I said it before they appointed Amorim, but if they had any sense they would appoint Southgate.
Hear me out.
He is obviously a crap football manager, but I’d argue that right now they don’t need a football manager - they did need someone who can look statesmanlike and shake sponsors hands while looking dapper in a waistcoat. Someone who can look dignified and broadly competent while a rebuild job is being done over his head. Southgate is very good at that. He’ll also get them loads of the media onside, and they’ll get referee decisions because he’s English and he used to be England manager.
They just need someone who can hold the fort while they sort out their off the field problems. Smile and eat shit, while the squad is being gutted and the foundations repaired.
However, I’m not sure they really understand how broken they are.
They will go all out for Glasner, and he’ll be alright for a bit but the job will ultimately prove too big for him and he’ll end up getting sacked.
A safe pair of hands… All good points and a large number of them made about Roy Hodgson before he came here. Southgate will take them nowhere ergo… it’s a great idea!!
I think the best manager in the world, who ever that is in theory (maybe it is Arne, maybe it is someone else, not important for my point); is more likely to look like an idiot at Manchester United than succeed.
I honestly think to succeed there, it would require both charsma, skill at both football and man management. But perhaps most importantly, a hell of a lot of circumstantial help from Lady Luck.
It is almost just as likely that a relatively average (at elite level) manager will succeed (short term) as the “best” one, I think.
Yup. As incredible as it is, they still haven’t been humbled enough yet. They’re clinging onto “We are Man United!!!” and insisting that they’re just a piece or two from turning the corner and getting back to the top of world football. They aren’t. They need a complete teardown and rebuild, and that can only come with acceptance that you’re not going anywhere and they haven’t got there yet.
Arsenal were able to do it with Arteta, but I don’t think United are yet ready to accept their current place as a mediocre midtable side.
A lot of good points, although I wouldn’t say that Southgate is a crap manager, given that he took England much deeper into tournaments than most before him, so he must have been doing something right. He’d certainly be that safe pair of hands though, taking the right stance, saying the right things and, as you suggested, smiling through the shitstorm.
The thing is, even if he or any other manager felt unable to resist the huge salary and the challenge of restoring them to something like a competitive team, they would still have to deal with an administration that has reduced that club from middling to downright awful again.
Much of the blame for which lies at Ratcliffe’s door because the on field performances have plummeted under his watch, while the off field has begun to resemble a clown show. For all of his previous business acumen and success, he has flushed them even further down the toilet.
At some point he’ll have to admit that Amorim was another mistake and then attempt to convince some other sap to give it a go. I can’t see Southgate being mug enough, but who knows?
I think I said exactly that several thousand posts and several thread names ago. ManU needs someone to do for them what Southgate did for England - stop them being an abject embarrassment, forget winning stuff and just rebuild credibility.
What the last 20 years at Liverpool have taught me is that chasing success through managerial appointments is not going to work. It’s all about the structure above the manager.
If Glasner is their primary target, then that still tells you more about the decision makers at United than Glasner himself. With all due respect to him for his career so far and work at Palace by large.
