United’s next manager

Ziggy Starduster

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Aside from Watford, I’d take every other manager ahead of Ole right now.
We need a manger with relative experience and one with a clear way of playing football - not just a good sales pitch.
I hope the board act soon.
 

momo83

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I’m still hoping Ole comes through. Looking ahead, Neglesmann is the one we should be looking at as a progressive manager.
Think he’ll end up at City or Liverpool in a few years. He’s still only 32 just the right age to be 35/37 when Klopp or Pep leave.
 

ThatsGreat

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Its a race between Arsenal and Utd to see who sacks their manager first. I think its going to be Arsenal, because Utd are too attached to Ole who's your legend.
 

Adnan

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If it does come down to replacing Ole then it surely has to be either Julien Nagelsmann or Marco Rose. The two best candidates for the job from my experience.
 

starman

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I didn't think Ole should have got the job, he should have been caretaker until the end of last season...and then hired another manager for this season.
The problem I have with sacking him now and all the reactive fans is when people mention Allegri and Nagelsmann or Rose in the same sentence
 

momo83

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I’d take raffle winner out of the crowd over Solskjær tbh
 

2 man midfield

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Poch or Favre, for me. I think there'll be a 'mutual' parting of ways in the summer.
 

Mr Smith

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I’m still hoping Ole comes through. Looking ahead, Neglesmann is the one we should be looking at as a progressive manager.
I'd love Naglesmann or Marco Rose. But Poch remains my number 1 choice.

I'm lukewarm on Allegri; wouldn't be upset if we got him, but not wild about the idea either.
 

Mr Smith

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Blanc till end of season
Why? What's the point of a caretaker? Do you honestly think we could get top 4 with this group of players?

I say we keep Ole until we secure the right replacement. In my opinion he's not good enough, but he's not toxic to the club the way Jose or Van Gaal was, so why change just for the sake of it?
 

amolbhatia50k

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Still Marco Rose for me
How gettable is he? I really feel we need one of these young German/European coaches in who are proper coaches. Somebody who can give us a modern footballing identity. We need to build this before we dream about results. Sort of like the job Pochettino did building from within (yes I know he didn't win anything). Once we become a proper fluid football team, our resources will lead to a team that can challenge. But the basics - the excellence in the collective needs to come first.
 

amolbhatia50k

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Why? What's the point of a caretaker? Do you honestly think we could get top 4 with this group of players?

I say we keep Ole until we secure the right replacement. In my opinion he's not good enough, but he's not toxic to the club the way Jose or Van Gaal was, so why change just for the sake of it?
I suppose the point of a caretaker would be to move on. I don't have any qualms with Ole seeing out the season, however it shouldn't be a viscous circle where nobody is clear where they stand as A) that would stall the process of finding the next manager and B) everytime we get a few decent results there's a clamour for him being the saviour or given another chance. If Ole is informed that we are in the process of finding a new manager and he is working pretty much in a caretaker capacity for all intents and purposes then I have no issue with him seeing out the season.
 

Yakuza_devils

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1st choice - Marco Rose
2nd choice - Pochetinno
3rd choice - Nagelsmann
4th choice - Allergi
 

Invictus

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Bit odd that Ten Hag isn't being mentioned more frequently. The likes of de Boer or Bosz haven't exactly covered themselves in glory so some are justifiably circumspect of yet another system manager from Ajax, and others are wary of them performing way over the odds in irreplicable “perfect storm” circumstances last season (like Monaco 2013/14), but managers aren't that different from players with regard to assessment as individuals — and every once in a while you get a Frenkie De Jong to reaffirm your faith after less-than-ideal showings by Klaassen or Bazoer, provided you're willing to risk it for the biscuit. Definitely checks off a lot of boxes when you look at United's keystone value and what we need at this moment in time:
  • Clearly defined style/principles of play: one of the biggest complaints in recent months has been that we look quite listless/inconsistent in terms of our overall approach, and Ten Hag could be just the man to address those issues because Ajax look a coherent team with an emphasis on intelligent pressing patterns, one-touch football, movement through the lines or half-spaces and verticality under him, and he no doubt learned a lot from Guardiola from his time as Bayern Munich II's manager to bolster his repertoire (especially Pep's fabled Juego de Posición ideology).
  • Individual development or extracting the best out of certain players: the likes of Tadić (from decent player at Southampton to one of the most effective False 9s in club football), Tagliafico (from Argentine Primera División to one of the best in his position in Europe), Onana (one of the best sweeper keepers around these days), Blind (discarded by United but instrumental in Ajax's success) improved a good deal under him or produced some of the best performances of their careers.
  • Positive record at managing youngsters: De Ligt, De Jong, Dest, Van De Beek, Promes, Neres, Álvarez are talented players so they might have done well under other managers too, but his coaching definitely played a part in their improvement at the club.
  • Structural fluidity in the team's setup: as an extension of the first point, Ajax's players evidence great positional freedom under him (albeit sticking to certain foundational roles quite diligently) and seamlessly switch between 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 or a scheme with 3 in defense when one central midfielder drops to organize things from the back. All done with a degree of smoothness/intelligence that speaks volumes about his ability to enunciate his instructions, and putting the best impact-makers in favorable roles instead of stifling them (most notably De Jong as a sort of libero, as opposed to just being a normal central midfielder).
Ajax has maintained a strong organisational philosophy in recent years, so you can't quite be sure how much credit should be appropriated to them (and specifically Overmars) vis-à-vis Ten Hag, but he'd definitely be on my shortlist with Nagelsmann or Rose as the head coach — and despite signing a new contract, might be the most realistic of the trio because the other two are months into their new jobs at Leipzig/Mönchengladbach and are very unlikely to move just yet.
 

ayushreddevil9

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Its a race between Arsenal and Utd to see who sacks their manager first. I think its going to be Arsenal, because Utd are too attached to Ole who's your legend.
That's the sad part honestly. People can't seperate the manager and the player.

Basically pick a legend, give him 5 years and win the treble.
 

dasty

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Why? What's the point of a caretaker? Do you honestly think we could get top 4 with this group of players?

I say we keep Ole until we secure the right replacement. In my opinion he's not good enough, but he's not toxic to the club the way Jose or Van Gaal was, so why change just for the sake of it?
That's a fecking retarded viewpoint. We are not sacking Ole just for the sake of it. We are sacking him simply because he is nowhere near good enough for a club of our size.

25% win rate since he was made permanent. 7 wins in 28 games. To put things into perspective, let's look at other clubs, clubs that are smaller than us. Leicester sacked Shakespeare after 42% win rate in 26 games and Puel after 34% win rate in 67 games. Watford sacked Javi Garcia after 38% win rate in 66 games. Brighton sacked Hughton after 41% win rate in 215 games. Marco Silva is at risk of being sacked by Everton after 42% win rate in 55 games. Even a club of similar stature as us - Emery at Arsenal is a dead man walking at 58% win rate in 74 games.

Smaller clubs have sacked managers with way better record than Ole, so why the hell are we persisting with a manager that is clearly not up to the task? For the sake of romanticism? Sentimentalism? Is this what we are reduced to? Hoping for a miracle while indulging in nostalgia?
 

Bobcat

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Tottenham seem to have imploded this season. That doesn't look good on the manager whose task is to keep players motivated and acting as a single unit. However, Id rather see an implosion then a gradual decline. The former can be tackled by removing the few bad apples and bringing in a motivator in the team. The latter is down to talent basically. The latter is far far more expensive then the former.

I wouldn't be so sure that we will be reinvesting Pogba's money after all we said the same thing about Ronaldo's and Lukaku's money. United might talk big about being 'great spenders' but we're the one starting the season with a non existent midfield/forward line and an amateur Lidl like manager to match.

I provided you ample reasons why United is a step down

a- a major rebuild is needed and not enough will is being shown by the club to be keen to be ready to foot the bill for it
b- modern managers think in short term. United's project will take years
c- we have already ruined the career of 3 managers. We're swiftly becoming a poison chalice.
d- we've got an incompetent board and owners who only think about their pockets


Id suggest you stop thinking as a Manchester United supporter and start seeing things from a neutral perspective ie someone who see football as a career and wouldn't jeapardize that career for anyone.
Think this is spot on. To be fair though, i am pretty certain Jose would have won us a couple more PL's had he gotten here in 2013. Him getting here just happened to coincide with City and Liverpool becoming as good as they have ever been. Moyes and LvG, kinda made their own beds imo. Moyes because he spent all summer star gazing and though just adding Fellaini and Mata would be enough and LvG because he was too concerned with his own philosophy and he spent way too much money on dross in the market.

Things are looking pretty grim now and Ole looks out of his depth. I can perfectly understand that viewpoint, i am even starting to shift there myself. The problem though is that our malaise goes far beyond just the manager and whoever is managing us next year and the year after still have a massive task at their hands. So lets say we sack Ole now and get in Poch or Allegri or whoever. They get a rough start and do about the same after 10 PL games, do we start looking for yet another manager then?

Jose has cleaned the table in pretty much ever job hes ever had, and all he won here were some cups and a 2nd place finish miles behind City. Honestly there is only one manager in the world that i would be certain that could fix this, and unfortunately hes managing Liverpool at the moment. Pep as good as he is has only had jobs were he has played with cheat codes, Poch has a very good Spurs team and almost zero pressure to deliver silverware, Allegi has won Serie A with Juventus, which to be honest is to be expected since they are comfortably a horses head and then some above the rest of the league

-DDG: What happened to him? He used to save our arses again and again and hes just stopped doing that. Dont know what his save% is this year, but it must be pretty shite since we seem to concede from pretty much every shot on target these days. Pretty sure we would have done just as well with Romero or that kid we have out on loan as GK
-Defense: AWB is POTY so far this year by a good marigin. Maguire has been solid but not spectacular considering the price we paid. Lindelof, Baily, Rojo and Jones always seems to have an error in them and it always seems to cost us having them on the pitch, bang average at best and often quite poor actually. LB is also a problem. Shaw is always injured and Young is just too old really.
- MF: Pogba seems to not want to be here and even then hes been injured pretty much the whole season anyways. Scott i really like and i think he has great potential, but hes only 22 and most CM's dont really grow into their roles properly until they are 25-26. In a well stocked squad, Scott would have been a squad option and a promising talent, not the main man. The less said about the other MF options the better. Fred, Pereira, Lindgaard, Mata and Matic are simply not good enough. Not even close
-Attack: I like James. Seems to have the right attitude and seems like a good little player, but he again is just a kid and i find it pretty jarring that a 21 year old kid who played in the Championship last season has walked into the team and been our most consistent attacking threat. Martial and Rashford are so inconsistent they make me want to tear my hair out. One match they can look like future Ballon d'or winners and the next one they can look like Championship dregs.

And i am not trying to exonerate Ole here. He is party responsible for this mess. He has vastly overrated the capacity of some of these players and going into the season with such an ridiculously thin squad was bound to cause problems. Considering we sold Lukaku we did not even spend that big this summer. Like 70 million? Now, to be fair, the last thing i want is more knee jerk transfers that just adds to the deadwood, but adding quality to this squad is a ver low bar to clear and there must have been someone available
 

Escobar

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Why? What's the point of a caretaker? Do you honestly think we could get top 4 with this group of players?

I say we keep Ole until we secure the right replacement. In my opinion he's not good enough, but he's not toxic to the club the way Jose or Van Gaal was, so why change just for the sake of it?
Because Ole is terrible and needs to leave. At any other club he would be fired, he for sure has a legend status and Ed protecting him. Fans are ignorant of the results
 

Bobcat

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That's a fecking retarded viewpoint. We are not sacking Ole just for the sake of it. We are sacking him simply because he is nowhere near good enough for a club of our size.

25% win rate since he was made permanent. 7 wins in 28 games. To put things into perspective, let's look at other clubs, clubs that are smaller than us. Leicester sacked Shakespeare after 42% win rate in 26 games and Puel after 34% win rate in 67 games. Watford sacked Javi Garcia after 38% win rate in 66 games. Brighton sacked Hughton after 41% win rate in 215 games. Marco Silva is at risk of being sacked by Everton after 42% win rate in 55 games. Even a club of similar stature as us - Emery at Arsenal is a dead man walking at 58% win rate in 74 games.

Smaller clubs have sacked managers with way better record than Ole, so why the hell are we persisting with a manager that is clearly not up to the task? For the sake of romanticism? Sentimentalism? Is this what we are reduced to? Hoping for a miracle while indulging in nostalgia?
Ole has a 51% win rate, but whatever.

Its not about romanticism, its about keeping a cool head and playing it smart. Everyone is frustrated about our shite results, but you wanting him gone now is just you wanting someone to blame without thinking about the consequences. Say we sack him and get an internim, the season goes by and none of the other manager targets are available. Woops, seems we dun goofed again. Whoever is next in line, has to be the right choice and he must be given time to rebuild.

4(5) managers in 6 years has left us with a Frankenstein monster of a squad and zero continuity and direction in how we are supposed to play.
 

PepG

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Bit odd that Ten Hag isn't being mentioned more frequently. The likes of de Boer or Bosz haven't exactly covered themselves in glory so some are justifiably circumspect of yet another system manager from Ajax, and others are wary of them performing way over the odds in irreplicable “perfect storm” circumstances last season (like Monaco 2013/14), but managers aren't that different from players with regard to assessment as individuals — and every once in a while you get a Frenkie De Jong to reaffirm your faith after less-than-ideal showings by Klaassen or Bazoer, provided you're willing to risk it for the biscuit. Definitely checks off a lot of boxes when you look at United's keystone value and what we need at this moment in time:
  • Clearly defined style/principles of play: one of the biggest complaints in recent months has been that we look quite listless/inconsistent in terms of our overall approach, and Ten Hag could be just the man to address those issues because Ajax look a coherent team with an emphasis on intelligent pressing patterns, one-touch football, movement through the lines or half-spaces and verticality under him, and he no doubt learned a lot from Guardiola from his time as Bayern Munich II's manager to bolster his repertoire (especially Pep's fabled Juego de Posición ideology).
  • Individual development or extracting the best out of certain players: the likes of Tadić (from decent player at Southampton to one of the most effective False 9s in club football), Tagliafico (from Argentine Primera División to one of the best in his position in Europe), Onana (one of the best sweeper keepers around these days), Blind (discarded by United but instrumental in Ajax's success) improved a good deal under him or produced some of the best performances of their careers.
  • Positive record at managing youngsters: De Ligt, De Jong, Dest, Van De Beek, Promes, Neres, Álvarez are talented players so they might have done well under other managers too, but his coaching definitely played a part in their improvement at the club.
  • Structural fluidity in the team's setup: as an extension of the first point, Ajax's players evidence great positional freedom under him (albeit sticking to certain foundational roles quite diligently) and seamlessly switch between 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 or a scheme with 3 in defense when one central midfielder drops to organize things from the back. All done with a degree of smoothness/intelligence that speaks volumes about his ability to enunciate his instructions, and putting the best impact-makers in favorable roles instead of stifling them (most notably De Jong as a sort of libero, as opposed to just being a normal central midfielder).
Ajax has maintained a strong organisational philosophy in recent years, so you can't quite be sure how much credit should be appropriated to them (and specifically Overmars) vis-à-vis Ten Hag, but he'd definitely be on my shortlist with Nagelsmann or Rose as the head coach — and despite signing a new contract, might be the most realistic of the trio because the other two are months into their new jobs at Leipzig/Mönchengladbach and are very unlikely to move just yet.
I am pretty sure that Erik Ten Hag is nailed on to be the next Bayern Munchen head coach. Even Overmars said recently that if a big team like Bayern comes calling for Ten Hag the Ajax management will be ready with a replacement..
 

Invictus

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I am pretty sure that Erik Ten Hag is nailed on to be the next Bayern Munchen head coach. Even Overmars said recently that if a big team like Bayern comes calling for Ten Hag the Ajax management will be ready with a replacement..
Yep, that's what I fear with his background at Bayern and their lukeworm to downright abject performances under Kovač (who was a strange choice to begin with but apparently supported by major power-brokers, like Valverde at Barcelona). From the perspective of a United supporter, I obviously hope Hoeneß retains the current manager for another couple of seasons to continue his string of bad decisions since returning from jail, thereby diluting the potential competition for Ten Hag's signature... :D
 

devilish

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Think this is spot on. To be fair though, i am pretty certain Jose would have won us a couple more PL's had he gotten here in 2013. Him getting here just happened to coincide with City and Liverpool becoming as good as they have ever been. Moyes and LvG, kinda made their own beds imo. Moyes because he spent all summer star gazing and though just adding Fellaini and Mata would be enough and LvG because he was too concerned with his own philosophy and he spent way too much money on dross in the market.

Things are looking pretty grim now and Ole looks out of his depth. I can perfectly understand that viewpoint, i am even starting to shift there myself. The problem though is that our malaise goes far beyond just the manager and whoever is managing us next year and the year after still have a massive task at their hands. So lets say we sack Ole now and get in Poch or Allegri or whoever. They get a rough start and do about the same after 10 PL games, do we start looking for yet another manager then?

Jose has cleaned the table in pretty much ever job hes ever had, and all he won here were some cups and a 2nd place finish miles behind City. Honestly there is only one manager in the world that i would be certain that could fix this, and unfortunately hes managing Liverpool at the moment. Pep as good as he is has only had jobs were he has played with cheat codes, Poch has a very good Spurs team and almost zero pressure to deliver silverware, Allegi has won Serie A with Juventus, which to be honest is to be expected since they are comfortably a horses head and then some above the rest of the league

-DDG: What happened to him? He used to save our arses again and again and hes just stopped doing that. Dont know what his save% is this year, but it must be pretty shite since we seem to concede from pretty much every shot on target these days. Pretty sure we would have done just as well with Romero or that kid we have out on loan as GK
-Defense: AWB is POTY so far this year by a good marigin. Maguire has been solid but not spectacular considering the price we paid. Lindelof, Baily, Rojo and Jones always seems to have an error in them and it always seems to cost us having them on the pitch, bang average at best and often quite poor actually. LB is also a problem. Shaw is always injured and Young is just too old really.
- MF: Pogba seems to not want to be here and even then hes been injured pretty much the whole season anyways. Scott i really like and i think he has great potential, but hes only 22 and most CM's dont really grow into their roles properly until they are 25-26. In a well stocked squad, Scott would have been a squad option and a promising talent, not the main man. The less said about the other MF options the better. Fred, Pereira, Lindgaard, Mata and Matic are simply not good enough. Not even close
-Attack: I like James. Seems to have the right attitude and seems like a good little player, but he again is just a kid and i find it pretty jarring that a 21 year old kid who played in the Championship last season has walked into the team and been our most consistent attacking threat. Martial and Rashford are so inconsistent they make me want to tear my hair out. One match they can look like future Ballon d'or winners and the next one they can look like Championship dregs.

And i am not trying to exonerate Ole here. He is party responsible for this mess. He has vastly overrated the capacity of some of these players and going into the season with such an ridiculously thin squad was bound to cause problems. Considering we sold Lukaku we did not even spend that big this summer. Like 70 million? Now, to be fair, the last thing i want is more knee jerk transfers that just adds to the deadwood, but adding quality to this squad is a ver low bar to clear and there must have been someone available
I don't think that Mou was ever a good fit for United. Mou is a short term project manager. He'll come in, he'll spend alot of money, usually on veteran players who can bring in instant success, he wins some trophies and he leaves. If the club has such culture and deep pockets to match then there's really nothing wrong with that. However we were never that sort of club. Sure, sometimes we do sprinkle our dosh around and pretend we're Real Madrid. However United has always reverted back to a 'balancing the books' policy which means we couldn't afford to either sustain Mou's spending spree or the massive clean up that needs to be done after Mou's gone.

Regarding Ole, there are a number of problems with the guy

a- He's not good enough. His track record speaks for himself
b- He lacks the reputation to ask for patience or to impose anything to the board. He can't really tell the same board who had given a nobody one of the top jobs in the world that their strategy is all wrong else they start questioning if hiring him was yet another mistake
c- He's yet another ideological manager which is exactly the opposite to what we need. The manager can't have a philosophy when his squad is a mix match of 3 other managers. All he can do is to adapt to what he have and believe in meritocracy as much as humanely possible. Ole failed to do so when he pushed Lukaku and Smalling out while concurrently giving his go ahead to the club to handle long term contracts to Jones, Lingard etc. Not to forget his obsession with British core BS which is border xenophobic tbh. As if nationality and 'understanding the club' gives an edge over talent and commitment.

What we need is someone whose tactical and learned enough to build his strategy bottom up. Someone who sees the job as long term but isn't planning to retire here. Thus he'll want to leave a better side then he fount however he wouldn't be afraid that sound decisions taken (ex DOF) would come back and haunt him. If you ask me, the best course of action at this point in time would be someone like Rangnick. The guy has worked in different areas of football (manager, sporting director etc) and therefore he acknowledges the need of surrounding one's self with top specialised people who focuses on one aspect of football. He's also obsessed with transforming the club rather then just the team. Would we win trophies with this guy? I doubt it. However we'll be way better off then we're now.
 

Kemizee

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I’m still hoping Ole comes through. Looking ahead, Neglesmann is the one we should be looking at as a progressive manager.
Why do we always have to 'hope' in this our club? He ain't coming through anywhere. He is an average manager who once sacked will go into oblivion. You know why? Because other clubs will not hire him because they are not blinded by sentiments of 'playing youth and 3 year plan' They see with their eyes and think with their heads and they rightly know he is a poor manager
 

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I cant get my head around the lack of direction in our approach play it's predictable and at times desperate. They simply don't do as they're coached or they're not getting coached. Clear his backroom staff and bring in a top class technical coach and he might keep his job.
 

AneRu

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Bit odd that Ten Hag isn't being mentioned more frequently. The likes of de Boer or Bosz haven't exactly covered themselves in glory so some are justifiably circumspect of yet another system manager from Ajax, and others are wary of them performing way over the odds in irreplicable “perfect storm” circumstances last season (like Monaco 2013/14), but managers aren't that different from players with regard to assessment as individuals — and every once in a while you get a Frenkie De Jong to reaffirm your faith after less-than-ideal showings by Klaassen or Bazoer, provided you're willing to risk it for the biscuit. Definitely checks off a lot of boxes when you look at United's keystone value and what we need at this moment in time:
  • Clearly defined style/principles of play: one of the biggest complaints in recent months has been that we look quite listless/inconsistent in terms of our overall approach, and Ten Hag could be just the man to address those issues because Ajax look a coherent team with an emphasis on intelligent pressing patterns, one-touch football, movement through the lines or half-spaces and verticality under him, and he no doubt learned a lot from Guardiola from his time as Bayern Munich II's manager to bolster his repertoire (especially Pep's fabled Juego de Posición ideology).
  • Individual development or extracting the best out of certain players: the likes of Tadić (from decent player at Southampton to one of the most effective False 9s in club football), Tagliafico (from Argentine Primera División to one of the best in his position in Europe), Onana (one of the best sweeper keepers around these days), Blind (discarded by United but instrumental in Ajax's success) improved a good deal under him or produced some of the best performances of their careers.
  • Positive record at managing youngsters: De Ligt, De Jong, Dest, Van De Beek, Promes, Neres, Álvarez are talented players so they might have done well under other managers too, but his coaching definitely played a part in their improvement at the club.
  • Structural fluidity in the team's setup: as an extension of the first point, Ajax's players evidence great positional freedom under him (albeit sticking to certain foundational roles quite diligently) and seamlessly switch between 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 or a scheme with 3 in defense when one central midfielder drops to organize things from the back. All done with a degree of smoothness/intelligence that speaks volumes about his ability to enunciate his instructions, and putting the best impact-makers in favorable roles instead of stifling them (most notably De Jong as a sort of libero, as opposed to just being a normal central midfielder).
Ajax has maintained a strong organisational philosophy in recent years, so you can't quite be sure how much credit should be appropriated to them (and specifically Overmars) vis-à-vis Ten Hag, but he'd definitely be on my shortlist with Nagelsmann or Rose as the head coach — and despite signing a new contract, might be the most realistic of the trio because the other two are months into their new jobs at Leipzig/Mönchengladbach and are very unlikely to move just yet.
I quite like Ten Hag but I think this attitude of going for the easily attainable or gettable manager is exactly has us in this predicament. Do we really think Real Madrid would consider whether Rose is just months into his new contract if they identified him as their man? We behave like a small club and now our performances are beginning to match that attitude, remember how Real muscles Ancelotti out of PSG?
 

Lynty

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Why? What's the point of a caretaker? Do you honestly think we could get top 4 with this group of players?

I say we keep Ole until we secure the right replacement. In my opinion he's not good enough, but he's not toxic to the club the way Jose or Van Gaal was, so why change just for the sake of it?
Agreed

Next summer get. Nagglesmann, Rose, Ten Hag or Poch for me
 

AneRu

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Ole has a 51% win rate, but whatever.

Its not about romanticism, its about keeping a cool head and playing it smart. Everyone is frustrated about our shite results, but you wanting him gone now is just you wanting someone to blame without thinking about the consequences. Say we sack him and get an internim, the season goes by and none of the other manager targets are available. Woops, seems we dun goofed again. Whoever is next in line, has to be the right choice and he must be given time to rebuild.

4(5) managers in 6 years has left us with a Frankenstein monster of a squad and zero continuity and direction in how we are supposed to play.
The reason we are in this predicament is that our thought processes leading to decisions are flawed because we don't have the people qualified in making these decision in place. Just look at how we responded to our worst season in five or six years! We were fidgeting in the summer, spending six to eight weeks to complete a deal when we needed to complete five, six if you include the Lukaku sell. Will such mediocrity and downright incompetence be tolerated at City, Juve or Real?

Then we look at the manager. Our decision to appoint him as permanent was rushed, seems as if the moment prising Pochettino from Spurs looked impossible we panicked or we let that night in Paris deceive us. Now he has shown he isn't good enough the club is hesitating to do what they know to be necessary and sending out all forms of propaganda to keep gullible fans in line.

All this leads to a conclusion that the club doesn't have the necessary competencies needed to formulate and implement a football strategy and should this be allowed to continue we will certainly get relegated.
 

Mcking

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How gettable is he? I really feel we need one of these young German/European coaches in who are proper coaches. Somebody who can give us a modern footballing identity. We need to build this before we dream about results. Sort of like the job Pochettino did building from within (yes I know he didn't win anything). Once we become a proper fluid football team, our resources will lead to a team that can challenge. But the basics - the excellence in the collective needs to come first.
I don't really know what's going on behind the scenes, but he's with Moechengladbach, only joined before the start of this season, and is doing very well. I don't see Gladbach as a club that would be able to stop us from getting him, so I think it depends on his interest and likely competition from other top clubs especially if Gladbach keeps up their good form. I don't see him moving mid-season, but I'm confident that we'd be able to get him if we're interested, and I'd be willing to wait even if it means having a caretaker for a year.
 

OLLY ORANGE

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It's got to be someone who plays the same way where ever he goes and has got a philosophy.
I followed Ole at cardiff and his style was all over the place, i didnt see a vision or style at Molde either. I still dont know what Oles is if he has one.
Forgetting his past you cannot knock B. Rogers style of football and record in the brittish game.
Would utd fans look past his previous endeavours and give him a chance and would he take the job?
 

Bestietom

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I will go with Poch if we are to change. But whoever comes in, needs to be backed and we need 5/6 players.
 

The Cat

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Think this is spot on. To be fair though, i am pretty certain Jose would have won us a couple more PL's had he gotten here in 2013. Him getting here just happened to coincide with City and Liverpool becoming as good as they have ever been. Moyes and LvG, kinda made their own beds imo. Moyes because he spent all summer star gazing and though just adding Fellaini and Mata would be enough and LvG because he was too concerned with his own philosophy and he spent way too much money on dross in the market.

Things are looking pretty grim now and Ole looks out of his depth. I can perfectly understand that viewpoint, i am even starting to shift there myself. The problem though is that our malaise goes far beyond just the manager and whoever is managing us next year and the year after still have a massive task at their hands. So lets say we sack Ole now and get in Poch or Allegri or whoever. They get a rough start and do about the same after 10 PL games, do we start looking for yet another manager then?

Jose has cleaned the table in pretty much ever job hes ever had, and all he won here were some cups and a 2nd place finish miles behind City. Honestly there is only one manager in the world that i would be certain that could fix this, and unfortunately hes managing Liverpool at the moment. Pep as good as he is has only had jobs were he has played with cheat codes, Poch has a very good Spurs team and almost zero pressure to deliver silverware, Allegi has won Serie A with Juventus, which to be honest is to be expected since they are comfortably a horses head and then some above the rest of the league

-DDG: What happened to him? He used to save our arses again and again and hes just stopped doing that. Dont know what his save% is this year, but it must be pretty shite since we seem to concede from pretty much every shot on target these days. Pretty sure we would have done just as well with Romero or that kid we have out on loan as GK
-Defense: AWB is POTY so far this year by a good marigin. Maguire has been solid but not spectacular considering the price we paid. Lindelof, Baily, Rojo and Jones always seems to have an error in them and it always seems to cost us having them on the pitch, bang average at best and often quite poor actually. LB is also a problem. Shaw is always injured and Young is just too old really.
- MF: Pogba seems to not want to be here and even then hes been injured pretty much the whole season anyways. Scott i really like and i think he has great potential, but hes only 22 and most CM's dont really grow into their roles properly until they are 25-26. In a well stocked squad, Scott would have been a squad option and a promising talent, not the main man. The less said about the other MF options the better. Fred, Pereira, Lindgaard, Mata and Matic are simply not good enough. Not even close
-Attack: I like James. Seems to have the right attitude and seems like a good little player, but he again is just a kid and i find it pretty jarring that a 21 year old kid who played in the Championship last season has walked into the team and been our most consistent attacking threat. Martial and Rashford are so inconsistent they make me want to tear my hair out. One match they can look like future Ballon d'or winners and the next one they can look like Championship dregs.

And i am not trying to exonerate Ole here. He is party responsible for this mess. He has vastly overrated the capacity of some of these players and going into the season with such an ridiculously thin squad was bound to cause problems. Considering we sold Lukaku we did not even spend that big this summer. Like 70 million? Now, to be fair, the last thing i want is more knee jerk transfers that just adds to the deadwood, but adding quality to this squad is a ver low bar to clear and there must have been someone available
That's a very solid post.
 

Adnan

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I quite like Ten Hag but I think this attitude of going for the easily attainable or gettable manager is exactly has us in this predicament. Do we really think Real Madrid would consider whether Rose is just months into his new contract if they identified him as their man? We behave like a small club and now our performances are beginning to match that attitude, remember how Real muscles Ancelotti out of PSG?
The duo of Rose and Maric would be tempted to join us at the end of the season IMO. It would be a huge opportunity for Rose which he wouldn't want to pass on.

Nagelsmann on the other hand is still very young at 32 or 33 years old and might feel it's too early to jump to such a big club so soon.
 

Invictus

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I quite like Ten Hag but I think this attitude of going for the easily attainable or gettable manager is exactly has us in this predicament. Do we really think Real Madrid would consider whether Rose is just months into his new contract if they identified him as their man? We behave like a small club and now our performances are beginning to match that attitude, remember how Real muscles Ancelotti out of PSG?
What attitude, though? Ten Hag is an an exceptional coach on the basis of his body of work at both Utrecht and Ajax, and pretty much my favorite choice with Nagelsmann and Rose occupying a similar plane (hence their inclusion in the shortlist), and more accomplished in the Champions League to boot — so the way I see it...
  • It would make perfect sense to approach him and make him feel like the #1 candidate (instead of a secondary or tertiary target) while saving time and methodically laying the groundwork for the transition (like maybe approaching Henk Veldmate from Ajax with a view of offering him the Head Scout position with a specialization in the South American mercato or Wim Jonk from the Johan Cruyff Institute as a technical director or overseer of the academy).
  • Ajax are a reasonable club and have already expressed that they will not stand in Ten Hag's way if he has greater ambitions or wants to explore a new challenge, plus Van der Sar's presence as their CEO should smooth things over. No such assurances from Mönchengladbach or Leipzig.
  • If we don't make fast moves, there's the danger of other clubs presenting vacant head coaching seats to Ten Hag, so we might find ourselves in a situation where he's taken because we weren't proactive enough (since that post was made Kovač has been sacked by Bayern: https://www.bundesliga.com/en/bundesliga/news/bayern-munich-part-company-with-niko-kovac-7922). Worse still, even Barcelona could enter the fray if Valverde continues to disappoint because of the commonalities in their philosophy in successful periods in recent decades vis-à-vis Ten Hag.
All else equal, it's more prudent to target someone who is reportedly more available or willing to commit to a new job, and if that fails...moving to more challenging circumstantial options. How is making that calculated decision behaving like a small club? Ten Hag is probably the the best appointment we could make, IMO, and as a bonus — he should be more attainable if we act quickly considering what Overmars said a week ago (unless Bayern have already begun to strike an agreement) so it's not like we would be appointing a bum, or someone who is not the best fit for the club's ideals...like Max Allegri, because we're unambitious and aiming low.
 

Nou_Camp99

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Always a risky move taking a manager who is going through very bad moment like Poch is.

It's the first time in his short managerial career he's gone through a slump and they don't look like coming out of it any time soon.

Of course you can't write him off but his reputation is definitely taking a lot of hits rights now.
 

arthurka

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I quite like Ten Hag but I think this attitude of going for the easily attainable or gettable manager is exactly has us in this predicament. Do we really think Real Madrid would consider whether Rose is just months into his new contract if they identified him as their man? We behave like a small club and now our performances are beginning to match that attitude, remember how Real muscles Ancelotti out of PSG?
This is exactly it, if we have a clue for our next manager we should go out there and get him no matter what.
 

Mainoldo

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Always a risky move taking a manager who is going through very bad moment like Poch is.

It's the first time in his short managerial career he's gone through a slump and they don't look like coming out of it any time soon.

Of course you can't write him off but his reputation is definitely taking a lot of hits rights now.
Definitely. But maybe looking at then Italian managers of past we can see that maybe change is good without you actually losing your mojo.
 

friendlytramp

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I say we keep Ole until we secure the right replacement. In my opinion he's not good enough, but he's not toxic to the club the way Jose or Van Gaal was, so why change just for the sake of it?
nailed it, people keep comparing to Mourinho but Jose was such a negative influence toward
the end he made it impossible not to sack him
 

red thru&thru

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Kovac just been sacked. Apparently their 3rd loss of the season? Elite teams move quickly. I wonder who they will be appointing?!