Woodward and Fergie wanted Giggs as manager

Mainoldo

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Ermmmm. Worst kept secret. I mean they gave us a taste with Ole. Watch out for Fletcher’s apprenticeship.
 

clarkydaz

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Rremember the documentary about Giggs being interim manager? laughable, i was amazed it was released
 

captaincantona

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Really...where is the evidence that the “dna” approach actually works? Fergie wasn’t a Utd player who felt the passion of Sir Matt and Bobby pulsing through his veins allowing him to connect with players in such a unique way that it enhanced performance!

Correct me if I’m wrong...but for the level we need now...or even needed then...when we were considering giggsy....like the elite level...capable of challenging domestically and in the European Cup....how many homegrown managers from their respective/associated club career teams ever went on to manage at the very top with that team - bar Pep. I mean, where the connection with the club was somehow instrumental in the teams success? I’d say fuking none.

I am no CEO but seriously...it’s straightforward maths...count how many times that approach was successful at the top level. It hasn’t been...except for that handsome genius bastard Pep.

So it pains me to think that Giggs was considered - or that Ole was given the gig...or indeed that Rooney or Fletch or Giggs might fancy another crack in a few years. It’s just poor poor decision making.
 

alexthelion

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SAF should have been shown the door the moment he retired. We made the same mistake we did with Busby instead.
Agreed, it certainly doesn't help any manager having such a legend looking over their shoulder all the time.
 

Bobski

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It’s not a career ender by any stretch, there are plenty of sexual assaulters/domestic violence perpetrators knocking about in football I’d wager.

just look at that Raith Rovers bloke
At the top level I perhaps should have said, can't imagine a major club wanting the baggage and negative publicity that hiring Giggs would bring.
 

OverratedOpinion

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I think we can all safely agree that whilst we love the man, Sir Alex is probably not great at choosing managers :lol:
 

el3mel

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most shocking to me was that Giggs was supposed to succeed Van Gaal.
How was that, in anyway, shocking ? It was clear back then they were pushing for it. The plan changed because of LVG failure and Woodward thinking he needs a big name to compete with City, but while LVG was here, it was clear they wanted Giggs to succeed him. I feel like they forced him on LVG just for that anyway.

As for what would have happened, Giggs would have a worse version of Ole.
 

Ish

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Wasn't this widely known? I remember after signing Martial, LvG still telling everyone it was a signing for his successor - Giggs who was assistant at the time and being groomed to take over.

I think LvG's failed tenure caused panic (maybe due to the UCL top 4 clause with Adidas?) and we shifted our attention to Mourinho. Or something like that.
 

MoskvaRed

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Chelsea had the chance to see Lamps at Derby.
Liverpool get to see Gerrard at Rangers and Villa.
Why are we appointing or considering appointing utterly random ex-players?
 

Swedish_Plumber

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Chelsea had the chance to see Lamps at Derby.
Liverpool get to see Gerrard at Rangers and Villa.
Why are we appointing or considering appointing utterly random ex-players?
Weird obsession with the class of 92 and the supposed ‘United Way’. Wasted the last 3 years on it and we still think putting former United players in the coaching staff is some stroke of genius.
 

frutti di mare

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Was common knowledge. But I think City hiring Pep, Liverpool having Klopp, meant that when LVG got sacked Woodward decided to go with Mourinho.

We forget that Jose is our 3rd most successful manager after SAF and Sir Mat Busby. I think we’d be worse. I don’t think we’d have won the Europa League, League Cup, got to an FA cup final or finished 2nd under Giggs.

I think he’d have been allowed to take us backwards for several years before getting the sack, imagine the most ardent Ole = next SAF fans now times it by 100 and that’s the blind and irrational love Giggs would be getting as manager. Also it’s possible some of his personal life stuff might have happened and gotten out while he was manager.
 
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How was that, in anyway, shocking ? It was clear back then they were pushing for it. The plan changed because of LVG failure and Woodward thinking he needs a big name to compete with City, but while LVG was here, it was clear they wanted Giggs to succeed him. I feel like they forced him on LVG just for that anyway.

As for what would have happened, Giggs would have a worse version of Ole.
Well I just thought that after we sacked Moyes and got Van Gaal, we had learnt our lesson of trying to re-create Fergie. I really believed that we wanted to modernise and move on. I didn’t even think of any ex Man Utd players to be the next manager as none of them were doing good or known in the manager game except Blanc. I guess I underestimated how stuck in the past the board were. I hope we can move on from the past now after Ole.
 

Moston Red

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Post fergie we were an accident waiting to happen.
A well run United would have got either pep or Klopp.
It’s an embarrassment to the size of this club that it didn’t happen!
 

RedDevil@84

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I’m really hoping so. Woody has already gone. Hopefully after the Ole experiment ended “United DNA” is gone too and going forward we actually make sensible decisions rather than nostalgia based ones or whatever the hell Woody used to do.
I have zero hope on that account. I think the owners are largely responsibile for what Woodward has done in the past.
 

Fitchett

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Was common knowledge. But I think City hiring Pep, Liverpool having Klopp, meant that when LVG got sacked Woodward decided to go with Mourinho.

We forget that Jose is our 3rd most successful manager after SAF and Sir Mat Busby
. I think we’d be worse. I don’t think we’d have won the Europa League, League Cup, got to an FA cup final or finished 2nd under Giggs.

I think he’d have been allowed to take us backwards for several years before getting the sack, imagine the most ardent Ole = next SAF fans now times it by 100 and that’s the blind and irrational love Giggs would be getting as manager. Also it’s possible some of his personal life stuff might have happened and gotten out while he was manager.
Ernest Mangnall says hi.
 

Marwood

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The club has been obsessed with finding a manager who'd stick around for 20 years, so i'm not surprised.
LvG was in his 60's. Moyes and Mourinho also getting on a bit. I don't think 20 years was expected.

I think they want some longevity and nothing particularly wrong with that.

But the flirtation with Giggs the manger emphasises even more our biggest problem post SAF. Rubbish managerial appointments.
 

stefan92

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Correct me if I’m wrong...but for the level we need now...or even needed then...when we were considering giggsy....like the elite level...capable of challenging domestically and in the European Cup....how many homegrown managers from their respective/associated club career teams ever went on to manage at the very top with that team - bar Pep. I mean, where the connection with the club was somehow instrumental in the teams success? I’d say fuking none.
Zidane has to be mentioned, he did essentially do the same thing Pep did at Barcelona with Real, just that he was even more successful than Pep.
 

Red_toad

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Find it incredible the club was willing to make someone with that character and baggage the manager.
Good clean family man at the time.
Already on the books and got the Wales job without any issues. Not sure what you’re beating the club for.
 

Grande

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Really...where is the evidence that the “dna” approach actually works? Fergie wasn’t a Utd player who felt the passion of Sir Matt and Bobby pulsing through his veins allowing him to connect with players in such a unique way that it enhanced performance!

Correct me if I’m wrong...but for the level we need now...or even needed then...when we were considering giggsy....like the elite level...capable of challenging domestically and in the European Cup....how many homegrown managers from their respective/associated club career teams ever went on to manage at the very top with that team - bar Pep. I mean, where the connection with the club was somehow instrumental in the teams success? I’d say fuking none.

I am no CEO but seriously...it’s straightforward maths...count how many times that approach was successful at the top level. It hasn’t been...except for that handsome genius bastard Pep.

So it pains me to think that Giggs was considered - or that Ole was given the gig...or indeed that Rooney or Fletch or Giggs might fancy another crack in a few years. It’s just poor poor decision making.
Hm. Teams that have built successes upon retaining culture carriers from a previous success? Real Madrid, Liverpool, Ajax, Juventus, Bayern München, Barcelona I think have pulled it of a few times, but as you say, it’s just a matter of counting. No job for a CEO.
 

Laurencio

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So we had a plan, and then we decided against following the plan, and kept on deciding against new plans every 3 years.

Because, while I don't rate Giggs as a manager at all, it makes more sense to build a style with LVG, who Giggs then learns from for 4 years - continue that style with giggs who retain the staff and keep building on that foundation. Using that as a foundation for the next few managers and keep building the squad on the foundation put in place by LVG. It's not a great plan by any means, but at least it is a somewhat coherent plan.

Instead we threw away that plan and got a different style manager in Mourinho, then we threw out that plan and got Ole who was part of a new plan (United DNA), which we also completely abandoned in favour of the German plan with Ragnick.

We are terrible at planning and really good at not following our terrible plans aren't we?
 

Dante

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No, they didn't.

Proof: he never became our manager

There might have been a option to groom him into an contender. But if that's the case, it obviously didn't produce sufficient results so he was rejected.

It's like claiming that the club hoped they could train Januzaj a first teamer. I mean, of course they did. But he wasn't good enough. So it never got past the possibiliy stage. Either way, we'd have been remiss not see what he was capable of first.

Blaming Fergie is even more mental. He obviously has no say in anything at the club.
 
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FujiVice

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SAF should have been shown the door the moment he retired. We made the same mistake we did with Busby instead.
Get fecked. "Thanks for 26 years of saving the club and making it a financial juggernaut. There's the door old man."
 

Bebestation

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I'm a bit more confident about Carrick to be honest.

Learnt from SAF, LVG, Mourinho and even Ole.
 

devilish

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Get fecked. "Thanks for 26 years of saving the club and making it a financial juggernaut. There's the door old man."
The alternative to that is the mess we're currently experiencing. Its the same mess managers experienced after Sir Matt retired. I've read somewhere that when Paisley became manager he banned Shankly from ever stepping foot to the training ground. SAF is too big of a presence to be kept half in half out. Once he retired then that should have been it.
 
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DRJosh

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What is it with this club and their insatiable thirst for rekindling past glories and romances through poorly appointed staff
 

Sky1981

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One thing I credited Ole fully is that he put an end to this "old boys club" and "United DNA" shenanigans

If we never gave him 500m and 3 years we would still be circling between giving it to Giggseeehhhh cause he knew what it mean to be United bollocks.

At least we did our time, and moved on from that notion, although we're paying a high price for it.
 

AneRu

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Really...where is the evidence that the “dna” approach actually works? Fergie wasn’t a Utd player who felt the passion of Sir Matt and Bobby pulsing through his veins allowing him to connect with players in such a unique way that it enhanced performance!

Correct me if I’m wrong...but for the level we need now...or even needed then...when we were considering giggsy....like the elite level...capable of challenging domestically and in the European Cup....how many homegrown managers from their respective/associated club career teams ever went on to manage at the very top with that team - bar Pep. I mean, where the connection with the club was somehow instrumental in the teams success? I’d say fuking none.

I am no CEO but seriously...it’s straightforward maths...count how many times that approach was successful at the top level. It hasn’t been...except for that handsome genius bastard Pep.

So it pains me to think that Giggs was considered - or that Ole was given the gig...or indeed that Rooney or Fletch or Giggs might fancy another crack in a few years. It’s just poor poor decision making.
For Woodward and the Glazers it's all about monetizing this club's status and the hype it generates. If Ole had won just a single trophy we wouldn't have heard the end of it, bet that the club watched Pep and Zidane win the CL for their old clubs with envy and chances are they knew exactly what they would have done, catchy phrases, drip fed tweets and all.
 

Grande

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The alternative to that is the mess we're currently experiencing. Its the same mess managers experienced after Sir Matt retired. I've read somewhere that when Paisley became manager he banned Shankly from ever stepping foot to the training ground. SAF is too big of a presence to be kept half in half out. Once he retired then that should have been it.
He stayed away under Moyes and Van Gaal. It did little good. Mourinho and Solskjær both made a point of inviting him back in. It’s symbolic, and seemingly did help in creating a better atmosphere, for both. Their downfalls were pretty clearly about other things, I think most would agree.

Several old Liverpool people have spoken about the Shankley treatment as misgiven and a shame.
 

Judas

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No, they didn't.

Proof: he never became our manager

There might have been a option to groom him into an contender. But if that's the case, it obviously didn't produce sufficient results so he was rejected.

It's like claiming that the club hoped they could train Januzaj a first teamer. I mean, of course they did. But he wasn't good enough. So it never got past the possibiliy stage. Either way, we'd have been remiss not see what he was capable of first.

Blaming Fergie is even more mental. He obviously has no say in anything at the club.
Is that honestly obvious? It seems whenever a big decision is made in terms of management his name is brought up pretty much every time. Now of course it might not be true, but to say its obvious he has no say in the matters seems a bit of a stretch.