Man U Doesn’t Need a Winner It Needs A Visionary

The Bluth’s were going to build a whole subdivision but then their dad’s business dealings with Sadaam Hussein got him sent to jail. So now there’s no subdivision just a single house in the middle of nowhere. There might be a metaphor in there somewhere.

If football clubs were houses Manchester United used to be one of those castles that celebrities with too much money buy—full of expensive, classy stuff, you hate on it even though you’re not so secretly jealous of it, and basically indestructible. I mean, seriously, you launch a catapult at a castle it’ll mess up the façade but it ain’t coming down. Nowadays, Man U is like the model home the Bluth’s live in on Arrested Development. It’s full of pampered, delusional people which really accentuates the subpar location. And if managers are developers, Man U needs someone to design a masterpiece not flip the house for a profit.

In footballing terms, Manchester United’s next manager doesn’t need to be a winner, they need to be visionary.

The club’s history will inevitably lead to victories and trophies once the roadmap has been laid. But to do so the club needs to remember it’s tradition. The two aren’t the same thing. History is a list of statistics and accolades; things that can be looked up in a football almanac. Tradition is a set of intangibles, the ephemeral things about a club that you can only learn from a fourth-generation United fan who pronounces lovely “luhv-leh” instead of “luv-lee.”  (As in, wouldn’t it be “luhv-leh” if we didn’t have to live in the past all the time.)

Man U’s history is league titles, Champions Leagues, Ballon D’or winners. Their tradition is attacking football, one of the greatest youth academies in football (maybe sports), and, in the last 30 years, Fergie Time. But since Sir Alex Ferguson left Man U have forgotten their most important tradition: they’re a club managed by visionaries.

Shay Brennan (left) and Bobby Charlton (right) lift the European Cup after defeating Benfica 4-1 at Wembley in 1968.

During the club’s two most glorious spells from the 1950s to the late 1960s, and from the mid-90s to the early 2010s, it had two managers—Busby and Ferguson—who led the club for a combined 52 years. Under Busby or Ferguson, United won 18 of its 20 league titles, 26 of its 38 domestic cups, and four of its five European trophies, including all three of its Champions Leagues. As Jose Mourinho would say “this is football heritage”.

The club has strayed too far from its roots since Sir Alex Ferguson left because it forgot that before United won 13 titles in 20 years it didn’t win any for 26. (It did win the Second Division in ’75 though, so there’s that.) The price a club like United pays for its dominance is time. The ex-legends on TV will say that United doesn’t have time because it’s too big a club. But it’s just not true.

It took Busby three years to win a trophy and seven to win the league. It took Sir Alex the same. This is also football heritage.

Man U needs a manager who can, and wants, to build a successful club from the ground up. They need managers in the mold of Mauricio Pochettino, Gian Piero Gasperini, Erik Ten Hag, Pep Guardiola, and Jürgen Klopp. What they don’t need, no matter how tempted by their recent successes and glittering trophy cabinets, are managers such as Zidane, Conte, and Tuchel. Unless those managers are interested in signing up for a long-term commitment. In which case, they should be evaluated as managers that have the potential to think up and execute a vision and not as managers that might be able to end a trophy drought. Something that, as of now, none of them have done in their careers. They’ve all won but they haven’t ever built—and there’s a difference.

Sir Alex Ferguson (left) and Sir Matt Busby (right) combined to win 51 of Manchester United’s 66 trophies.

If the trophy cabinet crew isn’t interested in participating in an identity shaping endeavor, then Man U should offer them a polite “Thanks, but no thanks. We’re Manchester United and our history is long spells of dominance spearheaded by our tradition of long serving managers. Our legacy isn’t title wins, it’s title retention.”

Manchester United succeeds when it prioritizes long term organizational excellence not the relentless pursuit of immediate outcomes. To do that, it’s always depended on a historically great leader who shapes the club according to their own vision. Whatever that vision ends up looking like it, ultimately, offers two things: identity and stability.

Identity

When a football club has an identity, it develops a blueprint for the tactical and technical aspects of its team and a culture which characterize its personnel on a human level. Essentially, an identity provides a clear profile of players as both footballers and people, allowing a club to develop according to a series of principles that yield success rather than to something arbitrary, like form or status.

A blueprint serves as a North Star for all the on-field qualities that make up a football team. They don’t guarantee success—because nothing does—but they guarantee consistency borne of repetition and clearly defined roles. Sir Alex had a tactical identity which required his team to play on the front foot, with wide balls into central areas (it is English football, after all), while still having the intelligence to be flexible in how much or little they defended over the course of a game. From there he developed a technical framework of the types of players he wanted, wingers with sublime technique, well-rounded midfielders, and center backs comfortable marking in the box.

Ryan Giggs (left) and David Beckham (right) playing for Manchester United in 1997.

In the late ‘90s and early aughts those wingers were Ryan Giggs and David Beckham. So naturally, those players were able to pick out a pass and deliver it regardless of the opposing team, knowing the striker would be in the box. But if Ferguson had had worse players the principles would remain the same even if the outcome might be a few more losses. Hey—if the other team’s fullbacks are better than your wingers it stands to reason you might not win. But that doesn’t mean that your system and ideas are to be blamed.

A contemporary example is Liverpool’s defense last season. Injuries to Virgil Van Dijk, Joel Matip, and Joe Gomez forced the team to play with Nat Phillips and Ozan Kabak at centerback. Despite the injuries, Klopp never changed his team’s tactical identity. So, when VVD, Matip, and Gomez returned the lineup their reintegration was seamless, there was no re-learning curve. The players changed, and so did the results, but the principles remained the same.

There’s little need to argue that under Ole Gunnar Solsjkaer there was rudimentary tactical game planning, much less a blueprint. When a manager with a vision is able to implement his tactical views, it eases the burden on the club’s squad building because what the team needs becomes clear. Do you need a striker, or do you need a player who attacks the space and is comfortable shooting on the move? Do you need a right back, or do you need a wide player who makes great runs off the ball?

A tactical identity leads to an intentional recruitment strategy which can quickly overcome potential transfer market misses. In the summer of 2001, United bought Juan Sebastián Verón. His time at United was below expectations—rumored to be because Roy Keane bullied him so much. When he left in the summer of 2003 the team brought up Darren Fletcher from the academy, not because he was as good a player as Verón but because he was as good a fit. Fletcher would go on to spend 14 years at the club.

A manager that implements a tactical identity and pursues players with the technical profiles to bring it to life is able to inoculate their team against the unexpectedness of the transfer market. In the last 9 years Man U’s lack of a blueprint led to its undisciplined transfer business; the damages of which were exponentially increased by the pre-existing lack of identity which make purchasing a replacement equally as unplanned.

United’s rotating cast of superstar strikers who over the last three years have included Romelu Lukaku, Alexis Sanchez, Edinson Cavani, and Cristiano Ronaldo. Four different players who, to different extents, failed to fit four different tactical plans laid out by four different managers. Since none of these players have extended track records of failure it begs the question: did the people in charge even know how to make them succeed? The team lacked a manager with a vision, didn’t have a clear identity, which meant it had no tactical foundation, and recruited haphazardly without clear technical parameters in mind, leading to subpar results.

Gian Piero Gasperini took over as Atalanta manager in 2016. He is known for popularizing playing with three centerbacks and for his trademark man marking.

If you want the counterfactual to this argument, look at Atalanta’s recruitment of its wingbacks. They’re all average to good players who are put into positions to succeed because they perfectly fit Gasperini’s idea of football. Coincidentally, Atalanta’s 4 best wingbacks—Joakim Maehle, Robin Gosens, Hans Hateboer, and Davide Zappacosta—cost $25.5 million while United paid $60.5 million for Aaron Wan-Bissaka.

United need a manager who will establish an identity at the club not just to define the clubs playing style, ingrain automated movements into the players, or to mitigate their all-meme transfer deals; they need it to create an environment where players can thrive not just as players but as people. When that happens, a club can say it has created a culture. The sort of setting in which a series of ephemeral personality traits make someone a Guardiola player or a Klopp player. A Wenger player or a Ferguson player. Often, it’s not something you know about a player, so much, as something you feel about them.

This doesn’t mean that all the players are best friends. I’m almost certain Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane don’t even know each other’s spouses’ names. Culture balances the football and personal elements of its players to ensure a harmonious atmosphere. Which means even if a player fits the blueprint if they don’t fit the culture a club understands why and is able to either fix the problem or move them on.

This was the case with Zlatan Ibrahimović at Barcelona. He was the seemingly perfect center forward for Guardiola, a target man’s body with generational creativity and flair. Except Ibra wanted to express all of his creativity and flair on the pitch. He didn’t want to be one of Guardiola’s little robot chess pieces that make the same repetitive movements dozens of times a game. He didn’t want to drive his company car to training he wanted to drive his Ferrari. Ibra ended up going to Milan, where he played as wildly and incredibly as he does at his best and Guardiola won the Champions League.

Sir Alex Ferguson (left) at his unveiling press conference on Nov. 7, 1986.

The individual changes that a manager implements to a club’s culture don’t directly lead to wins, but they do create unity—essential for a team sport. Arsenal didn’t win more games because Wenger installed round tables in the dining room so no one would be able to sit at the head of the table. When Sir Alex overhauled United’s local scouting team when he first joined it was, in part, in the hopes of finding the next Bobby Charlton but, just as much, because he hated losing out on Mancunian talent to Man City.

What makes a manager a visionary isn’t just that they want to build an identity but that they know the metaphorical building materials they need to do it. If you want to build a home you need concrete, timber, and dry wall. But the difference between building a Bluth model home or an Andrew Lloyd Weber masterpiece is the guy who put them all together.

Stability

When a manager establishes an identity, it provides the club with something to lean on over the course of the normal ups and downs of winning and losing that defines sports. Stability is the foundation our castle is built on. If they’re solid they make damages to our home worth fixing, whether it’s a broken window, a caved in roof, or a collapsed floor.

Managers with visions offer stability because they overcome the lows and provide a consistency to the highs. These might seem like the same but they’re slightly different. The former understands that disappointment is part of the journey, not it’s end, and the latter avoids complacency within an organization.

Man U need a manager with a vision because in the last nine years too often have defeats been treated like an abyss from which there’s no climbing out of, not like a regular occurrence in sports. This happens when a team has nothing to cling to other than results.

Pep Guardiola kisses the runners-up medal after Manchester City lost the 2021 Champions League final 1-0 to Chelsea.

Pep Guardiola’s Man City lost the 2021 Champions League final as favorites, a crushing defeat for any team. This year City is the favorite for the Champions League and currently first in the Premier League. Their manager’s vision makes them believe that 99 times out of 100 they can beat any opposition. So, even if that one loss happens to be in the Champions League final Man City can’t wait for the next 99 games.

In the past Manchester United depended on Sir Alex’s vision of a team built on youth academy products to overcome disappointing individual results. After losing 3-1 to Aston Villa on the first matchday of the 1995-96 season Ferguson was criticized for playing too many young players—the infamous “you can’t win anything with kids” game. But Ferguson knew that one loss wasn’t enough to discredit his vision of a club that offered clear pathways to the first team for academy players. So, he played the kids and won the double. A single loss wouldn’t reduce the team’s likelihood of success, abandoning his vision would.

Ferguson is also the best example of how a vision leads to consistent success once properly implemented. In the 23 years between his first trophy—the 1990 FA Cup—and his retirement—in 2013—Ferguson won 37 trophies. The world class players he attracted with lucrative contracts, no doubt, deserve credit. But they were designer furniture in a house built on unshakeable foundations. Designer furniture looks great but it won’t keep you warm if the roof is caved in.

Sir Alex Ferguson (before he was actually Sir) in his office in 1986. Peep how big his initials are on that crew neck.

Since its last trophy in 2017 Man U has spent $813 million on player transfers. Which indicates a successful commercial vision that provides the club with funds to spend even if it lacks a footballing vision to guide those expenditures. Imagine if Gasperini at Atalanta or Pochettino at Tottenham had had those funds available. If they’d been able to get the best possible players to interpret the roles needed for their visions of football. Those two managers lacked Man U’s level of financial resources and were still able to deliver a consistency of highs, even if they were measured on a different scale.

Before Pochettino, Tottenham had only ever finished top four in the Premier League twice. In five years, he did it four times. Before Gasperini, Atalanta’s best season in the Serie A was in 1948…they finished fifth. Since he’s been in charge Atalanta have bettered that finish four times, including three consecutive third place finishes. With their respective visions, Pochettino and Gasperini, reduced the distance between their club’s talent and their performances.

the future

Man U needs a visionary manager because it’s history and tradition will inevitably lead them back to the silverware they’re so accustomed to. Their status as one of the world’s biggest clubs and their deep pockets will ensure that star players join the club. In the meantime, United needs to remember that it never won because of its stars or its spending; it won because it committed itself to a set of ideals. So far, the club has been generous with money, but it’s been stingy with something more valuable: time. It needs to offer the next manager time so that they will, as Pochettino said about his time at Spurs, “feel free to create something special”. Time will free Man U’s next manager instead of shackling him to results. The history and tradition at Old Trafford will take care of those.