Sliver of hope: an actual manager will be hired soon

[Massive Spanner]

Agreed, once Ten Hag is sacked we'll get Big Sam and be reborn again.

 

[OverratedOpinion]

He is the first manager who is actually in the ascendency career wise that we have hired since Sir Alex, that is a positive difference.

I know it is always said but I think this time more than ever we really will need to have patience as so much of the squad needs to be overhauled.

 

[R.N7]

Bout time, 4 years since last.

 

[Swedish_Plumber]

If I was Ten Hag, I'd walk away now.

Those reports of him wanting promises about control probably mean he wants to feck half of them off this summer and bring 5/6/7 players he can trust.

 

[DRJosh]

Ten Hag seems like a good fit but if Maguire is part of the first team set up next season, I’d be pretty confident that our fortunes will continue spiralling. Maguire epitomises the problems at United. If he doesn’t go then nothing has changed

 

[LawCharltonBest]

Generally think it is as simple as it seems sometimes. We've made some bizarre managerial choices.

Mourinho was the best manager of the lot at the time of hiring them, and the one most United fans were in agreement with at the time to hire. And we had our best post-Fergie season under him.

Even before hiring him everyone knew you'd only get 2 or 3 seasons from him. So it wasn't a shock.

 

[united_99]

Hindsight.
I didn’t think when we hired LvG that he was past it. I was actually convinced he would transform us both on and off the pitch. Only after it hasn’t worked out I started thinking he was past it.

If ETH doesn’t work out he will just be added to this list:
- was obvious he wouldn’t work out, why else was he managing in ND with 52, etc.

It’s crucial he adapts to the Premier League and realizes we are not Ajax (the best team in the country) and that we only have the 4th best squad in the league (at best).

It’s also crucial he gets support from the board (not just in terms of transfer budget).

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Hindsight.
I didn’t think when we hired LvG that he was past it. I was actually convinced he would transform us both on and off the pitch. Only after it hasn’t worked out I started thinking he was past it.

If ETH doesn’t work out he will just be added to this list:
- was obvious he wouldn’t work out, why else was he managing in ND with 52, etc.

It’s crucial he adapts to the Premier League and realizes we are not Ajax (the best team in the country) and that we only have the 4th best squad in the league (at best).

It’s also crucial he gets support from the board (not just in terms of transfer budget).

I read that a lot on here but it’s not true at all. You didn’t need hindsight to see the massive red flags about all our post-Fergie managers. It was abundantly obvious before we hired them. Naturally, the fans tried to cling to the positive but every single one of them had major doubts about them before they started.

The concerns about ETH are nowhere near as worrying about any of the previous hires. And they’re actually pretty standard for almost any new manager.

 

[R'hllor]

Who ever gets a job, i dont want him to do better with this squad, dont wanna see 90% of this squad if not more and dont say how thats not realistic, if you cant sell/loan them all, you can move them into reserves, those pricks have to be out of the picture. Rather watch some low tier players on a joke wages than those overpaid fecks and results would be similar at the end, while i wouldnt feel being scammed.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

I agree Ten Hag would be the best manager (current ability) that we have hired, but Van Gaal had been a Champions League final only 4 years before he was hired by United, and was only one game away from a treble, I wouldn't say that he hadn't done anything in years.

That's crazy. Never realized that.

Was LVG ever any good at transfers though? As this was his main issue at United.

 

[Tavern in the town]

Rangnick is an actual manager, believe it or not. The players just decided they don't like his methods (running). Will happen to the next guy too.

He’s the ex Lokomotiv sporting director who’s managed one top flight season in the last decade and has never managed a top club in his life despite a 40 year career. There’s no evidence to suggest the players simply dislike him because they don’t want to run, and all evidence does suggest he’s not cut out for this level of management.

 

[united_99]

I read that a lot on here but it’s not true at all. You didn’t need hindsight to see the massive red flags about all our post-Fergie managers. It was abundantly obvious before we hired them. Naturally, the fans tried to cling to the positive but every single one of them had major doubts about them before they started.

The concerns about ETH are nowhere near as worrying about any of the previous hires. And they’re actually pretty standard for almost any new manager.

I can’t remember how the feeling was on the Caf when / before LvG was hired. But in general he was highly regarded. The leading Bayern players who he coached in 2009/10 and who then went on to reach two more CL finals in 2012 and 2013 also spoke very highly of him, same with Bayern board members.
Where people agreed even back then was that he builds the basis and has initial success but then he needs to let go before he destroys his own work.
With us however he hardly built anything which he could have destroyed even though I felt we needed to hire a similar but more modern manager as his successor, instead we hired Jose.

 

[King Azaz the Unabridged]

I read that a lot on here but it’s not true at all. You didn’t need hindsight to see the massive red flags about all our post-Fergie managers. It was abundantly obvious before we hired them. Naturally, the fans tried to cling to the positive but every single one of them had major doubts about them before they started.

The concerns about ETH are nowhere near as worrying about any of the previous hires. And they’re actually pretty standard for almost any new manager.

This is true. And quite alarming, considering we're now on our fifth post-Fergie manager.

As a bunch of people have already pointed out: Ten Hag is literally the first manager we've gone for that actual top clubs would have seriously looked at (maybe Mourinho would have had a slight chance, and even then he was coming off what remains the worst season of his career).

If Ten Hag does as poorly as Ole or Rangnick, this stuff about our entire squad being a bunch of hopeless unprofessional basket cases will actually carry weight. Because for the first team in years, the manager's credentials will have earned him the benefit of the doubt over the players.

 

[Offside]

We now need a Summer similar to 2014 but not buying boatloads of shite.

 

[el3mel]

This post is just said in hindsight. In reality I have no doubt a lot were happy With LVG and Mourinho appointments.

 

[Red Shorts]

I think the changing of the guard right at the top is where we can hope to see our fortunes eventually change. In our current state, any manager is a gamble in my eyes, as it's so hard to predict who can get this team into shape unless we know they will be backed in the right waym

The mistakes of Woodward were laid bare: chasing the big marquee names without an actual strategy of how to properly build out a well organised squad, as well as focussing a lot on the commercial side of United. That, combined with hiring managers who all have different styles meant we havent had a true, consistent style of play since the Fergie days.

The combination of Arnold, Murtough and possibly Rangnick (wouldnt surprise me if he didn't want to stay with this pile of shite) need to learn from what went wrong the past 10 years. Invest in the right places outside of the squad too: training ground, recruitment squad, medical staff. Give ETH (if it's him) the right tools to complete this rebuild, and not do what Woody did by chucking money willy nilly with no thought process

 

[Yorkeontop]

I don't know, I've kind of cooled a bit on EtH with his whole demands thing. It feels like we doing the same thing again by giving the gaffer too much power and letting him shape the future of the club. Hopefully I'm just overstating his demands. Or maybe he's a genius and deserves all the leeway.

 

[bosnian_red]

This post is just said in hindsight. In reality I have no doubt a lot were happy With LVG and Mourinho appointments.

As others have mentioned, being optimistic doesn't mean there weren't very obvious red flags around. And they all have to be judged in context of their time here, not just "ultimately it failed".

• Moyes - obvious it wasn't going to work, he would never be considered for a big club and most people were against him anyway. Even with that, still an impossible follow up job so hard to blame too much.
• Van Gaal - the only post SAF "coach" manager. Got 4th and an FA Cup win. Implemented his style and we looked well coached. Problem was his style was way too boring, and he couldn't work with established players but only with lesser and younger players because he is overly stubborn. This was a known thing from before his time at United. Only managed United as a club team in the past decade. Probably more of an international manager now.
• Mourinho - had just collapsed hard at Chelsea. Was always a short term manager and everyone expected a 3rd season collapse. Won 3 trophies year 1, finished 2nd year 2. Unfortunately, was up against Pep Guardiola and Man City with 100 points who were just plain better. He was just beat by a better manager. Then collapsed hard as everyone expected
• Ole - come on. Guy was hired based on his status as a player with previous managerial experience being getting relegated. He was essentially a cheerleader. This cheerleader got us 3rd and then 2nd, with multiple good cup runs, before crashing hard when he tried to punch with the elite managers.

Ten Hag doesn't have question marks about being past it, or not being a good coach, or being an amateur or not having a play style suited to a big club. If our managers were good before, they would have had other suites after United. None of them have had any interest. They were just bad appointments. Ten Hag is very different to that and is the first time we're trying a modern style, forward thinking coach. Which is crazy, but here we are. Better late than never.

 

[GaryLifo]

I'll settle for just seeing us play frequent competent matches - like I see pretty much every other side in the country play (with a few obvious exceptions - Everton cough cough).

I've really been paying much more attention to sides like Brentford, Brighton, Villa, Norwich, Palace, southampton etc this season and concluded that pretty much all of them look like competent football teams most of the time. they all look like the players know what they are meant to be doing and, despite not being likely to challenge for anything great, regularly put up about 1000% more of a fight against the likes of Liverpool, City and Chelsea than the United team have in many years.

I saw a stat that in the last 10 games V Liverpool the aggregate score is 33-2 to Liverpool - that has to be worse even than Everton's record over the same time period.

 

[r0663664]

I hope the new manager don't behave like Ole. Signing players with 50-80 million transfer fee. We don't need players with inflated fee and huge wages. Let's go back to basic, sign players between 20-45 million and offer them lower salary with performance bonus of winning something. We need young and hungry players who plays hard. I don't even mind Utd becomes a feeder club. Let's admit it we are no longer elite in the last 10 years.

 

[el3mel]

As others have mentioned, being optimistic doesn't mean there weren't very obvious red flags around. And they all have to be judged in context of their time here, not just "ultimately it failed".

• Moyes - obvious it wasn't going to work, he would never be considered for a big club and most people were against him anyway. Even with that, still an impossible follow up job so hard to blame too much.
• Van Gaal - the only post SAF "coach" manager. Got 4th and an FA Cup win. Implemented his style and we looked well coached. Problem was his style was way too boring, and he couldn't work with established players but only with lesser and younger players because he is overly stubborn. This was a known thing from before his time at United. Only managed United as a club team in the past decade. Probably more of an international manager now.
• Mourinho - had just collapsed hard at Chelsea. Was always a short term manager and everyone expected a 3rd season collapse. Won 3 trophies year 1, finished 2nd year 2. Unfortunately, was up against Pep Guardiola and Man City with 100 points who were just plain better. He was just beat by a better manager. Then collapsed hard as everyone expected
• Ole - come on. Guy was hired based on his status as a player with previous managerial experience being getting relegated. He was essentially a cheerleader. This cheerleader got us 3rd and then 2nd, with multiple good cup runs, before crashing hard when he tried to punch with the elite managers.

Ten Hag doesn't have question marks about being past it, or not being a good coach, or being an amateur or not having a play style suited to a big club. If our managers were good before, they would have had other suites after United. None of them have had any interest. They were just bad appointments. Ten Hag is very different to that and is the first time we're trying a modern style, forward thinking coach. Which is crazy, but here we are. Better late than never.

Ten Hag has his own question marks. He has never managed in a league with the intensity and tension as PL. All his managerial experience is in Netherlands. He has a lot to prove. His ability to implement such styles in Premier League and under huge pressure from the whole world media and ton and ton of fans worldwide while facing a level of competition he has never faced from 4-5 other clubs will all be questioned. He has never managed in such situation.

Neither LVG nor Mourinho were bad appointments back then. They made perfect sense actually. Just because things didn't work out it means when we took the decision to appoint them we made a bad one. All these are hindsight.

And Ten Hag can also end up being a bad appointment. Hell, people were saying poems about Ralf when we appointed him and 6 months later he has been a complete and a huge failure.

For me all this is just about giving yourselves hope in these shitty, dark times.

I don't want to kill your optimism but I'm done feeling positive regarding anything about Man United till I actually see positive things on the pitch. I'm not putting hope or anything. Show me good results and football first, then I'll join the crowd. Otherwise, no, I have zero fecking hope or optimism about our future.

 

[bosnian_red]

Ten Hag has his own question marks. He has never managed in a league with the intensity and tension as PL. All his managerial experience is in Netherlands. He has a lot to prove. His ability to implement such styles in Premier League and under huge pressure from the whole world media and ton and ton of fans worldwide while facing a level of competition he has never faced from 4-5 other clubs will all be questioned. He has never managed in such situation.

This applies to pretty much every managerial appointment. He's managed, very successfully, in the CL and had Ajax punching well above their weight both in performances and results in that competition.

Neither LVG nor Mourinho were bad appointments back then. They made perfect sense actually. Just because things didn't work out it means when we took the decision to appoint them we made a bad one. All these are hindsight.

They made sense in some ways sure, but it's always relative to what is available. And it's always important to know when you should move on from your current manager, a trait we are very bad at. If we sacked Mourinho after 17/18 like we should've, he would've been seen as a decent enough appointment overall, but we waited until it collapsed. Same with Ole this season. Sack him before the summer, replace with someone who can build off the positive work instead of keeping and watching it all burn down. They were decent appointments that we turned into bad appointments due to inaction, but also there was nothing better available.

And Ten Hag can also end up being a bad appointment. Hell, people were saying poems about Ralf when we appointed him and 6 months later he has been a complete and a huge failure.

Eh, he's an interim manager. His influence extended about as far as whatever motivation the players could have for competition, and once we were eliminated, the season was finished. And even if we look at Rangnick individually, he's a rebuild/system manager, not really the interim type to keep things happy and grind out results for a high finish for 6 months and then leave. You sit through pain, you weed out those you don't need and who don't fit until you replace with those that do and you see improvements. Doesn't make sense as an interim, but makes sense from the perspective that Rangnick is staying on afterwards in whatever capacity. Its very reasonable and understandable why it hasn't quite worked (not to mention him really not having the luck in his short time, with the Greenwood thing killing all momentum we were picking up and ending the season).

don't want to kill your optimism but I'm done feeling positive regarding anything about Man United till I actually see positive things on the pitch. I'm not putting hope or anything. Show me good results and football first, then I'll join the crowd. Otherwise, no, I have zero fecking hope or optimism about our future

That's fair. But there are valid reasons to have hope and be optimistic with Ten Hag. Mainly because this is the first time we are hiring a progressive, attacking and highly sought after coach that is leaving his current job on a high. Pochettino would've been in line with the same shit we've seen the past 9 years. Ten Hag is a very different appointment. Its a wait and see thing and there will be teething issues, but there's a lot about Ten Hag to give optimism.

• Won the title in every full season he's been in charge and on pace to do it again (previously they went 4 seasons without a title)
• Won the league and cup double twice in 4 years (SF and final losses in the other 2 years) - previously last time they won a league and cup double was 2001-02
• Had Ajax competing with much bigger teams in the CL. In 4 years, 1 SF, 1 Ro16, then twice being unfortunate to lose the final game to get eliminated from the group stage (they truly were unfortunate, see them beating Chelsea 4-2 at Stamford bridge and then the ref giving Chelsea a penalty and sending 2 Ajax players off in the same play, leading to a 4-4). Ajax with him would go toe to toe with any team under him and outplay most of them, even if they are bigger clubs with better players. Last time they made it past the group stage of the CL was 2005/06.
• Last time Ajax had a decent CL run and won the league was 95/96 with Van Gaal
• Ajax's level of domination in the league with their goal records and goal difference is only passed by their great sides under Cruyff, Michels, etc.

There are plenty of things pointing to Ten Hag being an absolute fantastic coach. The biggest thing for me is that every season they lose their best players, and every season he adapt to his new players maintain dominance domestically and still performs to a really high level in the CL against any other big team, but for the most part being unlucky when eliminated. Pretty much never being "outplayed". You need luck in cup competitions, especially as a smaller club, but he has them punching well above their weight performance wise, regardless of players that they lose.

 

[el3mel]

This applies to pretty much every managerial appointment. He's managed, very successfully, in the CL and had Ajax punching well above their weight both in performances and results in that competition.


They made sense in some ways sure, but it's always relative to what is available. And it's always important to know when you should move on from your current manager, a trait we are very bad at. If we sacked Mourinho after 17/18 like we should've, he would've been seen as a decent enough appointment overall, but we waited until it collapsed. Same with Ole this season. Sack him before the summer, replace with someone who can build off the positive work instead of keeping and watching it all burn down. They were decent appointments that we turned into bad appointments due to inaction, but also there was nothing better available.



Eh, he's an interim manager. His influence extended about as far as whatever motivation the players could have for competition, and once we were eliminated, the season was finished. And even if we look at Rangnick individually, he's a rebuild/system manager, not really the interim type to keep things happy and grind out results for a high finish for 6 months and then leave. You sit through pain, you weed out those you don't need and who don't fit until you replace with those that do and you see improvements. Doesn't make sense as an interim, but makes sense from the perspective that Rangnick is staying on afterwards in whatever capacity. Its very reasonable and understandable why it hasn't quite worked (not to mention him really not having the luck in his short time, with the Greenwood thing killing all momentum we were picking up and ending the season).



That's fair. But there are valid reasons to have hope and be optimistic with Ten Hag. Mainly because this is the first time we are hiring a progressive, attacking and highly sought after coach that is leaving his current job on a high. Pochettino would've been in line with the same shit we've seen the past 9 years. Ten Hag is a very different appointment. Its a wait and see thing and there will be teething issues, but there's a lot about Ten Hag to give optimism.

• Won the title in every full season he's been in charge and on pace to do it again (previously they went 4 seasons without a title)
• Won the league and cup double twice in 4 years (SF and final losses in the other 2 years) - previously last time they won a league and cup double was 2001-02
• Had Ajax competing with much bigger teams in the CL. In 4 years, 1 SF, 1 Ro16, then twice being unfortunate to lose the final game to get eliminated from the group stage (they truly were unfortunate, see them beating Chelsea 4-2 at Stamford bridge and then the ref giving Chelsea a penalty and sending 2 Ajax players off in the same play, leading to a 4-4). Ajax with him would go toe to toe with any team under him and outplay most of them, even if they are bigger clubs with better players. Last time they made it past the group stage of the CL was 2005/06.
• Last time Ajax had a decent CL run and won the league was 95/96 with Van Gaal
• Ajax's level of domination in the league with their goal records and goal difference is only passed by their great sides under Cruyff, Michels, etc.

There are plenty of things pointing to Ten Hag being an absolute fantastic coach. The biggest thing for me is that every season they lose their best players, and every season he adapt to his new players maintain dominance domestically and still performs to a really high level in the CL against any other big team, but for the most part being unlucky when eliminated. Pretty much never being "outplayed". You need luck in cup competitions, especially as a smaller club, but he has them punching well above their weight performance wise, regardless of players that they lose.

Ten Hag is good and all but if you're saying LVG and Mourinho had question marks over them because of a failure in one season or being out of club management for a long time, then Ten Hag also has his own question marks. PL is a different beast than CL. Competing with 5 other top clubs for 38 games in a league with high intensity is a situation he has never been put into and he'll need to prove he can do it in a tougher league than Eredivisie. He's also 52, which means that he's not really a young manager (older than Pep by one year actually), so he's not an upcoming young manager or something. He has a lot to prove, similar to our previous managers.

Both LVG and Mourinho made perfect sense and they were pretty much the best options available back then. LVG had a track record of building teams which made sense for Man United post Moyes, and Mourinho was a serial winner who had only one season as a failure under his book, won the league the season before it and is known for instant success which was what Man United seeked. Both were also the best options available when hired.

Ralf has been absolute failure even regarding playstyle and system. The team looks as awful as when he got it 6 months after which is a gigantic failure for any manager in my book. People were saying he'll make us press and such, but we have been playing absolute shit football to the point we can barely beat relegating teams as Norwich depending on Ronaldo's individual brilliance.

Finally, all these achievements with Ajax are good. Now let's see if he can replicate it in Premier League facing 5 top clubs with the same budget or even higher than us.

When I see an improvement in football and results I'll start becoming positive, at the moment, nah, I have learnt my lesson all honestly. It won't shock me if 3 years later we see a similar thread about our "next" manager.

I'll wait and see.

 

[Gandalf]

I don't know, I've kind of cooled a bit on EtH with his whole demands thing. It feels like we doing the same thing again by giving the gaffer too much power and letting him shape the future of the club. Hopefully I'm just overstating his demands. Or maybe he's a genius and deserves all the leeway.

The demands thing is something I am happy about to be honest. It has been clear with our post SAF Managers that the transfer decisions have been made by others at the club without any real regard for what the Manager wants or needs. Ole spoke often enough right from the moment he got the full time job about wanting a defensive midfielder and it never happened, Jose wanted a top class defender and was given Fred and then on the flip side the board kept extending the contracts of players the Managers clearly did not fancy. Right or wrong Ole does not rate Bailly and yet we gave him a new 3 year deal last season despite him playing half a dozen games a season. I do want ETH to be given the authority to say "this slabheaded fella is utter wank, bin him off" and have the final say on whether a new signing is going to fit his system or not.

 

[Yorkeontop]

The demands thing is something I am happy about to be honest. It has been clear with our post SAF Managers that the transfer decisions have been made by others at the club without any real regard for what the Manager wants or needs. Ole spoke often enough right from the moment he got the full time job about wanting a defensive midfielder and it never happened, Jose wanted a top class defender and was given Fred and then on the flip side the board kept extending the contracts of players the Managers clearly did not fancy. Right or wrong Ole does not rate Bailly and yet we gave him a new 3 year deal last season despite him playing half a dozen games a season. I do want ETH to be given the authority to say "this slabheaded fella is utter wank, bin him off" and have the final say on whether a new signing is going to fit his system or not.

I feel like Murtuogh has to lead the vision and get the manager to buy in. Maybe there's a structural weakness that could be tweaked and that is all that is happening.

 

[RedCoffee]

I hope the new manager don't behave like Ole. Signing players with 50-80 million transfer fee. We don't need players with inflated fee and huge wages. Let's go back to basic, sign players between 20-45 million and offer them lower salary with performance bonus of winning something. We need young and hungry players who plays hard. I don't even mind Utd becomes a feeder club. Let's admit it we are no longer elite in the last 10 years.

Agreed. We have to go back to basics and sign hungry good quality players who want to make a difference and don't join the club for a bigger salary and their own ego. The new manager will need at least 5 players this summer so an average of 40m per player is about as good as it gets. Perhaps this is a good thing and means we avoid big salary big ego.