The number 1 attribute we need in a new manager

GazTheLegend

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ETH has never been a coach that instills his specific system. He has played a different style in all of the club he has managed. If we want that kind of coach De Zerbi is probably the most attainable one.
Why does anyone think de Zerbi is some elite level manager of any kind? Graham Potter achieved far, far more at Brighton than de fecking Zerbi
 

Valencia Shin Crosses

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The ability to instill a defined, dominant, attacking style of play that's not thoroughly dependent to very specific players being available.

I know you asked for 1, but 2 would be meritocracy (also, I'd add Amad to your list of key future players)
This. I’d love for Garnacho/Hojlund and co to be superstars, but quite frankly wouldn’t give a shit if the manager developed a dominant style of play with others and we got back to the top without them.

Conversely, Garnacho turning to a top player because a manager was brilliant at developing him, but couldn’t get us any better than decent top 4 contender, doesn’t move the needle for me
 

Sky1981

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The ability to instill a defined, dominant, attacking style of play that's not thoroughly dependent to very specific players being available.

I know you asked for 1, but 2 would be meritocracy (also, I'd add Amad to your list of key future players)
Before that our Ned Stark should survive the game of thrones first.
 

Skills

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We don't need a manager. Eth should be the last manager this club ever has - the role needs to be permanently abolished.

What we need is a head coach, with a role limited to coaching the players he's given by the club working under the thumb of a DOF.
 

Red Royal

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Flexibility.. I.e.
- pick the right players/formation depending on who is fit, available and in form
- not have any favourite players
- Good use of substitution
- balanced use of squad in EL/ECL wherever we end up
- transfer input (if he has any) that can develop players not just by megastar there prime or Dutch league experience
- ability to identify weaknesses quickly and plug those gaps (in current case bolster the midfield to make us more solid)
 

OrcaFat

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Next manager needs the ability to win the league. Ideally he should be able to do it with shit players because, for the most part, that’s what he’ll have to work with.
 

OrcaFat

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We don't need a manager. Eth should be the last manager this club ever has - the role needs to be permanently abolished.

What we need is a head coach, with a role limited to coaching the players he's given by the club working under the thumb of a DOF.
I love this! We’ll never know whose fault it is when we still don’t win.

We should pack the coaching department with the best young modern coaches, preferably low profile. Make one of them head of first team coaching reporting to the manager. Manager remains ultimately responsible for first team performance. DoF works alongside manager to direct and be responsible for implementing recruitment of all players and coaches and for getting structure and infrastructure right.

Clearly one guy cannot do it all but the guy doing the post-match interviews and carrying the can for the inevitable failure should be the guy who has made most of the key decisions leading to the quality of players on the pitch and how well they perform. This is above the pay grade of a coach.
 

Invictus

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Probably something rudimentary like: evidencing the ability to consistently install frameworks whereby the skill sets of players at their disposal are maximized and things like arriving at solutions during matches are simplified (be it for those who are currently at the club or those who are going to be signed in the upcoming transfer windows). It's why Alex Ferguson got so much out of players who might not have have made it at the highest level of club football under different managers or coaches, and why he could, for example, overcome clubs like Arsenal with hastily assembled midfields...



Trying to make the whole operate at a level that is greater than the sum of its parts, while simultaneously keeping things simple in terms of training and education (so that even the weakest links can play a part), is a rare but absolutely essential quality for a prospective Manchester United head coach — it leads to extended periods of overperformance (every team needs this from time to time), helps you paper over the weaknesses of certain individuals from a collective standpoint (you can't have optimal players at every level of the squad), can come to your rescue during injury or suspension-related crisis (which are inevitabilities), elevates the market value of players that you might want to sell (as opposed to them hitting rock bottom at the club and becoming unsellable), and so forth.
An IDGAF attitude and the cojones to sell star players. Iron hand discipline
These types of determinations should be made by the Director of Football in conjuction with the Technical Director, the analytical and team management departments, and the Chief Executive (and the ownership if necessary, considering they are the ultimate artbitrators), following a detailed and rigorous assessment period. Managers can be transient figures in contemporary football, someone who is a basically a totalitarian with a “don't give a feck attitude” and walks into a club to initiate the fire-sale of important players can do more harm than good if there aren't appropriate checks and balances in place. They should have no such authority, at least during the early parts of their tenure (when they haven't given a good account of their abilities as a team manager or talent evaluator).
 

United Hobbit

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Developing young players

Someone who can rectify the shocking mentality currently in place. They turned up against Liverpool then reverted to type against Bournemouth. Scoring then almost immediately conceding has happened so many times this season. Poor decision making. All of these must be addressed. Too many games where we don't even turn up, especially against the "smaller" teams

Bring back the SAF no one is bigger than the club mentality. Players who don't perform are benched/substituted

Coach the ability to retain the ball and make more accurate passing. Again we play ourselves into trouble by poor decision making, and poor passing

Bring back a level of exciting football, I'd rather have a season of high scoring losses while this beds in, the current football is insipid and the match day thread becomes way more interesting

Address the fitness and injury rates. I bet a lot of these injuries are because we are so unfit, it's the same most games we start off brightly then run out of gas and fall apart because we can't run.
 

AngeloHenriquez

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Meritocracy, it will naturally improve the other elements like not playing players who aren't playing, discipline etc as they will see they play if they play well and deserve to simply.
 

RedStarUnited

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is the ability to develop players(especially young players). Our future is in the hands of Mainoo, Rasmus, Garnacho. If these three continue to improve and develop then we have a chance. If we are relying on the senior players to carry this team into the future we are fecked. Of course recruitment will also be key and I could see an argument that talent recognition might be equally important.

Above a winning past, tactics or personality, I think player development is the key thing INEOS should look at when replacing ETH this summer who is pretty much a dead man walking.

Do you agree and if not what would be the number 1 attribute you think we need in the new boss?
A key part in player development is having the right team philosophy to begin with. Drop a Messi level talent in a Mourinho team and I doubt he develops the same way.

For me the next manager needs to install a hard working team mentality. We have been out worked by teams for over a decade now and it’s disturbing.
 

Quinze

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Pragmatism. Someone who does what is needed to win rather than focus on style and ideals when things are obviously not working out.
 

Marwood

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Stick to your guns. Whatever the style of play you want is, go with it. Don't give in to the pressure and try to take shorcuts(counter attacking football) because it always ends up a mess. Neither here nor there. Which is what's happened with ETH. As it did with Mourinho, Moyes and eventually Ole.

I'm not a fan of Pep worship but he came into City and pretty much straightaway made it clear Touré wasn't in his long term plans. Very ballsy move given Touré's status at the time. He knows what he wants and rigidly goes with it.
 

El Jefe

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Having a style of play that forces other teams to adjust to us.

The best teams have a set way of playing and use it for pretty much the whole season. When you need to continuously adapt your tactics when playing similar or better teams it pretty much gives in that you’re the inferior team. I get it in one off games but if it’s a regular occurrence then are you that good of a team.
 

Andycoleno9

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Clear game plan and style of play. No matter is it Liverpool away or Palace at home.
 

mintyred

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No, we need someone who understands the basics of management. We haven't had that since Jose.
 

Andersons Dietician

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It surprises me how stubborn Ten Hag has been this season. I gave him credit last season for realising early on that whatever he was trying was not working and switching back to something a bit more pragmatic.

I'm guessing he feels he built up enough equity last season to double down.
Given that we all believe significant changes are going to happen with the playing team and has to happen do you think maybe he has at a certain point thought this season is gone I’m going to start implementing systems for next season and focus on developing the players that will be here next season and getting them repeating those patterns rather than caring about what best suits Casemiro, Rashford or so on.
 

OrcaFat

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Probably something rudimentary like: evidencing the ability to consistently install frameworks whereby the skill sets of players at their disposal are maximized and things like arriving at solutions during matches are simplified (be it for those who are currently at the club or those who are going to be signed in the upcoming transfer windows). It's why Alex Ferguson got so much out of players who might not have have made it at the highest level of club football under different managers or coaches, and why he could, for example, overcome clubs like Arsenal with hastily assembled midfields...



Trying to make the whole operate at a level that is greater than the sum of its parts, while simultaneously keeping things simple in terms of training and education (so that even the weakest links can play a part), is a rare but absolutely essential quality for a prospective Manchester United head coach — it leads to extended periods of overperformance (every team needs this from time to time), helps you paper over the weaknesses of certain individuals from a collective standpoint (you can't have optimal players at every level of the squad), can come to your rescue during injury or suspension-related crisis (which are inevitabilities), elevates the market value of players that you might want to sell (as opposed to them hitting rock bottom at the club and becoming unsellable), and so forth.

These types of determinations should be made by the Director of Football in conjuction with the Technical Director, the analytical and team management departments, and the Chief Executive (and the ownership if necessary, considering they are the ultimate artbitrators), following a detailed and rigorous assessment period. Managers can be transient figures in contemporary football, someone who is a basically a totalitarian with a “don't give a feck attitude” and walks into a club to initiate the fire-sale of important players can do more harm than good if there aren't appropriate checks and balances in place. They should have no such authority, at least during the early parts of their tenure (when they haven't given a good account of their abilities as a team manager or talent evaluator).
Yes. But I don’t think it is simple to play so-called modern, elite-level, title-winning football. Getting all the age groups playing the same way is good but EtH has already said that he wants that. Learning to play specific roles / positions in modern football is not easy.

SAF was great but he wouldn’t be doing the same thing if he was managing now because it wouldn’t win titles. He would adapt and find a way to win but he would do it by employing the right coaches and signing the right players for modern football.

Success is mostly about the quality of the players. These days, most of the players have to be cleverer and more physically able to do the jobs they’re asked to do. I don’t think there’s a coach in the world who gets the current squad competing for the title. Hundreds of coaches out there could get us scraping a few more points just by setting up more pragmatically and playing simple nuts and bolts football but this doesn’t win titles.

You have to teach all the players how to play to their max and some just won’t be clever or physical enough to do it, so you have to overhaul the squad accordingly. You have to break eggs to get from where we are to where we need to be.

I think EtH is doing all the right things in essence but he is making mistakes in the micro decisions. We don’t need a different type of coach / manager, we need someone similar to EtH but better (or EtH needs to do his job better).
 

Red-17

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A key part in player development is having the right team philosophy to begin with. Drop a Messi level talent in a Mourinho team and I doubt he develops the same way.

For me the next manager needs to install a hard working team mentality. We have been out worked by teams for over a decade now and it’s disturbing.
This is the key for me. The biggest reason none of our young players or signings progress is because we have not had a recognizable and effective style of football for ages. It’s all well and good saying ETH has done well to bring through Garnacho and Mainoo but 2 more seasons of them playing in a side like yesterday and people will be calling them overrated/lazy/insert other insults.
Our players collectively perform worse than the sum of their parts while the exact opposite can be said of so many top sides and over performing teams.
 

city-puma

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is the ability to develop players(especially young players). Our future is in the hands of Mainoo, Rasmus, Garnacho. If these three continue to improve and develop then we have a chance. If we are relying on the senior players to carry this team into the future we are fecked. Of course recruitment will also be key and I could see an argument that talent recognition might be equally important.

Above a winning past, tactics or personality, I think player development is the key thing INEOS should look at when replacing ETH this summer who is pretty much a dead man walking.

Do you agree and if not what would be the number 1 attribute you think we need in the new boss?
Naive, illogical, unreasonable
 

Based Adnan

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We need a manager with a proactive possession based style of football that actually has the bottle to stand by it and make the necessary changes to the squad to get the team playing said style.

Ten Hag went the opposite way and abandoned his principles to suit the squad. Something that should yield results in the short term at the cost of long term progress towards a better style but he's not even managing that.
 

NewGlory

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Neither Pep, nor Ancelotti, nor Klopp would be able to do anything with the garbage collection of players we have.

Doesn't significantly matter who our manager is until we put the right squad together.

We need players who
1. Work hard and have physical ability to outrun and outwork most other teams. This needs to be non-negotiable attribute. We have collected most players made out of glass who break every other game and cannot be asked to train or run. We compete in EPL, physical ability is a necessity here
2. Do basics reliably - passing, holding ball, pressing
3. We need very few world-class players, at this stage of development. You don't assemble a good team, right after a total rebuild, with star players. It bring too many clashing egos, is too risky, and we don't have money for it anyway. Only City, Barcelona, or Real Madrid can afford to have all-star teams. We need good, reliable players with handful of top talent, not too many. You can see how Solanke is more useful than Rashford.
4. Players who live and breath with football. Social media superstars not welcome in this club

And then you can get any decent manager (at the level of Unai Emery, Ange, or even Thomas Frank) to make a fighting team out of such good squad. That should give us a team that plays attacking style, can reliably make top 4 and will usually progress from Champions League group stage. Only after we achieve that, can we start building a team that can win EPL or UCL.

You cannot go from absolute garbage that we are to winning directly. It's not possible and will not happen
 
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Newstyle

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Why does anyone think de Zerbi is some elite level manager of any kind? Graham Potter achieved far, far more at Brighton than de fecking Zerbi
Where in my post have I stated that De Zerbi is an “elite level manager”?
 

GazTheLegend

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Where in my post have I stated that De Zerbi is an “elite level manager”?
The fact that you think he's good enough for our club. Because we are still ostensibly an elite club. We have elite revenue, an elite fan base and an elite history. We can't be accepting journeymen or mid level managers at this level anymore.
 

Lee565

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One that realises how important it is to win the midfield battle
 

Maluco

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Courage. Someone who will come in and turf out Rashford and reset expectations and standards
 

Sandikan

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A manager who upon noticing that we concede 25-30 chances every game and that teams are literally romping through our centre mid at will actually changes something.
 

Insanity

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We need someone with big cojones. I feel all our managers have been too afraid to lose and ended up falling into the same trap. You need to brave as a Manchester United manager, you cannot win here by being a pussy.

- Moyes acted like a scared puppy from the beginning and was never going to succeed.
- VG changed his approach after that Leicester comeback and slowed down our play too much to have more control. It eventually lead to his demise.
- Jose was Jose. He style of football was never palpable but we were desperate and hired him despite knowing all his flaws, which had exacerbated by the time he joined us.
- Ole too was too afraid to lose. I'll never forget that the guy who made his name as a super-sub didn't make a single sub until deep into extra time in the Europa final against Villareal. He was never going to succeed here.
- ETH is simply out of his depth. I don't even know what he is trying to do. Is he brave or simply stupid?

This time we need someone won't get overwhelmed by job.
 

frostbite

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We need a world class manager. One attribute alone means nothing, he must be world class in a lot of things. That's why he will be paid millions per year.
 

Paul778

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They need to have worked at a big club and be familar with multiple systems and keeping a dressing room of high earning elite players happy.