Under which post Fergie manager period were the transfers worst? An attempt at creating a points system

Scandi Red

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I think pretty much every manager post Fergie has done a poor job with transfers, but who was the worst? I am aware that not all transfers are down to the manager, but that's a too boring discussion so let's just say that if a player was signed on a manager's watch then they are at least partly to blame.

Not all transfers should count as much as others, so I want to make a few rules to filter out these players. So for a player to be eligible for scoring they cannot fit any of these descriptions:

- Reserve goalkeepers
- Loan deals
- Players who are currently at the club but have been here for less than 2 seasons
- Youth players (players who are both younger than 20 and cost less than 10 million)
- However: a youth player who somehow becomes a success can be added to the positive points category (this has not happened, but it might happen for Heaven in the future)

In addition to this, I think a manager must have at least 5 eligible players based on these rules in order to have a large enough dataset to be judged. So Moyes, Rangnick and Amorim (for the time being) will not be judged now. That leaves the following players and managers for scoring:

LVG (10 players):
- Blind
- Rojo
- Herrera
- Shaw
- Di Maria
- Schweinsteiger
- Darmian
- Depay
- Schneiderlin
- Martial

Mourinho (10 players):
- Pogba
- Mkhitaryan
- Bailly
- Zlatan
- Lukaku
- Matic
- Lindelof
- Sanchez
- Fred
- Dalot

Ole (11 players):
- Maguire
- AWB
- James
- Bruno
- Van de Beek
- Amad
- Telles
- Cavani
- Sancho
- Varane
- Ronaldo

Ten Hag (8 players):
- Antony
- Casemiro
- Martinez
- Malacia
- Eriksen
- Højlund
- Mount
- Onana

Now we have 39 players more or less evenly distributed across 4 different post Fergie managers. And when this season ends another 6 or 7 players will be eligible for Ten Hag; De Ligt, Yoro, Ugarte, Zirkzee, Dorgu, Mazraoui and potentially Heaven (see the youth rules above).

----

Next we need a scoring system. I have decided to break it up into 4 categories:

Big success - Plus 2 points
Spoiler alert; Bruno is the only player in this category, but Amad is close. The reason this category exists is because big hits are really rare (evidently) and should thus be rewarded.

Success - Plus 1 point
The definition of success is fairly simple; did the player deliver up to expectations taking things like role, age, transfer fee and salary into account? This is not simply a matter of skill. Basically, were they a net positive? For instance: Pogba did quite well for us but I seriously considered putting him in the failure category when taking everything into account. In these instances I will put a (-) next to the player name.

Failure - Minus 1 point
Basically the opposite of the above. Any player who's close to the binary cutoff gets a (+) next to their name.

Unlucky - 0 points (i.e. no movement)
Some failed transfers is very hard to blame the manager for and I feel that these should not move the pendulum. An example of this are players who are clearly good enough but get destroyed by injuries. Another example are players who "everyone" thought would be a success but still failed spectacularly. All managers have at least one of these unlucky transfers.

---

I will spoiler a detailed breakdown for each manager below, but here is the scoreboard. Every manager essentially gets 3 scores: the actual score, the maximum score you could argue for (called "max) and the worst score you could argue for (called "min") :

Tie breakers:
- Most big successes
- Most successes
- Most unlucky
- Highest max
- Highest min


Score
1. Ole 0 (max +1, min -2)
2. Mourinho-1 (max +1, min -3)
3. Van Gaal-3 (max -2, min -4)
4. Ten Hag -3 (max -2, min -5)


Some observations:

1. Ole did better than I thought, although the plus 2 rule (i.e. Bruno and potentially Amad) saves his ass.
2. Mourinho's players were a nightmare to score. Half of them are neither clear successes nor failures.
3. Ten Hag did worse than I thought but his score is clearly subject to change, with nearly half his players not becoming eligible before the summer.
4. All in all Ole and Jose are clearly "better" than the other two, but the order is not exactly set.

There will obviously be a lot of subjectivity involved when trying to put players into different categories. I'm curious about how you would score the players using the same system. Was I too kind? Too harsh? Does the "unlucky" category deserve to exist (it doesn't change much for the final score though)?

Success (3):
- Shaw
- Herrera
- Blind (-)

Failure (6):
- Martial (+)
- Schweinsteiger
- Darmian
- Depay
- Schneiderlin
- Rojo

Unlucky (1):
- Di Maria

Success (4):
- Zlatan
- Matic
- Pogba (-)
- Dalot (-)

Failure (5):
- Fred (+)
- Lukaku (+)
- Mkhitaryan
- Lindelof
- Bailly

Unlucky (1):
- Sanchez

Big success (1):
- Bruno

Success (3):
- Amad (+)
- Cavani
- Maguire (-)

Failure (5):
- Ronaldo
- AWB
- Van de Beek
- Telles
- James

Unlucky (2):
- Sancho
- Varane

Success (2):
- Eriksen (-)
- Casemiro (-)

Failure (5):
- Mount (+, could be placed in all categories, honestly)
- Malacia
- Højlund
- Onana
- Antony

Unlucky (1):
- Martinez
 
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Slightly unfair framing I think, as some of them had greater degrees of control over transfers than others.
 
It’s so subjective, but Aaron Wan Bissaka and Ronaldo failures? I’d be far more neutral (and potentially even into the positive) with them.
They certainly don’t deserve to be in the same category as Donny van der Beek.
 
Yeah you've got to get an objective way of grading them as many people will disagree with those. Martial shouldn't be in failure when he played an important part of a few trophy wins, and plenty of high placed finishes. Didn't hit the huge expectations but he had good seasons. How is di Maria only unlucky? And so on.

Should be something like minutes/matches played and win rate in those matches relative to cost, and then make it like cost per win that they got while playing.
 
sullydnl said:
Slightly unfair framing I think, as some of them had greater degrees of control over transfers than others.
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Fair. I guess the thread is not so much about the manager as much as their stint. Thread titles are difficult :p

NicolaSacco said:
It’s so subjective, but Aaron Wan Bissaka and Ronaldo failures? I’d be far more neutral (and potentially even into the positive) with them.
They certainly don’t deserve to be in the same category as Donny van der Beek.
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I didn't want a too intricate scoring system because that just opens up a whole new can of worms. I think it's better to create a cutoff line and then mark whether or not they were close (+/- symbols).

But yes, I consider both AWB and Ronaldo failures. I could accept a (+) next to AWB though.
 
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bosnian_red said:
Yeah you've got to get an objective way of grading them as many people will disagree with those. Martial shouldn't be in failure when he played an important part of a few trophy wins, and plenty of high placed finishes. Didn't hit the huge expectations but he had good seasons. How is di Maria only unlucky? And so on.
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I disagree with the premise that you can create an even remotely objective way of scoring transfers. All in all, I like this way.

Notice the (+) next to Martial. He was quite expensive and was injured a lot. That ultimately put him under the line, but I wouldn't be opposed to putting him in the success category.

Di Maria is unlucky because there is no way LVG could have expected that attitude (or the house break-in for that matter).
 
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Glazers era Woodward and Murtough pretty bad, very scattered and short-sighted approach, with some marquee signings based heavily on market appeal. INEOS era Berrada, Wilcox and Vivell seems to be taking a longer term football first approach, but too early to judge much.
 
Not as long a timeframe as some but Moyes coming in and our marquee signing basically being Fellaini was incredibly depressing and in retrospect a sign of what would follow.
 
Scandi Red said:
I think pretty much every manager post Fergie has done a poor job with transfers, but who was the worst? I am aware that not all transfers are down to the manager, but that's a too boring discussion so let's just say that if a player was signed on a manager's watch then they are at least partly to blame.

Not all transfers should count as much as others, so I want to make a few rules to filter out these players. So for a player to be eligible for scoring they cannot fit any of these descriptions:

- Reserve goalkeepers
- Loan deals
- Players who are currently at the club but have been here for less than 2 seasons
- Youth players (players who are both younger than 20 and cost less than 10 million)
- However: a youth player who somehow becomes a success can be added to the positive points category (this has not happened, but it might happen for Heaven in the future)

In addition to this, I think a manager must have at least 5 eligible players based on these rules in order to have a large enough dataset to be judged. So Moyes, Rangnick and Amorim (for the time being) will not be judged now. That leaves the following players and managers for scoring:

LVG (10 players):
- Blind
- Rojo
- Herrera
- Shaw
- Di Maria
- Schweinsteiger
- Darmian
- Depay
- Schneiderlin
- Martial

Mourinho (10 players):
- Pogba
- Mkhitaryan
- Bailly
- Zlatan
- Lukaku
- Matic
- Lindelof
- Sanchez
- Fred
- Dalot

Ole (11 players):
- Maguire
- AWB
- James
- Bruno
- Van de Beek
- Amad
- Telles
- Cavani
- Sancho
- Varane
- Ronaldo

Ten Hag (8 players):
- Antony
- Casemiro
- Martinez
- Malacia
- Eriksen
- Højlund
- Mount
- Onana

Now we have 39 players more or less evenly distributed across 4 different post Fergie managers. And when this season ends another 6 or 7 players will be eligible for Ten Hag; De Ligt, Yoro, Ugarte, Zirkzee, Dorgu, Mazraoui and potentially Heaven (see the youth rules above).

----

Next we need a scoring system. I have decided to break it up into 4 categories:

Big success - Plus 2 points
Spoiler alert; Bruno is the only player in this category, but Amad is close. The reason this category exists is because big hits are really rare (evidently) and should thus be rewarded.

Success - Plus 1 point
The definition of success is fairly simple; did the player deliver up to expectations taking things like role, age, transfer fee and salary into account? This is not simply a matter of skill. Basically, were they a net positive? For instance: Pogba did quite well for us but I seriously considered putting him in the failure category when taking everything into account. In these instances I will put a (-) next to the player name.

Failure - Minus 1 point
Basically the opposite of the above. Any player who's close to the binary cutoff gets a (+) next to their name.

Unlucky - 0 points (i.e. no movement)
Some failed transfers is very hard to blame the manager for and I feel that these should not move the pendulum. An example of this are players who are clearly good enough but get destroyed by injuries. Another example are players who "everyone" thought would be a success but still failed spectacularly. All managers have at least one of these unlucky transfers.

---

I will spoiler a detailed breakdown for each manager below, but here is the scoreboard. Every manager essentially gets 3 scores: the actual score, the maximum score you could argue for (called "max) and the worst score you could argue for (called "min") :

Tie breakers:
- Most big successes
- Most successes
- Most unlucky
- Highest max
- Highest min


Score
1. Ole +1 (max +2, min 0)
2. Mourinho-1 (max +1, min -3)
3. Van Gaal-3 (max -2, min -4)
4. Ten Hag -3 (max -2, min -5)


Some observations:

1. Ole did better than I thought, although the plus 2 rule (i.e. Bruno and potentially Amad) saves his ass.
2. Mourinho's players were a nightmare to score. Half of them are neither clear successes nor failures.
3. Ten Hag did worse than I thought but his score is clearly subject to change, with nearly half his players not becoming eligible before the summer.
4. All in all Ole and Jose are clearly "better" than the other two, but the order is not exactly set.

There will obviously be a lot of subjectivity involved when trying to put players into different categories. I'm curious about how you would score the players using the same system. Was I too kind? Too harsh? Does the "unlucky" category deserve to exist (it doesn't change much for the final score though)?

Success (3):
- Shaw
- Herrera
- Blind (-)

Failure (6):
- Martial (+)
- Schweinsteiger
- Darmian
- Depay
- Schneiderlin
- Rojo

Unlucky (1):
- Di Maria

Success (4):
- Zlatan
- Matic
- Pogba (-)
- Dalot (-)

Failure (5):
- Fred (+)
- Lukaku (+)
- Mkhitaryan
- Lindelof
- Bailly

Unlucky (1):
- Sanchez

Big success (1):
- Bruno

Success (3):
- Amad (+)
- Cavani
- Maguire (-)

Failure (4):
- Ronaldo
- AWB
- Van de Beek
- Telles

Unlucky (2):
- Sancho
- Varane

Success (2):
- Eriksen (-)
- Casemiro (-)

Failure (5):
- Mount (+, could be placed in all categories, honestly)
- Malacia
- Højlund
- Onana
- Antony

Unlucky (1):
- Martinez
Click to expand...
Maybe some bias in there.
 
Forgot about James. Docking 1 point from Ole, putting him down to 0.

This also means that not a single manager is in the plus, which seems right to me.
 
It's ten Hag and it's not even close. Almost all his signings were failures and on top of that we lost Carreras without giving him any chance at all, in a position we were desperate for. We were playing Amrabat as LB ffs.

Ten Hag doesn't have a single good signing, Casemiro hasn't worth what we paid for. Erikseen can be seen as a good signing considering he was a free agent but that's about it.
 
How an 80 million transfer who became a meme of how bad he is, only to be considered as an OK player the last year due to a system that didnt expose him that much, can be considered a success? Also, why Amad is under Ole and Pellistri is not? Didn't he cost more than 10? If not ok. Btw Ole didnt even know who Amad was, so again shouldn't be under him.
 
Ten Hag. The recruitment during his time was appalling. It's difficult to look at how much money we spent on dross players without thinking it was deliberate sabotage
 
Its a bit unfair to judge managers based on incomings and out goings during their tenure when we dont know who was really responsible for each and their have been stories about LVG, Mourinho, Ole, and ETH all being given players they didnt want or not being allowed to sign some of the players they did want.
 
They’ve all been pretty bad but I’m not sure that is entirely down to the managers. LvG said he got players that were seventh on his wish list, Fred was clearly not a Jose signing, VdB clearly was not an Ole signing etc.
 
Changed the title because this is more about the periods than the individual managers.
 
If Maguire is a success then most of the signings we made post Fergie should be seen as success too. Only because the standards got lower and lower as the time went on, the perception of success has changed. Not being a total calamity like he was in 2021 is somehow deemed as good enough and something acceptable for us now. A player like Rojo for instance was never that bad but he's a failure in that list while Maguire is a success.

Barring a couple, nearly all of Ole's & Ten Hag's signings were disastrous and they both wasted so much money but also managed to downgrade the quality of the squad. Maguire was a downgrade from Smalling but we made him the most expensive defender ever. Same for Onana & De Gea. That's why we wonder how did we spend so much money in the last decade but still have an an average squad. So it's between Ole and Ten Hag for who wasted lots of money but made the squad worse and did the most damage for the future manager.
 
Ten Hag and Van Gaal by far and away the worst. Including players sold in their time makes it even worse.

The most damaging periods since SAF to our long term success.
 
Not one player has been a big success. I don’t care about the narrative around Bruno. Big successes to me are consistent players who bring great performances in big games, typically are part of successful periods in our history with the caveat of Bryan Robson…who still won three fa cups, league cup, cup winners cup….and part of league wins in 93/94. Bruno has performed no more consistently than many others and failed in most big moments. He’s top of a small list of successful players, not above for me.

It’s been absolutely shocking the amount of money we’ve spent on mediocrity and wasted on downright poor players. Even the successes wouldn’t have been successes in eras where they would have had to perform consistently and been judged against better players. Look at Veron for example, judged as a flop but performed to a higher level than Maguire…but rightly let go quickly because it wasn’t working when standards were higher. Dalot ! Even in the 80s he’d be considered a categoric flop and no chance that he would have been at the club so long.

It’s atrocious when you look at the size of the problem in black and white.
 
CMRobbo7 said:
Not one player has been a big success. I don’t care about the narrative around Bruno. Big successes to me are consistent players who bring great performances in big games, typically are part of successful periods in our history with the caveat of Bryan Robson…who still won three fa cups, league cup, cup winners cup….and part of league wins in 93/94. Bruno has performed no more consistently than many others and failed in most big moments. He’s top of a small list of successful players, not above for me.

It’s been absolutely shocking the amount of money we’ve spent on mediocrity and wasted on downright poor players. Even the successes wouldn’t have been successes in eras where they would have had to perform consistently and been judged against better players. Look at Veron for example, judged as a flop but performed to a higher level than Maguire…but rightly let go quickly because it wasn’t working when standards were higher. Dalot ! Even in the 80s he’d be considered a categoric flop and no chance that he would have been at the club so long.

It’s atrocious when you look at the size of the problem in black and white.
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Seriously - this is just dumb. Do you seriously say that Bruno shouldn't be considered a hit because he was surrounded by bad players. Robson won 2 fa cup trophies from 1981 to 1989. Bruno so far has won 2 trophies in 4.5 seasons. When United won the league, Robson was a part-time player who started a total of 15 games in those 2 seasons - so his contribution was tiny to say the least.

And a central midfielder with 67 goals and 59 assists in 213 P.L games not a huge success ? Get real.

As for Veron - clearly you don't remember his performances. He was really poor in the P.L - frequently when he played in the Keane role - he took too much time on the ball and lost it.
 
led_scholes said:
How an 80 million transfer who became a meme of how bad he is, only to be considered as an OK player the last year due to a system that didnt expose him that much, can be considered a success? Also, why Amad is under Ole and Pellistri is not? Didn't he cost more than 10? If not ok. Btw Ole didnt even know who Amad was, so again shouldn't be under him.
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You are right of course - it's impossible to judge managers if you don't know whose choices they were. If Ole had his way - we had signed Rice, Haaland and Bellingham - so clearly he could spot a bit of talent.
 
The signings at the end of Fergie's reign were pretty frustrating. Almost always bargain basement shopping due to the Glazers penny pinching, and the continual neglect of the midfield with the endless renewal of Giggs and Schole's contracts.

Also his refusal to get rid of players. How Anderson lasted as long as he did is totally beyond me. Fergie in 1995 would have binned him in a heartbeat.

Edit: Didn't read the thread title properly.
 
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NicolaSacco said:
It’s so subjective, but Aaron Wan Bissaka and Ronaldo failures? I’d be far more neutral (and potentially even into the positive) with them.
They certainly don’t deserve to be in the same category as Donny van der Beek.
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There are different categories, I agree. AwB is difficult. I certainly wouldn’t put him in the success category. Was bought for 50 million and expected to be our right back for a decade but didn’t make it. However, two excellent cup final performances and some decent form here and there make it difficult for him to be judged a massive failure. I think of Mata and Matic as similar. They were alright at times but I think they could have done far better.
 
You need to look at departures.

The point just before Van Gaal came in where Rio, Vidic, Giggs left or retired.

Then proceeded to offload Fletcher, Nani, Hernandez, Evra, Zaha, Cleverly, Kagawa, Welbeck, RVP, Evans, Rafael etc. not world beaters but still better than their replacements.

Proceeded to replace them with utter trash like Blind, Darmian, Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger, Herrera, Rojo, Depay and a legless Falcao + some other gash signings.

Van Gaal era was the worst by a mile, everything since then has been throwing good money after bad to recover from that period.
 
Oranges038 said:
You need to look at departures.

The point just before Van Gaal came in where Rio, Vidic, Giggs left or retired.

Then proceeded to offload Fletcher, Nani, Hernandez, Evra, Zaha, Cleverly, Kagawa, Welbeck, RVP, Evans, Rafael etc. not world beaters but still better than their replacements.

Proceeded to replace them with utter trash like Blind, Darmian, Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger, Herrera, Rojo, Depay and a legless Falcao + some other gash signings.

Van Gaal era was the worst by a mile, everything since then has been throwing good money after bad to recover from that period.
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Herrera "utter trash"?! He was surely better than Cleverly?!
 
From a squad building standpoint, I'd say Ole is by far the worst since during his time. Followed by Mou. I think, LVG and ETH looked mostly at the right profiles* to go forward.

*profile meaning in terms of skillset, age, reputation, career standpoint, and to a degree pricetag

From an instant success standpoint, I'd say Mou gets the nod, he brought in mostly ready made players who mostly contributed to a decent to good level. 2nd would be Ole but it is close with ETH. LVG is difficult to measure because I think his system really took something away from some of the guys.

Overall, I'd say LVG was the best for me. He brought in players for decent prices with good profiles. He had the benefit of not having to completely reset the ideas of the previous manager though. Between the other 3, I'd say they are all on mostly similar level with ETH being last because Antony and Mount fall into his regime.
 
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NZT-One said:
From a squad building standpoint, I'd say Ole is by far the worst since during his time. Followed by Mou. I think, LVG and ETH looked mostly at the right profiles* to go forward.

*profile meaning in terms of skillset, age, reputation, career standpoint, and to a degree pricetag

From an instant success standpoint, I'd say Mou gets the nod, he brought in mostly ready made players who mostly contributed to a decent to good level. 2nd would be Ole but it is close with ETH. LVG is difficult to measure because I think his system really took something away from some of the guys.

Overall, I'd say LVG was the best for me. He brought in players for decent prices with good profiles. He had the benefit of not having to completely reset the ideas of the previous manager though. Between the other 3, I'd say they are all on mostly similar level with ETH being last because Antony and Mount fall into his regime.
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I’m sorry but what haha
He blew 80mil on Antony so no
 
SirScholes said:
I’m sorry but what haha
He blew 80mil on Antony so no
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We needed a RW, a technical one that doesn't shy away from defensive work and has good techique and carries some threat. I'd say Antony was a pretty decent fit in that aspect. Pricetag was absolutely and absurdly laughable, no question about it so the transfer in total was one of the most terrible ones I can even think of. But the player itself wasn't a bad fit - theoretically. I have ETH overall fairly low - first sentence is limited on squad building aspects.
 
Scandi Red said:
Forgot about James. Docking 1 point from Ole, putting him down to 0.

This also means that not a single manager is in the plus, which seems right to me.
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Not sure how he is deemed a failure. He was signed with low expectations, a punt if you will. He did okay when he was here, didn’t pull up any trees but always worked hard and did his best. Zero attitude or application issues. Was then sold for a 10m profit. I wish all our “failures” looked like that. He should be a neutral score, not a negative one.
 
simonhch said:
Not sure how he is deemed a failure. He was signed with low expectations, a punt if you will. He did okay when he was here, didn’t pull up any trees but always worked hard and did his best. Zero attitude or application issues. Was then sold for a 10m profit. I wish all our “failures” looked like that. He should be a neutral score, not a negative one.
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Yep.

Dan James wasn't good enough to be a success on the pitch here but we'd be in a miles better position if we had more transfers like this over the last decade.

Bring a player in
If clearly not good enough
Sell them on quickly and at least make our money back if not make a profit.

Rather than keeping them for 5 years, then extending their contract to "protect the value"
 
Ten Hag and Mourinho easily the worse.

LVG had decent signings, although I didnt like how he moved away from Ander as a starter and Blind in midfield. Ole also decent
 
Djemba-Djemba said:
Yep.

Dan James wasn't good enough to be a success on the pitch here but we'd be in a miles better position if we had more transfers like this over the last decade.

Bring a player in
If clearly not good enough
Sell them on quickly and at least make our money back if not make a profit.

Rather than keeping them for 5 years, then extending their contract to "protect the value"
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Exactly. He’s actually a symbol of a transfer success, if not a playing one. Low investment, 15m, did okay but wasn’t good enough, had the right attitude but not the ability, was sold fairly quickly for 25m. We nearly doubled our money on him. Much prefer that than paying 90m for a player we initially lost on a free, resigned with sky high expectations, and then lost on a free again.

Pogba did pretty well when he was here if judged against just his performance, but judged against his fee and expectations and losing him on a free for a second time, makes that a real failure. Maguire on the other hand, deemed a failure, will have been here for 7 years if he leaves in the summer with an amortised transfer cost of about 12m a season. Never hit the heights hoped but had some really good spells and has been a solid servant to the club for a long time now. I’m not calling him a success but he’s not an outright failure either.

I feel like this whole subject is very nuanced.

The biggest failures for me are Sancho, obviously, Antony, and Ronaldo. The latter not because of what we paid (not much), nor the goals he scored in his first season (24), but because he derailed the entire project with his behaviour and how he changed the dynamic of the team.

So I guess it all depends on the metrics you use to assess or failure.
 
lysglimt said:
Seriously - this is just dumb. Do you seriously say that Bruno shouldn't be considered a hit because he was surrounded by bad players. Robson won 2 fa cup trophies from 1981 to 1989. Bruno so far has won 2 trophies in 4.5 seasons. When United won the league, Robson was a part-time player who started a total of 15 games in those 2 seasons - so his contribution was tiny to say the least.

And a central midfielder with 67 goals and 59 assists in 213 P.L games not a huge success ? Get real.

As for Veron - clearly you don't remember his performances. He was really poor in the P.L - frequently when he played in the Keane role - he took too much time on the ball and lost it.
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No I said he’s merely a success. he isn’t a ‘big success’. Because his own performances are way too inconsistent and there are nowhere near enough great performances in big moments or against rivals to put him alongside Cantona, Keane, Scholes, Giggs, RVP, Rooney, Ronaldo, Rio, Vidic, Evra etc or in not successful era Robson…to be in that conversation of big success.

You seem to think that either Robson was poor or that Bruno is his equal? He’s not even close. Absolute levels between the pair. Robson was bone fide world class.

Also Bruno has not been played as a CM and has been here six seasons in total. So those parts are disingenuous
 
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lysglimt said:
You are right of course - it's impossible to judge managers if you don't know whose choices they were. If Ole had his way - we had signed Rice, Haaland and Bellingham - so clearly he could spot a bit of talent.
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By all accounts, he could persuade the club to buy James and Pellistri because his mates told him, but couldn't persuade the club to spend a few millions for Haaland. We can only assume that he hadn't understood haaland was a generational player.

Also, we know that we offered more money to Bellingham but Ole couldn't guarentee him game time. Because guess what? He didnt understand that Bellingham is a massive talent. He messed up this transfer.

But it's ok, he brought us AWB, Maguire and Sancho. Did he really suggest Rice? Weird it goes against his inability to spot a talent. But I guess even a broken clock is twice right. In Ole case it will be once.
 
Scandi Red said:
Forgot about James. Docking 1 point from Ole, putting him down to 0.

This also means that not a single manager is in the plus, which seems right to me.
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What’s this? Daniel James was a kid who we got for small money, sold with a profit after he played much more than you’d expect for a outlay of that kind. I would call him a shrewd buy and a symptom that Ole wasn’t really backed thoroughly until it was too late (Varane, Sancho). The opposite of Mou, in a way.

I ran my own gamut. 0, 1, 2 or 3 points for the expected quality of players when they arrived (per player):

1. Mourinho 2.0
2. Van Gaal 1.7
3. Solskjær 1.5
4. Ten Hag 1.4

Suggesting Mourinho was best backed with quality players IMO, which makes sense looking at Pogba, Mkhitaryan, Ibrahimovich, Lukaku, Matic. Ten Hag got the least quality in, and this post IMO is least on the doorstep og the managers, mostly on the necks of Glazers, Woodward, Murtaugh/Arnold, Ratcliffe, etc. The fact that Ten Hag seems to have picked many of his players is in my view more a spot on Murtaugh/Arnold than on himself.

And then - 0, 1, 2 or 3 points based on the players’ mean contribution to the team over the years.

1. Mourinho 1.4
2. Solskjær 1.3
3. Ten Hag 0.9
4. Van Gaal 0.8

This implies that Van Gaal actually got the least joy from what he received, while the players bought for Solskjær underachieved the least, you could say.

A point to make is that of the players bought for Ten Hag not eligible by your rules (De Light, Mazraoui, Zirkzee, Ugarte) points towards him too being supported too late, but the fact that Casemiro and Erikson came as two top, top players who also delivered to expectation the first season, but where so short-lived both - it confuses the picture.

A fascinating point is that complete misses were bought for all managers (Di Maria/Schweinsteiger/Schneiderlin - LVG; Mkhitaryan, Sanchez - Mourinho; Sancho, Van de Beek - Solskjær; Antony, Højlund, Onana - Ten Hag), which for me points more towards Woodward and Murtaugh/Arnold, and again more to Glazers, than any of the managers.
 
I can’t take this seriously when it says Dalot is a successful transfer.

Apart from 3 months, he’s consistently been one of the worst player on the pitch and he’s stuck here like a turd that can’t be flushed.

AWB was a far better success and he was still considered a failure.
 
NZT-One said:
From a squad building standpoint, I'd say Ole is by far the worst since during his time. Followed by Mou. I think, LVG and ETH looked mostly at the right profiles* to go forward.

*profile meaning in terms of skillset, age, reputation, career standpoint, and to a degree pricetag

From an instant success standpoint, I'd say Mou gets the nod, he brought in mostly ready made players who mostly contributed to a decent to good level. 2nd would be Ole but it is close with ETH. LVG is difficult to measure because I think his system really took something away from some of the guys.

Overall, I'd say LVG was the best for me. He brought in players for decent prices with good profiles. He had the benefit of not having to completely reset the ideas of the previous manager though. Between the other 3, I'd say they are all on mostly similar level with ETH being last because Antony and Mount fall into his regime.
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Only profile ETH looked for was whether they were signed to his agency
 
led_scholes said:
By all accounts, he could persuade the club to buy James and Pellistri because his mates told him, but couldn't persuade the club to spend a few millions for Haaland. We can only assume that he hadn't understood haaland was a generational player.

Also, we know that we offered more money to Bellingham but Ole couldn't guarentee him game time. Because guess what? He didnt understand that Bellingham is a massive talent. He messed up this transfer.

But it's ok, he brought us AWB, Maguire and Sancho. Did he really suggest Rice? Weird it goes against his inability to spot a talent. But I guess even a broken clock is twice right. In Ole case it will be once.
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Lot of strange comments here

He was Haalands manager in Norway - he KNEW what a special talent Haaland was. He offered him to United, despite not being Uniteds manager - but noone bothered to spend £4 million on him. So no we can NOT only assume he hadn't understood that he was a generational talent

As for Bellingham - everyone at United did everything to sign him - he just preferred Dortmund, and you can't really argue against that.

Rice - yes he did.

I understand that you don't like OGS, but this was a lot of weird criticism
 
CMRobbo7 said:
No I said he’s merely a success. he isn’t a ‘big success’. Because his own performances are way too inconsistent and there are nowhere near enough great performances in big moments or against rivals to put him alongside Cantona, Keane, Scholes, Giggs, RVP, Rooney, Ronaldo, Rio, Vidic, Evra etc or in not successful era Robson…to be in that conversation of big success.

You seem to think that either Robson was poor or that Bruno is his equal? He’s not even close. Absolute levels between the pair. Robson was bone fide world class.

Also Bruno has not been played as a CM and has been here six seasons in total. So those parts are disingenuous
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No I would say that Robson was the best midfielder we have had in the last 40 years - better than Scholes and Keane. But Bruno has played the majority of his time at United without a good striker - imagine what his numbers would be if he had Rooney, Van Persie, Nistelrooy, Cole, Yorke etc in front of him. Bruno will not be considered world-class because there was never anyone there to score on his passes and crosses.

As for his own performances have been too consistent - well - same problem. All the players you mention (apart from Robson) - had 8-9 players on the pitch that was better than all of Brunos.

So no I dont agree with you - he is not merely a success - he has been a huge success. He just frequently had crap players around him....
 
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