There is only one course of action open to Manchester United. Appoint the best coach available. Antonio Conte would appear to be that man. Conte has won the Premier League with Chelsea competing against Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp. Since United are not going to prise those alphas from Manchester City or Liverpool then Conte it must be.
There is no room for sentiment here. There was none shown by Mo Salah as he impaled United on his magic boots. There will be none shown by Spurs, yes Spurs, the team United visit next and who, despite wrestling with their own failings, sit one point above them in the Premier League table, not to mention City and Chelsea, November’s hellish bookends.
Forget DNA and other myths that cling to United. The club’s best interests are not served by rewarding Ole Gunnar Solskjaer with one more second out of some misconceived sense of tradition. It beggars belief that Gary Neville should talk Conte down as not the right fit – what does that even mean? – while arguing in favour of Solskjaer until the season’s end. That stuff is for mystics and fortune tellers.
Neville is too entrenched in United think, a way of seeing that is rapidly losing relevance in a world spinning on the Pep-Klopp axis. There used to be a Liverpool way of doing things, symbolised by the old Boot Room. Where is it now? Bulldozed to accommodate the future.
There used to be a City way too, a tragi-comedy unfolding haplessly in the shadow of the global power that United once were. The arrival of the petro-dollar changed that dynamic for ever and United have yet to adapt.
It is no argument to claim United tried the big dog option. Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho had been innovators, ahead of the curve as the jargon goes. The heat had gone from both by the time they arrived at Old Trafford. Van Gaal talked of United as a three-year project. Speak to Thomas Tuchel about that. Tuchel transformed Chelsea from shapeless rabble shredded by Manchester City in the first week of January to Champions League winners against the same foe in the space of five months. No coach sacked twice by Chelsea, as Mourinho was, can claim to be anything other than beyond use at this level.
Van Gaal and Mourinho were men out of their time. Solskjaer is out of his depth. He was a romantic punt, a former player held in great affection who had coached successfully in Norway either side of a disastrous spell at Cardiff. There was no hinterland beyond that. It wasn’t required since he was appointed only in the caretaker role. The tracksuit carried no weight in that scenario and off he went at a gallop, the bounce back as much to do with Mourinho’s absence as Solskjaer’s presence. Persuaded by a run of 14 wins in 19 matches the United hierarchy upgraded his station to permanent manager on a three-year deal.
There have been periods during his tenancy when United have convinced. He can point to progress in the league, improving year on year to second last season. He steered the club to a league record 29 away games unbeaten, though that must come with an asterisk since it occurred during a crowdless pandemic, which corrupted the conditions and reduced home advantage to a minimum.
There have also been stress points when form has crashed and he has fallen back on the old mythologies, romantic guff about United making things unnecessarily hard in order to sweeten the eventual triumph. The narrative is peppered with references to the club’s DNA, the “United way”, echoing an aural tradition that has stripped the club of critical thinking.
This is the age of metrics and applied science. There is a measure for anything and everything, a bank of windowless rooms full of worthy data analysts delivering new perspectives on the beautiful game. The information flow is not infallible, of course, otherwise Donny van de Beek would not be a United player. But for every DVB there is a KDB and a VVD, not to mention a Sadio Mane and Salah.
Neville’s dismissal of Conte on the basis of woolly thinking about suitability is so last century. Neville’s instincts for the game and the space occupied by United developed as the club’s last great period was coming into being under Emperor Fergie, when power resided absolutely in the hands of one man. The nostalgia for how things were clouds the picture of how things are. United are a club seemingly stuck in the analogue age, typical of legacy institutions slow to adapt to new technologies and methodologies.
Solskjaer talks of building something, a project in keeping with the club’s traditions. Wrong. There isn’t time for that. City and Chelsea changed the rules of engagement. Liverpool, 25 years in United’s shadow, were sufficiently distanced from their own regal past to adapt quickly to the new demands. They didn’t have the same money to waste, but they spent cleverly on the back of a radical vision of how recruitment and coaching works.
Every week spent in Solskjaer’s company increases the chasm between United and those setting the agenda in the club game. Eight defeats in 20 matches, culminating in Sunday’s abysmal retreat, are indefensible. They offer a rising wall of evidence the cannot be ignored. Conte might not be the identikit candidate, but he has the right pedigree, a coach proven in Serie A as well as the Premier League. Solskjaer, meanwhile was a winner at Molde. The case rests.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3jAyOri
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