Our situation is unique because:
1. We're one of the biggest clubs in the world.
2. We had one of the most successful managers of all time.
3. That manager gave us non stop success for 2 decades.
4. Now that manager has retired.
No other club ticks all these boxes.
1. We're one of the biggest clubs in the world.
2. We had one of the most successful managers of all time.
3. That manager gave us non stop success for 2 decades.
4. Now that manager has retired.
No other club ticks all these boxes.
The odds of any club being so successful for so long is extremely slim and to continue to be that successful after the main figure head behind that success steps down was always going to be difficult but not impossible. The best way to do it was to plan ahead.
Big corporates do this well, apple moving on from Steve Jobs was patchy at first but successful in the long run. Same with Microsoft and Gates. These companies achieve this with meticulous long term planning often starting years before the actual retirement of their founder.
Man Utd isn't a company but they should've started planning for his retirement 5 seasons before he actually did. Instead 6 seasons before he left we had new owners who knew nothing about football. Even with a great board it wasn't going to be easy but now it's tough as ever.
No one manager could have replaced Sir Alex at Man Utd bc he was so much more than just a manager. Only a system can can replace him. A DoF, a technical director, new coaching staff, new scouts and then a new manager would be a fair replacement. The owners never understood this.
For 7 years they thought that hiring a new manager would get us back to the glory days but with no clear system to follow every manager started bringing in the players they thought were right for the club and none of them were given the time to finish the projects they started.
Moreover the owners never gave them the players they wanted instead settling for second/third choices. Not to mention, the managers had different footballing philosophies meaning they brought in diff kinds of players and so with each new manager the squad became more unbalanced.
So to recap, one of the biggest clubs in the world is trying to move on from one of the most successful managers of all time after one of the longest success spells in football with an incompetent board and no DoF. No other club's rebuild is as tricky or unique as this.
It is at times easier to build a small club up with smart spending and good vision than it is to rebuild a giant club with no proper structure. Our recent overspending on players & high wages haven't helped as every club we try to do business with will try to hold us to ransom.
World class managers came and failed because they didn't understand that their job is not to propogate the legacy but to rebuild it. I support Ole because he's the first manager to get what his job really is. And that is because he's one of our own.
Ole understands that he's here as an eraser. To wipe the slate clean and give us a fresh start. To do that he has to make tough calls that might even jeopardize his own career and image. But the fact that he's still doing it selflessly is exactly why he's the right person for it.
The years of mismanagement and an inept board has made Ole's job even harder. He's been given a net spend of 50m and 2,3 players per window for a rebuild. This might work for a small club trying to be big but definitely not for a big club trying to be the best!
Even with all these restrictions, Ole has cleared out a lot of the unwanted players and brought in players who fight for the badge. Bruno on a 6 year contract at 70k a week is a steal in the modern game and that's exactly the kind of signing that a rebuild needs.
So next time you're comparing his rebuild to others please understand that it's incomparable. With our owners not going anywhere, our situation is extremely unique and it's time to be patient and realise that the Man Utd of the old can only be rebuild brick by brick.
Ole isn't here to cross the finish line, he's here to start the race. Whether he's there when we get to the finish line is irrelevant. A rebuild starts with a foundation and that's exactly what he's building. And for that first he has to rip the bandaid off and it will hurt.
At the end of the day whenever Ole leaves, in a year or 10, safe to say he will leave the club in a much much better state than he found it in, and the next manager coming in will have a way easier route to success thanks to him.
Ole playing counter is seen as a crime but as I've said the team is so unbalanced, only a simple straightforward tactic can work right now. When he took over we had 7 CBs, 3 LWs, 1 ST and 0 RWs. Now add injuries to all your best players. You can't play tikitaka with 5 players.
Since our board is so slow he will need more windows to get a balanced squad. Many more systems can be implemented at that point. Bruno coming in itself opens us up to 3 different systems. The Squad is already way more balanced than the one he inherited.
People seem to forget how yawn inducing the football was under Mou, he understood the squad he had couldn't play attractive football and that the board wasn't supporting him so he parked the bus. With Ole, he's blooded the youth so that we can at least play counters. Counters>bus
