A very well thought out post, pretty much all I agree with. Just 2 points:The answer to this is simple. City had a plan. They planned for Pep’ arrival while they still had Pellegrini managing the team. Prepared everything from the boardroom staff, to the profile of player, to the coaching staff to make sure that Pep had everything required to succeed with his vision and could hit the ground running. On top of that, Pep then had a free reign at the transfer market with a limitless bucket of cash, which Pep has proven more than capable of delivering instant results when given so.
Now moving on to United. Absolutely zero planning. Our two previous managerial appointments were clearly not correct. After the absolute disaster which was David Moyes, which we’re still paying for, we decided to hire whoever was available at the time to attemp to fix our issues. That man was LVG, a manager who had not managed a club since 2011. Trusted and backed him fully in the market despite this, signed countless flops, only one signing remains in our squad today. Tony Martial.
This time our manager had a vision, but it failed due to a mixture of it bring outdated, persisting for too long with a past it Rooney and our marquee signings not working out to add the needed Robben/ Ribery touch to the philosophy. Di Maria was supposed to be that but we know how that ended. LVG wasn’t a totally disaster but he definitely added to the Moyes wreckage and again we are still recovering.
Jose Mournho’ reign is still to be concluded, but it looks to be heading the same way as the previous one. Another manager brought in because he was available, not because we had an sort of long plan in place regarding where we want this club to go on the pitch. It’s funny that our equivalent of City’s Pep project, was David Moyes. Jose Mourinho and LVG got no such treatment, they were supposed to come in an patch up the leaks spurting out of the ship from all angles. It all leads back to the first appointment for me still, had we got that one right, we’d be a hell of a lot closer to City. Appointing JM back then and we’d probably have won a title. The one that Chelsea have in their trophy cabinet.
I wanted Jose to succeed SAF for a number of reasons. I am absolutely not criticising SAF but Van Pursie won us the title and the squad was in need of a shake up.
I have stated that I have some respect of the way City have achieved their success and was criticised for saying that. You seem to be saying the same thing. Yes they have spent significant money but there was always a plan for that investment both coaching and playing staff.