Very good post and very good point made. SAF pre Man Utd was a sensation. Aberdeen conquering Europe and breaking the Glasgow hold on the Scots Prem was incredible.
Time + blind faith = Sir Alex Ferguson.
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I’m not saying is one year a manager has to win titles but improvements should be fairly quick. Klopp improved Liverpool very quickly. Guardiola to an extent. Spurs manager now. Aston Villa manager. Eddie Howe at Newcastle.
Ten hag improved us in year one too. We played a better style than under Ole.
Spurs manager now is irrelevant. We know how many false dawns that club have had.
It’s been mentioned plenty of times over the year and for every manager. You can trawl through it all if you want.
Thats…what I said
Not really. We had a disastrous start and improved but again after January reverted to old form of counter attacking and holding on barely, which has continued this season.
False dawn or not, he has turned them around from a defensive, low block counter attacking side under Conte to an attacking side in a short span of time despite losing Kane. What about all the other examples? Aston Villa went from relegation material to tough competitors now. Eddie Howe is doing wonders at Newcastle despite spending on decent players. He has improved everyone in that squad from relegation material to CL.
What Fergie did at Aberdeen was incredible and shown he was worth sticking with and turning the club around. Sir Bobby Charlton was part of hiring him, another great football man who put the club in the right direction getting Sir Alex. Top football people fixing the club happened in the late 80s and we need that again, we need direction and authority from the top.
So yes I agree just saying Fergie had 4 years, so must everyone else, it all depends on what state the club/team is in, their pedigree and progress which can't always be seen from the outside. A recent example was at Arsenal with Edu, people could see the changes and progress close to the club but results were poor for a long while.
So yes I agree just saying Fergie had 4 years, so must everyone else, it all depends on what state the club/team is in, their pedigree and progress which can't always be seen from the outside. A recent example was at Arsenal with Edu, people could see the changes and progress close to the club but results were poor for a long while.
I did. There are more comparisons to Arteta as a recent example who finished 8th place consecutively.
What do you mean not really? He did. He did dip in form but improvement of a season is classed over the course of the season, not cherry picked to the final third.
this
No, you cannot. We barely got 4th in the first season. City were absolutely atrocious on that second season, and we still couldn't make fourth. Heck, we needed 1 point away at West Ham and we were leading twice, and still couldn't get that single point to get fourth. We scored for the entire season in league only 49 goal, the ninth best in the league. In that same season, we were unable to pass the group stage on UCL in a very weak group with Wolfsburg, PSV and CSKA. We got 8 points out of possible 18 with 0 GD. In the final two matches, when we needed only 3 points to pass the group, we managed to get only 1. And then, we lost from Liverpool who had just hired Klopp 3-1 in Europa.
The only thing that can be argued is why on Earth he got the entire season, when he should have been sacked in December after being unable to pass the group stage.
Agree 100% and it just shows how maddeningly romantic some supporters are that their only evidence of why a manager should be backed is that the best one ever was backed when it was tough once.
This 100%
He is a place holder at Arsenal and might not even finish ahead of us this season.
We don't cull the squad. We just keep adding more dross to the dross already here. Uniteds way is to sign players on big contracts making it impossible to sell on when it inevitably doesn't work.
Arteta was backed in getting rid of half his first team. Other than Pogba we just get rid of fringe players which changes nothing.
Keeping Ten Hag is no guarantee of success, I agree. Time + patience is not equal to success.
But neither is sacking managers after a year a guarantee of success either. Look at the vast majority of managerial sackings in football.
There's no need to try and house your desire for Ten Hag being sacked under a quasi-logical argument. If you have a fetish for manager sacks like @Skills then just say so.
We've hired and fired 4 managers since SAF. Zero major trophies, and no period of dominance in football like City and Liverpool. Maybe managers aren't magicians and if so many of them fail then the problem isn't with them but with the structure they operate in? It doesn't mean they couldn't do better but at this point so many are obsessed with rearranging the chairs on the Titanic deck.
I'm ok with giving him until the end of the season to see what he can do with this squad. I don't think there is any benefit to just placing a caretaker in the position right now. And the season is lost. We aren't winning the CL. We aren't winning the league. If we're moving on from Ten Hag I'd rather it be part of a sensible transition, not an impulsive reaction (which is what it is on here right now).
Also, why do pro-sack fans have an issue with the wait and see crowd. Do they think once we are all on the same page on the Caf, then that accelerates the sacking process? I remember some idiots back in the Moyes days complaining about the sack poll not being lopsided enough
But neither is sacking managers after a year a guarantee of success either. Look at the vast majority of managerial sackings in football.
There's no need to try and house your desire for Ten Hag being sacked under a quasi-logical argument. If you have a fetish for manager sacks like @Skills then just say so.
We've hired and fired 4 managers since SAF. Zero major trophies, and no period of dominance in football like City and Liverpool. Maybe managers aren't magicians and if so many of them fail then the problem isn't with them but with the structure they operate in? It doesn't mean they couldn't do better but at this point so many are obsessed with rearranging the chairs on the Titanic deck.
I'm ok with giving him until the end of the season to see what he can do with this squad. I don't think there is any benefit to just placing a caretaker in the position right now. And the season is lost. We aren't winning the CL. We aren't winning the league. If we're moving on from Ten Hag I'd rather it be part of a sensible transition, not an impulsive reaction (which is what it is on here right now).
Also, why do pro-sack fans have an issue with the wait and see crowd. Do they think once we are all on the same page on the Caf, then that accelerates the sacking process? I remember some idiots back in the Moyes days complaining about the sack poll not being lopsided enough
This notion only works if you trust the people in charge have appointed the right person from the off and know what they’re doing.
Why? What’s he won since he culled the squad and spent daft money?
People said these exact same things after every manager we’ve had. Do you genuinely think Rice and Havertz are upgrades on what they’ve had before or are they going to be expensive flops in 3 seasons? The only thing Arsenal have done is copied us in the last couple of years, and it isn’t going to work out for them either, they peaked last season.
One more thing that has to stop is "giving manager reasonable time = blind faith/cult of a manager".
Arsenal have overtaken us in the past couple years and it feels like we're now years behind them. Arteta had to get rid of a lot of dead weight, and even brought in a few flops himself - something no manager is immune to. It is a legitimate argument to allowing manager time having inherited a complete and utter clusterf*ck.
He had Arsenal in a title race last season.
If the criteria is simply major trophies (PL/CL), should Klopp be sacked? Considering he's not won anything major since a Covid year?
And what happens when they sack Arteta and bring in a completely different style of manager? Then this new lot have to go and the cycle starts again, unless they stay within the same mould of manager.
I’m sure Arsenal said exactly the same about us in the time we finished 2nd twice while they were missing out on Europe. They’ve done nothing, they’ve gone nowhere apart from have one good season. They won’t win the league and I’ll be amazed if they win a trophy.
That’s not a trophy or an achievement mate. Arteta acted like they were in a title race but the reality is they were shit after the world
Cup.
Bit mad to disregard what Arsenal have done in recent years when it's more than ten years since Man Utd have been in a title challenge.
If City finish on their usual 100 point mark there is no title challenge, which is what they did whenever we got close to challenging
Liverpool have been in title challenges. Arsenal were absolutely in a title challenge. The season we finished second under Ole was probably the most timid title challenge from a second placed team in all these years.
We give managers time ?
Arteta is not as good as an example to use giving a manager time when Klopp's case study is present. Klopp took a few years to get his team in shape but incrementally improved the team's performances, the signings for that period were predominantly good. In the process of improvement he won the UCL and the league title. That's a linear direction which is what United need to follow. Poch had a similar trajectory at Spurs but couldn't close out with a trophy having lost the UCL final.
Poch's time at bringing Spurs into some ascendancy is often disregarded for some strange reason yet his infancy at Spurs is far better than Arteta's in comparison. I don't understand why many are holding Arteta's development to a high standard, it feels like an excuse that permits Erik underperforming.
Poch and Klopp are the best examples, Arteta is a good manager but his time with Arsenal is an exception to the rule. He wouldn't last at any big club with that type of development so it's not feasible there's a lot of context around it.
Liverpool probably would have won 2 or 3 titles if it wasn’t for City getting 100 points. Arsenals highest finish was 84 points, which in the last 23 years wins you the league a whopping 3 times.
I know it's not. Is it your opinion that Arteta is the one holding Arsenal back from major trophies?
Me too. I’m amazed at how passionate some fans are about getting a new manager. It won’t make a difference, the club is rotten to its core and we don’t have enough money to fix all of the issues. This is who we are, no manager is going to fix that.
Yes. His purchases, his tactics, his antics, all not up to the level you’d expect from an elite club with ambitions of winning things, which is why he gets time at Arsenal. There’s no way a big club puts up with someone like that unless they’ve got PL’s and CL titles to back it up.
There’s a difference between blind faith and recognising coaches need at least decent conditions to succeed.
If the next coach to go in after pep leads them to 9 losses in 17, it’s the coach. The fact we’ve had proven world class coaches fail here tells me it isn’t the coach that’s the problem. Sacking Ten Hag before overhauling the structure would genuinely be mental.
If the next coach to go in after pep leads them to 9 losses in 17, it’s the coach. The fact we’ve had proven world class coaches fail here tells me it isn’t the coach that’s the problem. Sacking Ten Hag before overhauling the structure would genuinely be mental.
I'm not the one who brought Arteta up. I was just commenting on the idea he's done nothing with Arsenal. First of all, the FA Cup he won got him some credibility. Second, it's hard to look at Arsenal of last season and believe they've peaked or aren't on an upward trajectory. Finally, most trajectories are not linear. Klopp's trajectory was partly due to his merits, but he was also surrounded by an excellent infrastructure that aided in identifying talent (and the Coutinho windfall). IIRC one of Salah and Mane wasn't even on his list. That's not typical, so you're doomed to fail if your requirement is a linear progression.
I see. I disagree but I understand you better so this was a productive exchange
Appreciate the exchange! I’m not trying to be inflammatory, I just don’t rate him. People point to him like he’s an example we should be copying but it’s resulted in nothing yet, and I very mouth doubt it ever will, then the Arsenal fans will be talking about his recruitment in the next couple of years when they’re floundering again.
What does ‘rotten to the core’ actually mean?
The "X years to transform the squad/culture/whatever, so be patient" argument isn't unsound in and of itself. The problem is:
a) it's extremely unlikely that one person can achieve such a thing (such a transformation) in this day and age,
b) we don't know that ETH has been given such a mandate (he probably hasn't, all we know is that he seems to have considerable input when it comes to player recruitment).
c) if he has been given such a mandate, why? It's not something he (or anyone else for that matter) seems qualified for (he came here with a good reputation as a coach, not as a club builder/reformer).
a) it's extremely unlikely that one person can achieve such a thing (such a transformation) in this day and age,
b) we don't know that ETH has been given such a mandate (he probably hasn't, all we know is that he seems to have considerable input when it comes to player recruitment).
c) if he has been given such a mandate, why? It's not something he (or anyone else for that matter) seems qualified for (he came here with a good reputation as a coach, not as a club builder/reformer).
Those managers show the opposite. Their careers were either on a downward trajectory or they were never up there in the first place. Ten Hag is a genuine up and coming top manager and was arguably the hottest prospect in Europe when we signed him.
So was Andre Villas-Boas. Just because someone has a couple good years in another league, with another team, doesn't mean they'll be a top manager in future. Sometimes they're just already in the right environment.