When Ed signed LvG, he clearly made a statement that we had scouted LvG keeping his Barca and Ajax playing style in mind. So the club viewed LvG as taking us in the direction of Cruyff-ball, or something like it. The boring style was never on their minds, which was due to their incompetence -- maybe they thought the international games were one-offs.
If I remember correctly, Bayern actually complained LvG's football was too attacking with no defensive nous!! I think Lahm made a statement to the effect. Whatever he did there, it was a polar opposite to what he did with us, with just the results being equally crap.
Mourinho's Madrid style was quite fantastic at it's peak, I remember many hoping he could recreate it. Personally, I expected him to as well.
Sorry, the only fault lies in Ed's incompetence in not seeing they were both past it. You are tacitly absolving LvG and Jose of blame, as though the shite they produced with us is what they played throughout their careers. Surely you don't think that having seen their hey-days.
Here're 2 quotes about LVG's time at Bayern from their board :
https://www.goal.com/en/news/15/ger...-uli-hoeness-louis-van-gaal-was-nearly-sacked
"Under Louis van Gaal, I learned one thing: you can have one of the best experts but if it's not fun, I do not want him in charge. I want success for this club but even more, I want there to be fun in football," he added.
"The team certainly were too nice. We had no yellow cards or hard fouls. That was not the players, it was the system. Louis van Gaal believed that you can look away when the opponent has the ball," he added.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles...van-gaals-sacking-in-2011-sounds-familiar-now
He added one comment that is hauntingly pertinent to the position Van Gaal finds himself in at Old Trafford: "Football should be enjoyable, but there has been nothing enjoyable about football at FC Bayern for a while now."
LVG did nothing new here since what he has been doing since his Bayern days : Play a tumescent defensive possession based football to keep the opponent from having the ball while giving only one attacking player freedom to create (Robben/Martial). He applied his style here perfectly, it was just shite. It was our mistake for scouting and bringing expecting different things.
Similarly we brought Mourinho who, except for 2 or 3 seasons in his career, has been always about winning ugly and grinding wins, then expected him to play differently here. Doesn't make sense.
It's our problem at this point. You signed 2 defensively based managers (in different ways) then expected them to play different kind of football here. I hate LVG myself, but the point is he shouldn't have been appointed from the start if the target was great football, same for Mourinho. The problem both didn't win much here to cover for their style of play, unlike their previous teams.
These things are from the past now. What doesn't make sense now is thinking about making the same mistake again, bringing a manager who proved several times with Spurs his limits is top 4 finish and expecting him to lead to the glory days and trophies like Poch. How can that be possible ? I thought we have already learned.
If Spurs don't have a winning mentality it's down to their manager. Their main lineup is 3rd best in the league at least. Their squad depth issues is the same for all other top clubs in the league bar City. There're no excuses for them to crumple under the slightest pressure when they're close to win something. If they can't handle pressure and don't have winning mentality, it's their manager's problem in installing it to them, and provide warning signings that he may fail under a more stressful job as United or Madrid.
If we want Poch, we have to accept he's going to offer what he has been providing : top 4, decent football and beating some big teams. Does that warrant us to throw 40m at him while we can get the same or more with other easier choices as Ole or Jardim ? So far Poch has provided zero indications he's going to offer more than both.