From this weeks Squires piece.
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Thatās 11 years without a PL title - need this to go in for another 19 at least really.
Fixed.
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Theyāre at least 10 away, I reckon.
The squad profile/wage structure is more toxic than the Chernobyl Elephantās Foot, and there is still no indication they are getting their ducks in a row behind the scenes.
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Well, they are hiring some rather highly rated personnel who actually know a thing or two about football, rather than just finances. Whether it will be enough, who knows. When Guardiola finally reaches the end of the line, Arsenal fans will probably be the ones who will rejoice the most because their squad looks primed for years of good performance, while weāll be dark horses again under a relatively unknown head coach.
If Man United play their cards right, they might be contesting for the title in a few years - after all, it took Klopp three years with the squad he inherited, and none of us fancied that squad and Klopp didnāt have a fraction of Man Unitedās resources anyway.
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Liverpool in the late 90s into the 2000s hired a lot of smart football people and very capable managers, and we consistently came up short. Outside of generational managers like Fergie/Wenger/Klopp/Pep/Mourinho v1.0, you need an incredible amount of luck and the teams around you being shit to win this league.
The state of their squad and their FFP/P&S trouble means theyāre probably 5-6 years from sorting out the squad, and thatās IF they go on a run of selling well and signing perfect players for whatever system they want to play. The massive contracts their players are on means they wonāt sell well in most situations, so they have almost no margin for error on signings.
As with the last 10 years, their toxic fanbase wonāt have the patience to let this play out, theyāll be baying for blood and demanding marquee signings, that will likely only set them back further. Their best hope is that City get fucked out the league, and us and Arsenal regress while hoping that Newcastle donāt become the next oil state powerhouse.
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Our squad wasnāt as bad as Utdās currently is and we already had Klopp in place. Utd have an enormous way to go to even get to the starting point we started at when Klopp took over.
And it is the presence of Klopp, or someone comparable, that is the key. One thing we saw, and was something also followed by Arsenal, was a commitment to the football they wanted to play even when there were personnel challenges implementing it. It meant that even before results picked up there was something for the fans to grab a hold of. It also meant that as the final pieces started being added there was also team with a defined structure in place they could slot into and not something that had to be started from scratch.
At Utd they need to find that manager who can put in his coherent tactical approach, but even once he is there they all have to be willing to watch it go wrong more than anyone is comfortable with in the first couple of years while they do the slow work of getting the personnel in place.
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They would be in FFP trouble because of their wages. Thereās no one (except Greenwood and Sancho) that the club can hawk to get a decent fee. And both of those players have no future in Manchester.
The salaries that their players are on , theyāll struggle to shift them. That will leave them short to get players in.
All this while the teams around them play smart in the transfer market.
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Klopp could go to United and he would have failed. Liverpool never had the tendency of having the players above the managers , United post Fergy allowed players to dictate the terms.
Knowing United , theyāll still fuck it up.
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I know heās their ābestā player but if I was a clever footballing man coming in with a remit to overhaul the squad the very first thing Iād do is make sure Bruno Fernandes leaves the club this summer.
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Heās a fascinating test case for the use of data because in lots of the important metrics he is a stud. Heās just a cunt though. Even acknowledging the caveat that its really difficult, near impossible, to really judge the internal dynamics without having direct access to it, itās just impossible to see him being a positive influence.
Yeah data analytics will probably say to keep him but if Iām in charge I donāt want someone who downs tools when losing. Obviously he has a bunch of cuntish elements but thatās the worst one. 2-0 down and he stops trying, just wants to get subbed off.
To keep it in the field of data analysis, or the blind spots of data, I think in Moneyball Brad Pittās character signs a guy who is known for gambling his money away and being an unserious party animal. He signs him because the data says heās better than people credit him for. After a loss Brad Pitt walks into the dressing room to see him partying, smoking and playing loud music - soon after that he trades the guy away against the advice of his data guy. The implication being that while data can show you production it canāt show you the intangible things behind the scenes like the negative effect of a guy in the locker room who simply doesnāt care about winning or losing, and will actively distract other players.
Bruno is a different personality but a similar effect, in my book. You want a club captain and best player to be someone that the rest of the squad looks to in hard times. Someone young players learn from. What do they get with Bruno? A snidey, whinging cunt who gives up as soon as things get tough. Canāt have that in the dressing room. Just no one in that club has been strong enough yet to face that problem head-on.
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There is a story about Edwards going in literal incognito mode to gather intel on one of the other candidates for the job we had at the time we were considering hiring Klopp. For all of the focus on Klopp ticking the statistical boxes (their data suggested his final seasons issues at Dortmund were a fluke), this other candidate (I dont know Iāve ever seen credible reporting on who it was) was ultimately ruled out because Edwards didnt like the human side of him - how he engaged in training, even how he spoke to people on the phone.
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For some reason that description made me think instantly of Tuchel.
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I wondered if it was De Boer, but maybe that was the wrong time frame.