Poll: Erik ten Hag Sack Watch & Next Manchester United Manager? Sacked. Ruben Amorim appointed.

[Robbo]

RvN to take over as interim, get that new manager bounce like Ole did, full time appointment because "Ruud's at the wheel", plunge back into mediocrity about 36 seconds later

That's my fear, although I think they've been clear about it being temporary. His experience is quite limited and there has been some talk of issues with some of the players (shock).

 

[Robbo]

Well, Ole was a clear cut temporary appointment wasn't he? It was all arranged for him to go back to Molde at the end of the season etc. IIRC

Yeah but I think they'll hopefully look at how that went and be more cautious! I thought Ole did brilliantly well as interim but I didn't think giving him the job was overly wise...

 

[Robbo]

I'm not sure if 'aura' is the right word, but Potter doesn't really have one, I think that's pretty important. Ten Hag just floundered.

Xavi, hmm, his standing in the game would do some heavy lifting I suppose.

Sky Sports (and others) are saying there's a 5 man shortlist, but haven't explicitly said who's on it. Xavi, Amorim, Nagelsmann, Terzic, Frank?

Frank has just played it down in his press conference a few minutes ago, and Amorim has seemingly done the same. Although they're never realistically going to say or do much else.

Given the penny pinching going on, I think they'll be keen on someone they don't have to pay for...

 

[Robbo]

Just catching up on things.

Given there isn't a single stand out manager who is a guarantee of anything, Amorim would be a great appointment. He would be my and probably most other fans first choice. I'm not an expert on him admittedly, but what I do know about him, I like. I didn't think he'd want to leave Sporting mid-season, but I guess he's open to the move...

Whatever your views, he's a far more interesting manager than Southgate/Potter/etc. I was hoping they wouldn't be sat there waiting to give RvN the job if he managed to go on a decent run, that would have been a mistake.

This week is going to end far better than it started! At last.

 

[Robbo]

Who has downed tools?

I think this is what's more damning for ETH, the players were trying, they just weren't able to take on board what he wanted. I'm sure a few of them didn't like him though.

I'm going to go with a yes but once again, with seemingly no plan in place, I'm not sure what else to expect. Maybe we get lucky and he's good?

Why is there no plan? For all we know Ashworth was always planning to get Amorim, with his coaches, and then sign the best possible players that fit his system. To be honest it's on the manager to make it work, just because ETH failed doesn't mean everyone else will. There is no obvious elite manager who would walk in and fix everything - football is not that simple.

 

[Robbo]

Was the play to conduct a review then extend his contract in June and sack him in Oct?

I agree that was the wrong move, but I suspect they wanted to try and get to the end of the season and then review things. You know my view on the manager, he should have been sacked last year.

They fumbled things due to the unexpected FA Cup win, which was ridiculous.

 

[Robbo]

I think it would work out well if RvN takes the cup game tomorrow, and Amorim starts on Thursday morning. Gives him a few days to get a plan in place for Chelsea.

But Chelsea will be a tricky game so they might want him to start on Monday...

 

[Robbo]

Adam, the majority of his tenure was terrible. Spending an absolute fortune and going backwards every week. Were you actually watching our games at all? We looked pretty atrocious 90% of the time.

What managers have we ruined? Moyes was Moyes. LvG was well past his best, and so was Mourinho...

Ten Hag has been the first logical appointment and unfortunately despite a lot of backing and support, he failed. It happens in football, it's not the end of the world.

 

[Robbo]

Yes I think you totally forget the first season like it didn't exist.

When you look at it methodically First season was great. Played the most games in the league bar City, won a league cup, got to the FA Cup final and beat Barcelona who were league champions that year in the Europa League. Losing to the eventual winners. 76 points which was good enough for 3rd. His win percentage was 70%. He also had to deal with Ronaldo and Maguire.

Second season was a right off due to injuries (Played double digit back 4 partnerships) but we somehow managed to get to a FA Cup final and win it showing we can still play.

This season has been a mess but it is all on the players rather than ETH. You only have to look at his last game with Westham to see that.

Bring in a new manager by all means but the players will do exactly the same to Amorim like before. There is such a weak mentality at the club in the dressing room.

The first season was just about OK, it wasn't that great. You could argue the more work ETH did, the worse things got, which is actually what happened.

You can't just keep saying the second season was a write-off due to injuries... we've now got these injured defenders back, and signed new ones - and we're even worse than last season?!

Yes, the players aren't great, but that doesn't change the fact the manager was awful too. You'd need to be insane to let ETH replace another set of players for £500m based on his current body of work. No club on the planet would do that.

To say this season has been "all on the players" is frankly crazy.

 

[Robbo]

It's definitely not all on the players, but neither is it all on Ten Hag. Like most things there are a number of things that went wrong. Changing manager won't fix everything and we still have a lot of work to rebuild this club.

I absolutely agree, but the manager is the key figure and it's clear to almost everyone that Ten Hag isn't good enough.

 

[Robbo]

I'm not sure I agree with that at all. Managers are changed so quickly now and managers that fail somewhere often go onto succeed somewhere else. Flick was being spoken of by nobody and suddenly he's turned Barcelona into a side that humiliated the best team in the world. Spain dominated the Euros with a manager most people had never heard of where other far bigger names had failed. Xabi Alonso comes out of nowhere and has the best season by a club ever who has never won anything. Will he maintain that if he goes somewhere else? Who knows. Club structure is so important and the manager feels like less and less the most important part of that.

I think turning the Man Utd ship around is the most difficult job in football, in part due to internal issues (which hopefully INEOS will resolve). It needs a huge character who can absorb the pressure, and also get a clear message to the players in terms of expectations and tactics. There's no quick fix, but Ten Hag proved he wasn't capable of it - he was given more than a fair crack at the job IMO.

Anyway, let's hope Amorim is appointed and that he can succeed where Tan Hag couldn't. I'm hoping we'll find something out later today? I don't think the Sporting compensation payment will be an issue.

 

[Robbo]

Any good manager will be open to change, to some extent anyway.

 

[Robbo]

I thought they like to stick to their philosophy, the one that got them to where they are?

I don't know, surely it depends? Man City aren't exactly playing Pep's tiki-taka football, they seem to do OK.

Edit ::

Sporting have just released a statement to the Portuguese stock market confirming that Manchester United are willing to pay Amorim's release clause.

Sounds like we're getting there.

Also confirms the release clause is €10m (£8.3m).

 

[Robbo]

It is all very similar.

ETH was rightly appointed on a good record at Ajax, and given a fair crack at the job, and effectively bought his own starting XI - but ultimately he did a terrible job. Fluking an FA Cup isn't really anything to get excited about if you're supposed to be a big club. This is why Arsenal and Arteta are commanding respect, despite him winning less than Ten Hag.

So, we move onto the next man and hope he can do better - not really a difficult concept to grasp, is it?

There's no magic curse on the club, we just appointed a manager who wasn't good enough in the end. The other historical issues with dodgy staff like Woodward are actively being resolved.

It's a time for positivity, we were at rock bottom under ETH and the only way is up.

 

[Robbo]

There is no need to be dismissive of our achievements. We didn't fluke anything.

The Coventry game was a real sticking point for me. We were brilliant in the final but we needed VAR to get over the line against a Championship side at Wembley. Definitely a bit of a fluke, but that's cup football for you.

Not difficult no but I am also realistic. You seem to have the belief that Ineos will do a better job than the Glazers. I have yet to see anything they have done that is good. They did literally sweet nothing with Nice in France. They made all that mess in the summer about ETH, backed him and now sacked him 100 odd days later. In hindsight you could have never gone forward with ETH as it undermined his position and the prima donna players at our club would never work for him again.

Please tell me what is actively being resolved by our "new" 25% owners? Even Ashworth himself is nothing but a FA grifter.

I actually feel sorry for Amorim and I hope he does well but all I can see is ruining another up and coming manager.

I think we're going around in circles a bit here. INEOS are still pretty new at the club so you have to give them a bit of time, surely? You don't think there's an element of promise in the new people running the club? They definitely botched the manager decision and I don't know what happened there really. You're keen to dismiss Ashworth, in post for 3-4 months, as an "FA grifter" but want to sit here defending the utter dross Ten Hag served up with his £600m of signings? I don't get it. I feel like you've about given up on the club and are just angry at everything, which I get, but things will get sorted out one way or another...

Ultimately you think nothing will change until what, the Glazers have finally gone? If only...

 

[Robbo]

You could do this for every cup win. How many times do Real win late? Are all their cup wins flukes then? We beat City and Liverpool on the way to the title, it was fully deserved.

That is true but it was nearly a disastrous game, imagine if we'd actually lost in the manner that we did. We've also had some really damaging other results under ETH, a certain 7-0 defeat we won't speak of.

INEOS have had plenty of years at NICE and failed. Everything they have done so far has been poor. Its okay to put your head in the sand and sing kumbaya thinking it will get better but I have always been realistic.

As for utter dross ETH served up our attacking stats put us in 4-6th in the league which was about par for the course when excluding Ars,Liv,City but at the same time we were the worst for converting chances and big chance misses. This season has been on the players either cannot be bothered or too thick to understand what is needed of them or maybe a bit of both.

I struggle to count on 1 hand how many players gave it their all this season.

Nice aren't the biggest club in France, with huge revenues. I'm saying to give them a chance, not that they'll definitely do well. Ratcliffe might be a Glazer in disguise and it'll be terrible, who knows.

Are you really praising our attack, are you sure you weren't watching Man City by mistake? As for ifs and buts, you'll agree then that last season we should have in theory finished 15th based on chances created and conceded.

Rashford often gets the blame, but you could argue ETH's first season was only a success because of him carrying the team. Not the first time that's happened, mind you...

Anyway, he's gone now - let's hope Amorim is a bit special and can sort out this mess. Certainly one hell of a job.

 

[Robbo]

Sporting have confirmed that Man Utd are prepared to meet his release clause, but there’s been nothing further yet.

They are currently playing in the Portuguese league cup, so I can’t see anything being announced until later this evening at the earliest.

More likely tomorrow…

 

[Robbo]

Last game? He literally said after the game he doesn't know yet whether it's his last game or not. And he hasn't decided yet whether to join Man Utd or not?

Really hope he does NOT join us tbh. We don't need another 3rd tier league manager who has proven nothing in any of the big leagues. We tried that already with ETH. Also it's pretty obvious that his heart is not with Utd, from what he's said.

We need someone with a track record in a proper league who commands respect from day 1. I would probably even take Marco Silva over him. The dream is Poch, can't think of anyone better suited, hopefully one day.

As others have said, I wouldn't read much into what he said in a press conference immediately after a game.

I don't really see how you can dismiss him and then want Poch. I really like Poch but he's had some good jobs and hasn't set the world on fire.

To be quite honest, who are the 'elite' managers? In my view there are two - Pep and Klopp. I think they're as close as you can get to a guarantee of success.

Simeone's work over the past decade or so has been impressive, but there are caveats to that. Ancelotti is a great manager but I think he's good at managing specific squads.

Xabi Alonso is still very new to it all, Emery is obviously very good. Pretty much all of them would be considered a gamble...

 

[Robbo]

Honestly I'm not sure if any manager could fix the problems at Man Utd in the short term. No manager is going to be given the medium term, never mind the long term.

Man Utd have a squad of players assembled at huge expense to fix multiple short term issues. The current squad is not a good squad but it is also going to be expensive to offload the bad buys.

In order to fix the structural issues at the club it will require Man Utd to probably spend 3-4 seasons out of contention for the top 4 and probably closer to the middle of the table. Are supporters willing to accept that? Are the club owners willing to accept that?

What Arsenal have done with Arteta is similar to what Man Utd need to do.

Ten Hag has literally just been given the medium term. He was into his third season and replaced half the squad. Ironically, the players turning up and keeping him in a job were the likes of Maguire and Evans... hilarious really.

It's about progress on the pitch, you can't continue to deteriorate over this length of time, you have to show signs of improvement. That may not mean top 4, it may mean some bad performances and results, but it can't be dire every week.

Performances have been so bad that people have effectively decided we have a rubbish squad, which really isn't the case. Assuming the club continue to invest in the squad, I expect a push for 4th every season, if we fall short, so be it. Hojlund, Garnacho and Rashford are powerful runners and we have one of the best creative midfielders playing behind them in Bruno. That alone should make us more dangerous than half the teams in the league.

I think people are underestimating what a manager can actually do, such is the Ten Hag effect...

 

[Robbo]

To compete at the top, yeah probably. But as a starting point to be consistently hitting 4-8th i think it's easily there, and better than the other clubs around the same ambitions. It just needs to click.

Exactly, it's nowhere near the top 3, but outside of that it's not too bad.