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This is bad news

Given how poor Everton have been just lately and the next half dozen or so upcoming fixtures, Benitez has work to do

Ole was the last interim manager and he seduced them with a couple of wins....Come on Carrick, you know we are rooting for you!

hayling22 wrote:Ole was the last interim manager and he seduced them with a couple of wins....Come on Carrick, you know we are rooting for you!

Mike Phelan could do a job

Bruce is available. *snigger*

Dameerto wrote:Bruce is available. *snigger*

How about a dream team of Bruce, Carrick and Keane? That'd work!!!

Jesus, just seen on MOTD2 that United made Ole do an MUTV interview after he was sacked. Absolute scum of a club and a prime example why they are where they are. They only care about their media profile and how it can generate cash

nottsblue wrote:Given how poor Everton have been just lately and the next half dozen or so upcoming fixtures, Benitez has work to do

Said the same yesterday. Weird appointment given his red roots. They were shite yesterday and he will be in trouble if it carries on. Mind Leeds are fucked definitely going down

I suspect Pochettino will go to the swamp next season with Zidane taking over at PSG.

my guess is none of these
Who should be the next manager of Manchester United?

Andy Mitten 4h ago 116
Who should Manchester United employ next? In the poll of 4,000 United fans conducted by The Athletic recently, the question was asked: If Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was to go, what type of manager would you prefer: a long-term builder, even if it meant waiting longer for success, or someone experienced who could win things quickly?

The club tried what they hoped would be the Sir Alex Ferguson clone when they appointed David Moyes as his fellow Scot’s immediate successor in 2013. That didn’t work out and he lasted 10 months of a six-year contract. They then went for the tried and tested Dutch philosopher in Louis van Gaal, a man with trophy-winning experience at huge clubs. The fans were turned off by the dull football and he lasted two seasons. Next came Jose Mourinho, a man seen as a guarantor of success and one whose appointment had an 85 per cent approval rating from fans.

Mourinho won the Community Shield, League Cup and Europa League in his first season. But by his second, fans were moaning about the turgid style of play and the lack of a title challenge, despite United finishing second in the league. He lasted four months into his third season before being sacked – and he accepted he should have been sacked.

And then came Solskjaer, who’d had his card marked a couple of weeks before replacing Mourinho in December 2018.

There has been no card-marking this time. United were unprepared to replace a man they gave a new three-year contract to only four months ago.


Mauricio Pochettino has long been linked with Manchester United but is currently in charge at Paris Saint-Germain (Photo: Bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty Images)
So what type of manager now, then?

There are pros and cons to the two approaches. Fans like to consider themselves patient and the ones at United generally are, as every recent manager will attest. But the current squad of players should be doing far more on the pitch than they have been recently.

United maintain that Solskjaer has left the club in a far better place than when he started and that his successor will have strong foundations to build on. If that’s so, then bring in a manager who can finish off the top, who can put the roof on the house that Solskjaer built rather than coming in, as every post-Ferguson manager has done, saying he needs at least six new players. Thomas Tuchel’s tweaks at Chelsea after joining midway through last season have shown this can work, but United seem so far off the top right now.

United also maintain that the club’s football structure is much stronger now than three years ago, following the restructuring of the recruitment department and strengthening of the academy, the appointments of John Murtough as football director and Darren Fletcher as technical director. The Moyesian “seven-year rebuilding” plan or the Van Gaal fire-sale of players which left United short in particular positions would not be necessary. The club hope this will minimise the disruption during the transition.

If Fletcher and Murtough do have sufficient power on the football side, then this could be true but are they making the ultimate, important decisions?

United have looked short of identity this season but the club like to think there is one, and so do the fans: fast, attacking football, using a mixture of homegrown players supplemented by bought-in stars. Their greatest teams have been built using this combination — Roy Keane and Paul Ince were bought in to play alongside Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes.

The youth system continues to produce — Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford prove it — but it’s improbable that any top club will bring through a crop of several first-teamers around the same time. Solskjaer has given debuts to 16 academy graduates, more than Mourinho, Van Gaal and Moyes combined, but how many of those will become regulars? One? Two?

Ferguson tried the youth route and his own short-lived Fergie’s Fledglings in 1989, then reverted to big-money signings after three years in charge. They, in turn, took more time to settle. What could be more unsettled than United right now?

That Newcastle United game in September with Cristiano Ronaldo returning seems so long ago right now. Poor results meant support for Solskjaer among the match-going core waned, though he continued to have his name sung at matches. The sentence, “I love Ole, but…” became the norm. They didn’t think he was the right man anymore. After 12 league games, United have a negative goal difference and have conceded more goals than third-bottom Burnley.

Several agents had got in touch with the club following the downturn in results to put their clients forward as candidates for the job. All received similar responses: “Thanks. We’re sticking with Ole for now, but results must change.” At Watford on Saturday, recent results didn’t change. United have lost seven of their last 13 games — relegation form for a club whose business model is built on Champions League football.

The mood on United’s flight from London back to Manchester on Saturday night was as bad as you might imagine. The players were back in training on Sunday morning and now fly to Villarreal today (Monday) for a crucial Champions League match on Tuesday, then back to Manchester, then down to London again next weekend for a daunting Sunday match at Chelsea. These are huge games and United won’t have their best two central defenders as Raphael Varane is still injured and Harry Maguire’s red card at Watford means he won’t play at Stamford Bridge.

Michael Carrick will lead the coaching as a caretaker manager until an interim replacement is appointed to the end of the season. After that will come a permanent successor.

It’s an odd way of doing things, but Carrick needs to do exactly what Solskjaer did in 2018 and pick the mood up off the floor. Watching United for Solskjaer’s first four months was superb, then the dips started.

Unless United are absolutely certain who they’re going to appoint at the end of the season, as they were with Mourinho in 2016, it’s a challenge to try to hire two managers in a few months and could be reduced to the level of a soap opera with a new name touted every few days – though would United even mind that, as long as they stay at the forefront of the news?


Ralf Rangnick could be an option for the interim job (Photo: Sven Hoppe/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Ronaldo, whose return after 12 years with Real Madrid and Juventus was dropped on unsuspecting staff in August, will also mean attention is never far away.

He tried to rally the squad last week before the Watford trip, having strong words with his failing team-mates. Not emotional words, but measured ones about focus and unity and taking responsibility themselves rather than pointing the blame. His Portuguese compatriot Bruno Fernandes tried to reason with fans at Vicarage Road and suggest the responsibility was on the players rather than just the manager. It’s easier to sack one man rather than a whole team of underperformers, though.

Dealing with Ronaldo and other huge-name players will be a challenge for whoever comes in. Carrick knows him having played with him, as did Fletcher, who was instructing Ronaldo from the bench on Saturday. Mike Phelan, the man who suggested that United buy N’Golo Kante and Callum Hudson-Odoi when Frank Lampard seemed unsure of them after Chelsea lost 4-0 to Solskjaer’s United in his first game as the Londoners’ manager in August 2019, will advise and support.

Kieran McKenna is said to be a bright and innovative coach, the man who leads the training sessions, but he doesn’t yet carry the same weight of authority with the players. The eventual interim manager must be a results person, since United need to be in next season’s Champions League. But who would take that job, knowing that they’re only going to be in charge for six months or so, looking after a team which isn’t their own?

United want someone to restore the forward momentum the squad had until two months ago and may wish they’d appointed now new Tottenham Hotspur head coach Antonio Conte, though there were reservations in the club about the recently-available Italian.

So, who could be that interim man?

It might be perfect for Ralf Rangnick, the 63-year-old German who has influenced many younger coaches, was so successful at RB Leipzig and helped form the concept of gegenpressing. Would Ronaldo even feature in such a United team? Would Rangnick leave a few months into a three-year contract on the sports development side at Lokomotiv Moscow? He would surely have to be offered a role at United beyond this season.

Lucien Favre is another out-of-work veteran who made his name in Germany and last coached at Borussia Dortmund, who sacked him last December.

Laurent Blanc, 56, is hugely experienced and now coaching in Qatar after four years away from management following his three years at PSG and two years with the French national team. Blanc spent two years playing for United two decades ago, so he knows the club but would probably cost a fair bit to get out of his current role and sources say he’d want more than an interim position to come.

Ernesto Valverde did a superb job in Spain, especially with Athletic Bilbao. He also won three titles with Greece’s Olympiakos and two with Barcelona before being sacked last year.

Rudi Garcia, 57, coached the Lyon team who knocked out Manchester City of the Champions League the season before last, and helped develop Memphis Depay and the French club’s incredible young midfield. Available having left Lyon at the end of last season, his teams play attacking football. Lille won their first-ever double under him and he brought through Eden Hazard, then he took Roma to successive runners-up finishes in Serie A. Garcia is a fighter with a good track record of doing well at teams who aren’t — Lyon were 14th when he took charge, and he took them to a French Cup final and a Champions League semi-final, knocking out Juventus and City along the way.

The Athletic also understands former United captain Steve Bruce, recently let go by Newcastle, would be very keen on the role, and believes he could help stabilise the dressing room.

The names of Erik ten Hag, Mauricio Pochettino, Zinedine Zidane and Brendan Rodgers keep coming up for the more permanent position. They’re the men of the moment, just as Sven-Goran Eriksson was in 2002 when he’d agreed to replace Ferguson. Ten Hag is not keen to leave mid-season and would have a small release clause in the summer; Pochettino is open to a return to the Premier League; Zidane is an incredibly unlikely option; and Rodgers would perhaps be prohibitively expensive.

Who else? Luis Enrique did a superb job at Barcelona and is doing well managing Spain’s national team, where he replaced Julen Lopetegui, whose Sevilla side beat Solskjaer’s United 2-1 in a pandemic-enforced one-off 2019-20 Europa League semi-final.

United know that getting top managers to leave jobs at mid-season is very difficult, but football changes fast. Ajax’s Ten Hag, perhaps the most coveted of those mentioned, was close to losing his job in March 2019, accused of being a poor communicator by fans and the media. Then he took his young side to the Bernabeu and battered Europe’s pre-eminent team, Real Madrid, 4-1 to win a Champions League last-16 tie. He’s not looked back.


Julen Lopetegui is under contract at Sevilla (Photo: Jose Manuel Alvarez/Quality Sport Images/Getty Images)
Just writing all this seems so half-hearted, so ill-prepared and scattergun because United have not properly prepared for this.

It’s a mess overseen by people who inspire so little confidence in the fans. They’ve failed to appoint a single manager in the post-Ferguson era who was ahead of the curve in the way Pep Guardiola was at Barcelona or Jurgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel were at Dortmund. All three found their way to the Premier League, where they have thrived. It’s a long time since United had a coveted boss of their own.

In The Athletic vote mentioned at the top of this piece, a 53 per cent majority picked “a long-term builder, even if it meant waiting longer for success”, while 47 per cent went for “someone experienced who could win things quickly”.

Solskjaer hoped to be the former and the fans were patient and supportive, but in the season that trophies were expected to arrive, United have imploded.

Most United supporters feel sadness that he’s lost his job, but also realism that it had to happen. Whichever type of successor the club they opt for, many will disagree with the choice. Unless of course, they start to win things again at last.

salford city wrote:

nottsblue wrote:Given how poor Everton have been just lately and the next half dozen or so upcoming fixtures, Benitez has work to do

Said the same yesterday. Weird appointment given his red roots. They were shite yesterday and he will be in trouble if it carries on. Mind Leeds are fucked definitely going down

I thought that as well, they looked beaten before they'd started and their fans were the quietest I've ever known.

Why would Poch go from managing Messi, Neymar and Mbappe to fuckin Fred from Corrie, Scott McTommy and the fat Roberto Carlos

Mase wrote:Why would Poch go from managing Messi, Neymar and Mbappe to fuckin Fred from Corrie, Scott McTommy and the fat Roberto Carlos

They're saying he's desperate to go there as his family still live in London.
Surely just as quick to get to Paris from there.

stupot wrote:

Mase wrote:Why would Poch go from managing Messi, Neymar and Mbappe to fuckin Fred from Corrie, Scott McTommy and the fat Roberto Carlos

They're saying he's desperate to go there as his family still live in London.
Surely just as quick to get to Paris from there.

Yeah, it makes no sense. And what’s so wrong with Paris that his family wouldn’t want to live there but in an overcrowded London?!

I wouldn't worry about Pochettino, he is a serial runner up, in England I have won as much as he has, and when at Spurs, he fulled a team full of journeymen.
He is a nice guy, but I don't see him dining at the very top table. Pep, Tuchel, Klopp, Poch isn't in that company

Wooders wrote:

zuricity wrote:Joss Stone of the Beeb now reporting it is mutually accepted that Ole will now just be a passenger on the bus.

Wasn’t she a singer?

My wife thought Rosetta Stone was a soul singer.

Maybe Joss is her sister.

hayling22 wrote:I wouldn't worry about Pochettino, he is a serial runner up, in England I have won as much as he has, and when at Spurs, he fulled a team full of journeymen.
He is a nice guy, but I don't see him dining at the very top table. Pep, Tuchel, Klopp, Poch isn't in that company

Spot on.

FA cup winners 2006 wrote:Jesus, just seen on MOTD2 that United made Ole do an MUTV interview after he was sacked. Absolute scum of a club and a prime example why they are where they are. They only care about their media profile and how it can generate cash

NBC showed that , fucking vomit inducing!!
It just goes to show that he was / is a puppet with others pulling the strings , Even Tim Howard who is as biased as they come said he shouldn’t have done it and knew of no other manager who would have given it , shitiest of all Shity clubs ,

Oh and just heard on the radio that NBC have signed a deal with the prem for the next 6 yrs I think
They said , And they interviewed the chief exec who signed the deal and he said he was a big Liverpool fan FFS , here we go

Neville thinks he knows what he’s talking about. Time to put his money where his mouth is.