How I’d Fix Manchester United
Manchester United is a club in turmoil.
The managerial situation is unclear, the toxic culture at the club is horrendous, and the board have again proven to be incompetent morons.
You would think that a club that has historically been one of the most successful in football would have world-class structures in place to deal with matters both on and off the pitch. Under Sir Alex Ferguson, this was mostly the case.
Standards were set at an incredibly high level which contributed to having elite structures set in place but more importantly allowing for long term success.
Yet since his retirement, the club has been in free fall. This season has demonstrated that the club is well behind their competitors in Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea.
At this moment, United are 7th after twenty games. Already, that alone is an indicator of how far the club has fallen over the years. After analysing the season thus far in further detail, it has been an utter disgrace as to how the team has performed over the last five months.
Embarrassing defeats at home against Liverpool and Manchester City, 5–0 and 2–0 respectively, have shown that United as a team is nowhere near competing with the big clubs in England. The 4–1 defeat to relegation favourites Watford was the penultimate nail in the coffin for then-manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
What makes these results even more alarming, is that we have achieved this despite recent acquisitions of high profile players in Cristiano Ronaldo, Raphaël Varane and Jadon Sancho.
Individually, these players are incredible in their own right, but in the end, football is a game played with eleven aside, not with two or three.
As a supporter for over ten years, it has been tough to watch following Ferguson’s departure. There has been no direction for the club, the standards have dropped significantly, and it does not seem probable that United will return to success for at least another few years.
There’s a lot of things going wrong right now at United, so how can they be fixed?
For me, there are a few major areas that need to be highlighted. Once they’ve been identified, the club has to act immediately. There is no time for messing around.
Removal of players contributing to the drop in standards
There has been no denying that the players have played a role in the sackings of the two previous managers in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Jose Mourinho.
“I think some care more than others.”
Those were the words of former Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho following a draw to Wolves and a defeat to West Ham in October of 2018, two months before he was sacked.
He then went on to say, “I see different actions but what you see is not really inside. I see upset people, and some people that don’t look like they lost a game.”
Mentally, this group of players are weak and individualistic. Of course, after every defeat, the players quickly acquire the services of their PR team and write apologies in an essay style to the fans.
In the beginning, it used to work as fans were under the impression that these players who would be on multi-million contracts cared about playing for the club.
However, what has been apparent is that these apologies are meaningless. It’s often been, “we’re United and we’ll bounce back.” Normally, when one apologises for something you would think that the individual/group in question would look to rectify it by improving whenever they have the next opportunity to do so.
Not with this group.
With these players, it’s often been a poor performance that is followed with no reaction in the subsequent game. The lack of consistency present has been concerning.
This has been because the players have been playing for themselves. This problem came to light under Solskjaer, as he looked to maximise the individual qualities of the players, rather than the team.
It gave United the nickname of “Moments FC” due to Solskjaer relying on players to produce a moment of individual brilliance to win or salvage games.
Relying on that was not a sustainable strategy long term as there were times where the players didn’t have that confidence, belief or nor were they able to create those moments. It happened three times under Solskjaer all of which at the beginning of each of his full seasons.
What has been consistent with these players is that when times get difficult or they’re under pressure, their fragile mentality collapses and they throw the manager under the bus as a result.
Roy Keane was spot on with his assessment of the players for Sky Sports, following United’s 2–0 loss at home to Manchester City in the 2018/19 season.
“These are the same players that threw Mourinho under the bus and they will do exactly the same to Ole. Leopards don’t change their spots. There’s too many bluffers at this club to get United back to the very top.”
I don’t personally feel that every single player contributed towards the dismissal of both Mourinho and Solskjaer, however, there’s no characters or leaders in that dressing room to hold players accountable.
It could be because everyone goes into their separate cliques rather than being together with the whole team. It’s been rumoured that a potential reason for Donny van de Beek not getting any games was a result of him not fitting in with certain cliques that were popular with Solskjaer that ultimately led to them being selected for games, regardless of performance on the pitch.
United need to clear out the squad properly.
There hasn’t been much of a cleanout since Solskjaer’s first season in charge where players such as Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez were moved on.
Overall, a lot of these players have made finishing in the top 4 acceptable. Historically, that alone shouldn’t be acceptable and those players have dropped the standards low enough for that to happen.
There hasn’t been a meaningful trophy won since 2016, where United won the FA Cup under Louis van Gaal but even then, it should be the expectation for the Red Devils to be competing for those sorts of trophies every season.
The Europa League triumph in 2017 was the most recent trophy picked up by the club yet that kind of trophy shouldn’t be celebrated under any circumstance. It’s not the Champions League and it shouldn’t be a trophy that the players feel any pride about.
Of course to rectify the issue of no major silverware being achieved by the club over the last few years can be done so by signing players of high quality who will contribute to results and good performances on the pitch but creating a good environment off the pitch.
But there needs to be a balance between those two aspects. For too long, mediocre players have been given far too many opportunities at this club.
For instance, Scott McTominay and Fred were Solskjaer’s go to midfielders during his tenure. Both would be considered as squad and rotational players by most elite clubs but not United.
Those two in particular aren’t good enough to start games. So we need to stop giving them opportunities in must win games. Let them be played in lesser games.
Bring in the right manager at the right time
What’s been so obvious over the last 9 years following Ferguson’s retirement is that Ed Woodward and the Manchester United board are incapable of making the right decisions when it comes to managerial appointments.
Woodward was responsible for appointing David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, all of whom were underwhelming during their time with the club.
Van Gaal and Mourinho on paper were quality managers to bring into the club. The former was renowned in Holland for being a successful manager with Ajax as well as with other big teams such as FC Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
Jose Mourinho needs no introduction given how incredible he was when he burst onto the scene during the 2000s.
However, both he and van Gaal were appointed in periods where they were not at the peak of their career.
United appointed van Gaal who was getting towards the end of his career and despite him taking the Netherlands to the 2014 World Cup Semi-Finals before arriving at Old Trafford, what transpired was ordinary, boring football.
With Mourinho, he seemed a bit stale during his time at the club as well as he was coming in having been sacked by Chelsea following a disastrous period at the beginning of the 2015/16 season.
If we wanted to bring in someone like Jose Mourinho, we should’ve done it after Sir Alex retired. He should’ve been the one rather than David Moyes. Or even Guardiola.
But the reality turned out to be that intelligence was not on the criteria when it came to Manchester United employing people to make football decisions at one of the elite clubs in Europe.
The most baffling decision was giving Ole Gunnar Solskjaer the permanent job. Now before people that supported Ole try to tear me a new one, let’s try and think this through logically.
On what basis should we have given the job to Solskjaer long term?
He hadn’t even seen out the rest of the 2018/19 season before we gave him the permanent job. He didn’t have good enough credentials to have been appointed the permanent manager other than he was a legend of a club.
Now forget Solskjaer being a legend of Manchester United for a second.
If you were the owner of a huge business or company and you had the opportunity to hire someone for an important role. Would you hire a candidate who had worked in that role but for much smaller companies or would you rather hire someone who’s had experience and success in working in that role for bigger companies?
It should be an easy decision.
Solskjaer was handed roughly £450 million over three years to invest in the squad. Almost half a billion pounds and yet no trophies were won. All of his signings bar Raphaël Varane, Cristiano Ronaldo and Bruno Fernandes have been poor.
Let’s take his first permanent season for example.
Harry Maguire, over-priced and not quick enough nor good enough to be the starting centre back for United let alone the captain. Aaron Wan-Bissaka dribbled and still dribbles like Bambi on ice and can’t cross a ball. Daniel James only knew how to dribble head down at speed.
None of those additions there has helped us become more successful.
It’s not just been the recruitment that has been poor under these managers, the style of play and tactical setups have been abysmal.
To put it in a very blunt and superficial analysis, the football under Moyes was cross and hope, backwards and sideways possession under van Gaal, dinosaur defensive hoofball under Mourinho and aimless individualism under Solskjaer.
So already those four managers have failed when it comes to satisfying three major targets when it comes to managing a big club in having a suitable style of play, recruiting the best available players for the best price and ultimately being successful by winning the best trophies.
These aren’t unreasonable demands given the size of Manchester United and the standards that have been set by managers before such as Sir Alex Ferguson and Sir Matt Busby.
So the next manager that should be appointed by the board and the owners has to be the right one. I’d rather they wait until the end of the season to ensure they’ve got the right one rather than making a knee jerk move by appointing someone who maybe isn’t ready for the job.
Mauricio Pochettino in my view should not be the next manager. Again, this brings me to my point as to why van Gaal and Mourinho didn’t work out; we got them at the wrong time.
If we were to get Pochettino, we should’ve done so after we dismissed Mourinho. That way we could’ve had a proper rebuild as at the time, Pochettino was a man in demand and one of the best coaches in the Premier League.
Now I feel that ship has sailed. Mauricio Pochettino right now at PSG is doing ok given he has guided the Parisians to be 11 points clear of Nice in 2nd and has progressed to the Round of 16 in the Champions League.
However, his side doesn’t look overly convincing despite the quality of players present, with superstars Lionel Messi and Neymar Jr being the most underwhelming so far.
Maybe if Pochettino was to win Ligue 1 and potentially the Champions League, United fans would be more open to taking him in. But right now he shouldn’t be the number one pick.
Erik ten Hag should be.
The Ajax manager is having an unbelievable season thus far and it’s not the first time he’s performed well both in the Eredivisie and the Champions League with the Dutch giants.
The 2018/19 season caught many football fans by surprise as there wasn’t much interest in Ajax before the commencement of the Champions League. However, by the end of the second leg of the Semi-Final, everyone was in awe.
It wasn’t just because they beat big teams like Real Madrid and Juventus, it was the fact that they were playing excellent football and dominating those sides. Ajax had and still do have an identity. Everyone on the pitch during those games knew their roles in all of the moments of the game.
No wonder why it took Tottenham until the last 5 seconds of the game in the second leg to beat Ajax.
This season, they’re flying despite losing players like Frenkie de Jong, Donny van de Beek and Matthijs de Ligt over the last few seasons. Ten Hag played an instrumental role in reconstructing that Ajax side and they now look even better than how they were a few years ago.
At this present moment, Ajax is 2nd in the Eredivisie but only by 1 point to PSV, where they’ve scored 59 goals (the most scored in the competition) and conceded just 4 (the least). In the Champions League, it was just as impressive during the group stage. They finished on top winning all 6 of their games, scoring 20 goals and conceding 5.
The balance here is unbelievable and is something that a club like United is lacking right now. The team feels disjointed and unbalanced. Offensively, they’ve been hit and miss but defensively it’s been really poor.
So for me, ten Hag should be brought in as I feel he fits the three categories required to be the manager of a big club to a tee.
His recruitment has been very impressive as it’s not easy to replace big players such as de Jong and de Ligt. He’s proven that he can buy players at a good price but also promote players through the academy which works out well for United.
His style of play is entertaining but more importantly translates to success, due to ten Hag winning the Eredivisie twice in the last 3 years.
Now while that is pretty impressive, I have a few doubts, one mainly being how he will cope at United. The club is a different beast altogether with the external and internal pressure for success, the players’ hot and cold mindset and the structure of the club not being as nice as Ajax’s.
Ten Hag hasn’t managed a club of United’s size before so it would be a risk to appoint him. However, in football, you have to take risks now and again. There may not ever be another opportunity where we could get ten Hag given how in-demand he will be at the end of the season.
At this moment, the club has a good relationship with Ajax so hopefully, that plays a part in making proceedings easier.
Also, there’s potential for both Ralf Rangnick and ten Hag to work together which could allow United to find better players to bring into the club but for a better price.
So there’s an opportunity for the board to make amends for their poor decision making over the last few years by bringing in the Dutch manager. If they do that, it shows they care about making United one of the best teams in the world again.
Promote Ralf Rangnick to be Director of Football
The new CEO, Richard Arnold has a huge job on his hands after Ed Woodward’s horrendous tenure as CEO has come to an end. Now I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about Arnold nor do I know much about his decision making regarding football.
But what has certainly been interesting has been what he and Joel Glazer have said concerning his promotion in becoming the CEO.
Arnold said, “I am honoured to have the chance to serve this great club and its fans. I am determined to return that honour in any way I can.”
Joel Glazer said, “We are now looking forward to Richard and his leadership team opening a new phase in the club’s evolution, with ambitious plans for investment in Old Trafford, the strengthening of our engagement with fans, and continued drive towards our most important objective — winning on the pitch.”
Now, we all know that the Glazers are total muppets who know nothing about football but they do care about making money.
So the most logical decision to make sure they can make as much money as possible (I know we don’t want them doing well but hear me out), would be to promote current interim manager Ralf Rangick to be the Director of Football.
It’s time now that United become a little more serious as a club with their decision making and it certainly shouldn’t be made by bankers who have zero football knowledge.
Rangnick’s pedigree as a Director of Football is incredible, just look at what he did with RB Leipzig.
Under Rangnick’s watch, by 2018, RB Leipzig saw the promotion from the regional league in Germany (essentially the fifth tier of football) to the Bundesliga, and they reached the UEFA Champions League.
Their highest domestic finish was runners-up in the 2016–17 season, while their highest European finish was reaching the semi-finals in the 2019–20 season.
So bring Rangnick upstairs, and let him assist the next permanent manager with the footballing decisions as the club knows how to benefit from commercial deals.
