The managerial merry-go-round

Flum?

Sun rises, grass grows, Watford sack their manager.

Glass houses, stones, and all that...

Apparently it was someone called Ed Still. If you'd asked me I'd have guessed it was either someone whose biggest success to date was doing moderately OK in Serie B, or a no name Bulgarian who had won the Moldovan Premier League a couple of times.

And it turns out he's the brother of Will, who was somewhat disastrous as manager of Southampton

And he's Belgian and managed mostly through the Belgian leagues, so I wasn't far off. When's the last time they hired a Warnock / Megson / Heckingbottom type of Championship retread cunt? Their strategy of international no-names really doesn't seem to be paying off and they've given it enough chances to.

I don't understand why there's still speculation about who the next Man U manager will be. Carrick is doing a spectacular job and if they don't give him a long term deal they're insane.

I think you've answered your own question. No-one outside the ownership thinks there's really a debate to be had.

Not dissimilar to how Solskjaer started before him? And we know how that turned out in the long run.

I agree they ought to keep him though, if they sort out the recruitment he should do well.

Maybe they don’t think so either. Maybe the reason for the speculation is that a lot of people are paid to speculate.

If he gets the job then we get to see if he’s good at it.. or just enjoying the dividends that nice guys do often get for a few months when they replace disciplinarians… only to then run foul of all the structural issues that led to the disciplinarian being appointed in the first place.

ManYoo will always have cash, be attractive to any player they target, and have first rate youth talent to draw on. The owners really have done well to achieve so much relative mediocrity since Fergie retired.

Yeah but there’s one club whose managerial churn we can take the piss out of and I’m not going to miss the opportunity when it comes around, every fortnight or so.

Regarding Carrick, from the outside he clearly deserves a run at next season but most people would say that about Periera, if he keeps us up, and I’m far from convinced that would be for the best.

Agreed. History is littered with clubs who brought in 'one of their own' to fight a particular fire (often because it provides some temporary air cover for those at the top if the candidate is popular).

Better-run clubs don't then hurry to appoint full-time if there's a better option. Carrick's done brilliantly and might be the real deal - or he could be the next in a long line of Oli Solskjærs and Stuart Pearces.

I struggle with this for several reasons. First, how he could have realistically done any better so far? Second, why do we think someone else (who Marco Silva?) would be any better? Third, I don't want to us to carry on as the crazy club who fires their manager every 4 to 6 months. We have quite the sample of alternatives to compare him to and compared to his predecessors. I loved Nuno but we only seemed to be able to play one way with him, and then we got worked out. Ange is one of the most ill fitting appointments in our history. Dyche was treated very harshly but does not have the tactical versatility.

Vitor has done what none of them could seemingly do and got value out of the whole squad. He has seemingly got us playing in multiple different ways to suit the occasion. He can speak Portuguese. He can build a spirit. He has a track record of winning trophies. He has a track record of handling jobs at big clubs. He is nice bloke. I can't see why we wouldn't want him. Is it just because of Wolves' start to the season? Was that his fault?

Because the job of stabilising a chaotic club mid season when things are going wrong is different from the job of setting up a club up for a successful season. Pereira proved he could do the former at Wolves but when he tried to do the latter it went horribly wrong. Not entirely his fault - the player losses hurt them a lot - but Wolves have improved significantly since he left, which says something.

For what it’s worth, I think he’s done enough that we have to keep him on next season and I still suspect that four managers in a season means we are too damaged goods to attract anyone significantly better. (Silva might be the exception because of his prior relationship with EM.)

Also Pereira’s track record is that he doesn’t stick around anywhere long. Maybe what happened at Wolves is why and he just goes stale for the players really quickly. Is there substance below the chirpy chappy easy fixes persona?