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I suppose Elanga will be the replacement for he who shall not be named, but we're going to need one of Rashford or Sancho to hit top form soon.

I'm genuinely astounded we haven't tried to sign a central midfielder. Again.
 
I like Poch on the whole and would be happy with him. I'm not sure the trophies are a major concern, he's done very good things and with greater financial backing, should be able to get to that next level.

Ten Hag would be more complicated, he would be my ideal choice but against the backdrop of our upper management, I think it would be problematic.
 
C Kent said:
Ragnick's appointed Rafa Honigstein as his media advisor? Weird
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I wouldn’t say so? Rafa knows his stuff and there have been a lot of media-related issues of late. Players speaking out of turn, the Greenwood situation, etc.

Might be a good idea to try and get a handle on it. The social media/PR people at the club only care about likes and retweets, they have no tact.
 
More reports recently (from reliable sources) that it's between Pochettino and Ten Hag for the job. The players are keen on Poch (not that they should have a say).

I don't honestly think Ten Hag is realistic, our club structure is a mess and very different from Ajax. I think it would be a struggle, as much as I'd be keen to see Ten Hag here.

So I'm fairly sure it'll be Pochettino whenever PSG get rid of him. Obviously there are question marks, but I do like him and hope that with sufficient backing he'll succeed. There aren't many managers out there who guarantee anything.
 
BaZ87 said:
When Rangnick was appointed and was to be given this 2 year consultancy job upstairs from this summer I said it would prove to be a disaster unless there's a clear change in approach from Utd as a club. If Utd now go on to appoint Poch it will prove that there's been no change in approach and they're again just making short term decision after short term decision and Rangnick will quietly disappear within a few months of his arrival.

Poch isn't working under Rangnick or in any sort of set-up where he isn't the main man in terms of setting the style of play and building the squad, and that is the only reason why you have Rangnick involved at the club.
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Rangnick apparently wants Ten Hag to replace him. Ten Hag with Rangnick as a DoF would be a brilliant starting point.

Knowing the club, however, I just can't see it...
 
BaZ87 said:
I don't want to say I told you so (that's a lie, I do) but I told you so when we had this very discussion following Rangnick's appointment.
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Rangnick is a good appointment if he moves upstairs and is given control. Woodward has gone, which is good, and I'm hoping Richard Arnold will delegate football matters to the experts.

We really ought to be starting from scratch in many ways, bring in Ten Hag and his team, Rangnick can organise the upper echelons of the club, and off we go... feels a bit like wishful thinking at the moment.
 

Just in case anyone missed this, Man Utd chat starts at about 15:40.

He's completely right in that it feels like there are 100 different problems with the club at the moment. It's not really about the manager any longer - he can't force the players to work hard if they simply won't.

At the start of the season there was talk of a title challenge, and now we're looking as bad as we've ever been in recent memory (or not much better).

Says a good portion of the players have their PR machines in overdrive, trying to deflect from their abject performances. He fires a bit of a warning shot saying the media know who the ones briefing against the manager and club are.

A major but fairly swift rebuild is needed. Trying to limp on with the current useless players will just do more long term harm. I hope Richard Arnold can succeed where Woodward failed so miserably.
 
Yes, rebuild more or less from scratch. The entire structure of the club is wrong.

Ultimately money is the critical factor and you can't argue we haven't spent enough of it. It's just been spent so very badly.

The Glazers are not setting a good tone for a start, but let's be fair, they don't really have that much of an input. They delegated to Woodward who made a mess of it - and Woodward has been the issue for me. He completely failed to install the correct type of people in the right positions. You need people like Rangnick working higher up, not random ex-players and Woodward who knows nothing of football.

I don't think this will happen, but I would have Rangnick as the Director of Football, and employ any people he wants to work beneath him.

I'd push for Ten Hag as manager, a big character who will act as a talisman for the club. Quite how good he is at the very top level remains to be seen, but he's the most ambitious appointment we can make. As Neville mentioned, the biggest character at the club has to be the manager, he sets the tone for everything. Pep and Klopp for example.

I like Pochettino and wouldn't be against him as manager however if the structure above doesn't change, he'll probably end up like Ole, with the players downing tools after a couple of years.

In terms of the actual players, it's clear many of them have the wrong attitude or simply aren't good enough, and financial concessions need to be made in order to get rid of many of them. Holding out for unrealistic transfer fees will just continue this malaise we are in. Too many of the players are lazy and overrated, and they know it, and it's created a toxic environment. This has been the case for years now.

Richard Arnold (replaced Woodward) is reportedly someone who accepts he doesn't have the elite football knowledge and will delegate things, and Rangnick being there should help a lot with this. He may not be an elite manager, but his football knowledge in terms of running a club is second to none.

Fingers crossed... :D
 
I think for me now it has to be Ten Hag, bring in any staff he wants, be prepared to lose a fortune clearing out the overrated players, and go from there - let Rangnick sort out the upper level of the club.

I like Poch but I think it will just continue this malaise we have now if the structure above him doesn't change too.
 
Lots of talk that we should be going after Tuchel due to the turmoil Chelsea are in, he knows Rangnick well too.

I think Ten Hag is a pipe dream. The amount of change that would be needed in terms of coaches, squad and philosophy is just too much for the Glazers to countenance. Even though he's by far the best option IMO.

It's going to be Pochettino.
 
Absolutely agree fez.

RR has exposed the club for what it is - a shambles. Maybe some of it was his fault, but look at the last 10 years, is that his fault too? It's been the same thing over and over again.
 
Shamikebab said:
We all knew the structure wasn't right, everyone knew that so he has exposed nothing in that regard.
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Reinforced it then.

Clearly the basics of running a football club have managed to evade the various presumably intelligent people in senior positions up to this point. Perhaps it wasn't quite as obvious to them as you'd think.
 
BaZ87 said:
It's also a fact that Utd got knocked out the CL in the group stages, were beaten by a far inferior Villarreal side in the final of the Europa and never came close to challenging for the title. Utd's second place finish was as a result of Liverpool having an unprecedented injury crisis, Lampard and Chelsea being Lampard and Chelsea, not because Utd were particularly good because they weren't. It's not after the fact that people are saying Ole and that Utd side weren't very good, most people were saying it at the time too.

Even when Utd won games under Ole, they very rarely played well, often being out played by poorer sides for large spells in games only to sneak a win with isolated attacks or dodgy penalties. Utd were going nowhere under Ole because the guy was totally clueless.

Things haven't got much better under Rangnick but what were people expecting? Utd's squad are, for the most part, completely the opposite of how Rangnick wants to play. You can't expect Rangnick to come in and play high intensity front foot football with a team of can't runs and won't runs.

I'm not just saying this now, after Utd have collapsed, I was saying it last season too - this Utd squad is an unbalanced mess. Utd became overly reliant on Fernandes last season but his inclusion in the side almost forces Utd to play a system that doesn't suit the vast majority of the rest of their midfield and attacking options. Greenwood, Rashford & Martial were all perfectly suited to playing wide in a 4-3-3, which is also the system best suited to Pogba and can also hide the deficiencies of McTominay & Fred in midfield. Utd spent £130m on two defenders that shouldn't be near any side expecting to challenge at the top table - there are pub players with more footballing ability than AWB and the moment Utd push up the pitch Maguire is like a tugboat stranded in the middle of the north sea.

I saw a couple of comments on here saying it was an exaggeration to say Utd need a complete rebuild (or words to that effect) but I fail to see how they don't. If you were starting from scratch and building a 25 man squad to challenge City and Liverpool in the future, how many of this current Utd squad would you honestly keep. I don't think you're keeping more than 5 or 6 and most, if not all of those would only be squad players too. You can't blame Rangnick for that.
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Completely agree. My hope was Rangnick would be able to influence things higher up, and I hope he still can, at least to a degree. The fact he's struggled to motivate this particular set of players is not really a poor reflection on him. It's an impossible job. That's not to say he's done well or anything, but it's a complicated situation.

I hope Ten Hag comes in and aggressively starts cleaning house. He needs to quickly identify which players will at least make an effort and go from there. Ability is irrelevant if they just walk around on the pitch. From what I can gather, he expects players to run through brick walls for the team and goes mental if they don't. So this is going to be interesting... :o :p
 
I'd say that despite not really knowing a lot about him, 90% of Man Utd fans wanted Ten Hag in. He was the popular choice and that will certainly help in terms of patience.

However, things will have to improve significantly so people can at least see something is being worked towards on the pitch, and it can be refined from there - much like Klopp.

To add, it's not just about Ten Hag, the structure above him has to be right. We need to get players he wants but that also make some financial sense too. Hopefully that is being put in place because it was instrumental with Klopp...
 
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