Why would Man Utd appoint Thomas Tuchel, the ‘German Jose Mourinho’?

Thomas Tuchel is the favourite for the Man Utd job but the fans don’t want him. Plus, thoughts on Tottenham and VAR.

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Tommy T for Man Utd? No thanks
Is Thomas Tuchel any good? Is he a successful manager? Is he what Man United may need?

A look at his resume would shout yes. He is considered one of the finer coaches of the modern era, known for his tactical nous. Three league titles, one Champions League victory, 1 CL final loss and 7 other career cup wins, as well as a UEFA coach of the year award all signal to a premier manager.

But on closer inspection, there always seems to be something wrong. Hired by a certain Ralf Rangnick as a youth coach at Stuttgart, he won the U19 Bundesliga, before leaving after a personality clash – something that would become a running theme. He then took over Augsburg II, and coached a certain player-come-coach in Julian Nagelsmann. This then brought him to Mainz, where he would secure a mid-table finish, and then into Europe the following year. After the next season went poorly, he asked to resign.

His next leap was to replace the unknown Jurgen Klopp at Dortmund. He would finish second in his first year, and win a cup in his second, before leaving three days later having a strained relationship with the board, being described as a “difficult person”.

His success there caught the eyes of PSG, with whom he would go on to win his first league title. He would also lose the final 3 league games of the season, and be defeated on penalties vs Rennes in the cup final. His following season went much better; achieving a domestic treble, and a loss in the CL final to Bayern, 1-0. He would last until December later that year before being fired – again – with his attitude in question – again. With Director Leanardo stating “Tuchel [must] respect the people above [him]”, and labelled the comments as damaging for the club.

This then brought him to Chelsea the following January. In Roberto Di Matteo style, he would take them to the CL final, and win 1-0 vs Man City. He also met them a few days prior, in the FA Cup final, but were defeated 1-0. He then won the UEFA Super Cup, and World Club Cup final the next season, before going on to lose the LC final to LFC, and then later losing the FA Cup final to the same side 3 months later.

Under new ownership, Tuchel went on to spend a record 250M that coming summer following Roman’s removal. He would then be sacked – again – that coming September. Boehly reportedly described Tuchel as a “nightmare” to deal with on recruitment to a Premier League executive. Tuchel had also fallen out with and isolated several first team players.

Forever falling successfully forwards, he would land the head coach role at Bayern Munich in March the following year – replacing a familiar Julian Nagelsmann. He would fortunately win the league title due to Dortmund failing to win on the final day of the season. They then heavily invested in his signings(100M Harry Kane), and were one game from yet another CL final. In the league however, they have been atrocious. Currently 15 points behind the league leader & Champions Leverkusen. This, their first title loss in 11 years. Very surprisingly, the leadership at Bayern informed him he will be gone at the end of the season – in mid-season – and despite few options to replace him, he is not considered to stay on.

Yet again, his attitude towards players is questioned, as were his pragmatic style of play. His relationship with the directors was poor, and transfer issues remain once more. He himself admitted he is “not the only problem”.

So would this work for Man United? I reckon absolutely not. He seems like the German Jose Mourinho. Pragmatic, difficult, a constant complainer, yet, with pedigree in winning trophies and reaching finals. A man who wants transfer control, yet ignores his many duds (95M Lukaku). At United, his style of play would eventually be criticized, players would be ostracized, and he would leave under another very familiar cloud of disrespect. The media would be all over him the minute things did not work out, and he has thus far shown he couldn’t handle this. Yes, he may win a trophy, but it would take massive investment and patience, and almost certainly end in no more than 3 years.

So, no thanks Thomas Tuchel. If the United board were wise, they would agree with the same. It would be another short term move, one that will end almost the same as Jose’s did, but most likely with less silverware, but just as much misery. Once that’s been branded, it’s off to Roma to loan in Lukaku.
Calvino (Has there ever been a manager to fall forward so successfully? He’s like the Choupo-Moting of managers.)

MORE ON MAN UTD’S MANAGER SEARCH FROM F365:
👉 Tuchel still favourite for Man Utd job after inevitable Ten Hag sack despite CL cock-up
👉 Exclusive: Meulensteen expects Man Utd to sack Ten Hag as he picks ‘two reasons’ to sell players

…So, bring on a defender of dubious quality to see out the last 10 minutes of a game that was already going to plan, substitute your most creative and dangerous players in the last couple of minutes and promptly concede twice when it is too late to do anything about it.

Right out of the Erik Ten Hag playbook, that one.

Alphonso Davies definitely passed his audition, but I’m not sure that Tommy did …
ET King (MUFC)

Sack the players, not the manager
As a Man United Fan, It has been an awful season for fans watching us losing matches at home to all teams like it is business As USUAL. Haven’t these players any pride or sense of belonging?. Where do they get the gall to insubordinate the Manager? In the corporate sector for people who earn much less that these players, performance appraisals are aligned to output. Period. NOT who likes you!!!!

Why pay a salary to a man who has “0” output or commitment like Rashford or Martial? Why are we so desperate to suffer fools for these players?

As for sacking Ten Hag, I think that will be the most stupid decision United will make. We change managers like underwear YET the players remain behind to earn their top weekly wages even when they deliver -0.

I believe these players need to be read the riot act and that their pay must be aligned with their work ethic & output. As for now, they are operating on weekly blank cheques at the expense of the club.
John Gitonga

📣TO THE COMMENTS! Who is the right man for Man Utd? Is it still Erik ten Hag? Join the debate here

Blaming the Glazers
Hello to all you reactionary reds on here, I thought I would write in with my thoughts on what is going on at United. I’m not sure if anyone watched the Jim Ratcliffe program where he did a sort of undercover boss thing at OT?

Well he basically went around seeing what an absolute shit show we currently are, food left all over the place, people not knowing what to do, stuff just left to rot etc, what I’m getting at is that this all rests squarely on the Glazers heads, they don’t care about United one bit, they don’t care that everything is collapsing because they are still syphoning off millions from the club.

Now if you are at work and your boss doesn’t give a flying f*ck about anything why should you bust a gut for them, the same can be said for the players at United, they see the Glazers not giving a shit about anything as long as they get their pound of flesh and they think, why should I bust a gut every week on the pitch if they don’t care?

It all starts at the top and until will get those parasites out then nothing will change and players like Rashford, Sancho, Anthony etc will carry on thinking they can just turn up take the money and bugger off because that’s exactly what their bosses do. The sooner Ratcliffe takes full control the better.
Paul Murphy, Manchester

A sensible mail from across Manchester
Just some thoughts from a long-term local City fan on the Manchester United issue.

Manchester United are one of the biggest clubs in the world, incredibly well funded and a glamorous team to play for. They have the ability to pay top whack and top wages to secure some of the best talents in the world. They are a danger to our ongoing success in the medium and long term.

The only time that United have worried me as challengers in the post Ferguson era was under Mourinho. Mourinho quickly identified the various squad and social issues at the club, and ultimately the board decided to go with the players rather than the manager – players that they later sold for the exact issues that Mourinho identified.

I am not one of those fans who enjoys the schadenfreude aspect of their local rivals being rubbish. Firstly, it’s better for the economy in my
area if United are playing high profile matches and bringing in tourists. Having Manchester become the home of two (or even several) top clubs challenging for top honours would be good for Manchester as a whole as is the investment that people like Shiekh Mansour brought to the area and Radcliffe seems to be planning around Old Trafford.

More importantly though, seeing your mates and family members depressed and frustrated and hopeless about such an important aspect of their life isn’t really fun after the initial “bantz”.

When City were midtable as I grew up or in the mid to late 90s were bouncing around, football wasn’t particularly fun because United used to beat us twice a year and we were so far apart. Where’s the fun in beating a clearly inferior side?

Both sets of fans used to reminisce of the 60s/70s where City had Lee, Bell, Summerbee et al and United had Best, Law, Charlton because we used to go toe to toe with champagne football (and then in the case of Best and Summerbee, champagne piss ups together too!). 2011/12 season confirmed how much more satisfying this was with a last minute winner in the league to snatch the title away from United. It’s much more fun as a City fan to see the best United team possible, with all their power and glory, and then still beat them. No excuses or anywhere to hide there like they have now.

Due to this, I’d like ETH to go. I don’t believe he has the pedigree or the talent to build a truly competitive squad or the in game management decisions against the elite coaches. He came in with a philosophy of play that he has consistently abandoned and he has had numerous discipline issues within the squad that later became public, often from people not known for discipline issues in their career. I think he’s a good coach but not a great one.

Perhaps I’m a nostalgic boomer but when I think of Manchester United, I think of clubs such as Real Madrid. They are an English equivalent and their standards should be similar. No matter how bad the ownership, the squad issues, or any other presence, I don’t accept that 2 cup finals and an ECL finish is “decent enough” for ETH to keep his job at that club.

He would be hounded out at Real Madrid or Bayern Munich or Juventus or any of the super elite clubs. I’m not sure why Manchester United are different? How can they accept these falls in standards?

Remembering a one-off 40 year old decision around Ferguson and Mark Robins while ignoring the other thousands of times that managers have been kept on for future promise seems foolish. Or to spin that same logic around, is the presumption that given the same length of time at United as Ferguson, then ETH would achieve the same or similar? Because if not then the “keep him because Fergie needed time” doesn’t work as an argument.

In my own career, I’ve always tried to live by the philosophy that you can’t sack people for making a mistake or two mistakes or ten mistakes. You sack them because you believe that they make mistakes in the future and those mistakes will cost you money or reputation.

Every year Manchester United are not in the Champions League knockout stages is a year where somebody is costing them both money and reputation. There is a new executive team in place who seem like talented people given their CV. Not quite sure if there’s too many cooks in that United kitchen now between the Glazers, INEOS, Berrada, Ashworth and the rest but if they can decide properly who is in charge then they’ve got a good chance.

I don’t see how ETH can fit into this. The talk around him is toxic and he has to share blame for the failures along with any others.

The question always falls to “if not ETH then who?”. This seems like a poor question. There are numerous managers out there who would love to work for Manchester United and all share a similar philosophy of play that ETH abandoned so could use that part of the squad effectively without the baggage of ETH.

Change seems the only reasonable option. Even with an FA Cup win, it would be wasting another season and papering over the cracks.
Paul, Manchester

Tottenham need players who don’t sh*t the bed
Tottenham’s season, which is far from defined as of yet, has been a bit of a sh*t sandwich.

The common word is that we started far better than anyone could have expected, players, coaches, board and certainly the fans. Did this start, and the good will around the club alter expectations? I think it certainly played into the trap of ‘what if’s’ but no right-minded person had any thoughts at that time of anything other than pressing for top four, which, in essence, is exactly what happened.

The fact that we’ve benefitted from other clubs being batshit mental for much of the season shouldn’t detract from the fact that Spurs weren’t remotely considered for top five – and we really ought to be doing enough in two of our final three matches to make that certain (f*** beating City!). So the season should be considered a success.

The frustration comes from knowing that much of the negative felt self-imposed. A tweak to tactics in the final few minutes away at Wolves makes it nine wins from twelve but instead turned into two defeats on the spin. But every team has these. Ours just feel frustratingly frequent.

Now is the time (yawn, again) when Levy and his scouting department have to give Ange the goods. I can’t be arsed to name all the players who should/could leave, there are many, or those I’d like to see join – mostly because I don’t know enough of European football anymore (that said, domestically, Eze is a joyful player but Palace could well do good things next season) but I will say that we’ve got the nucleus of a good team which needs supplementing with some players who aren’t wimps, and don’t sh*t the bed when the opposition decide to have a go.

I wrote in a while back saying similar but that we’ll probably finish seventh, I don’t think that is possible anymore, or is highly unlikely, so thank you United and, despite the upturn, Chelsea for making us look way more competent that we have been.
Dan Mallerman

READ: Angeball can only succeed if Spurs go all in this summer – but has Postecoglou done enough?

Slots of reasons to be optimistic
Has anyone used the phrase “The Slot Machine” yet?

If not can I claim it here?

It’s pretty much what I’m basing my optimism for the next few years on at Liverpool.

That and Arne sounds like Arnie (The Terminator) can I claim that one too?

Thanks, just getting my speak in.
Dave LFC

Don’t flag and support VAR
Can every fan, player, pundit, and commentator that’s ever complained about delayed offside flags and disingenuously brought up how “one of these days someone’s gonna get injured” kindly shut the f**k up, now? People CLEARLY care more about game-changing goals, and rightly so.

I’ve supported delayed flags since VAR has been a thing and so should everybody else. By the way, I didn’t want Bayern to progress, so this isn’t coming from a team bias perspective. Annoyingly, I still see immediate flags get whistled in the Premier League when the replay shows it was the wrong decision, or at the very least the linesman was guessing.

Oh, and just let me say, last night showed precisely why VAR IS a good thing for the game. But, please, let’s have more mails and opinion pieces on why it’s the tools and not the workman who is ruining the game. Kmt.
Simon, Norf London Gooner