the perception is that Chelsea was Jose's second choice. He'd already been there & done that, and despite his affinity to that club & their fans, I still get the feeling he would've preferred to get the United job. Whether it was SAF or Sir Bobby's ambivalence, Jose seemed a bit crestfallen when the choice was made and in hindsight, the choice to try re-creating/continuing the dynasty with another Brit was short-sighted. SAF was lucky in his timing and was not following a legend. Whomever followed was going to have a shorter leash, no matter how much backing he had from SAF & the board.
Wonder if Jose could've arrested the slide that is apparent when you see the actual talent in the team. Probably, as he had cache with the premier players and probably could've added some real talent and jettisoned the dead wood. I'd think guys like Jones & Young probably would be gone, while a striker like RVP might still be with us. Doubt we'd have such an anemic attack.