Disunited

It should be pointed out, that over the last 70 years or so, Manchester United have only been a great side under two managers. For the remainder of the time, they made up numbers in the league, won a cup or two. But also got relegated.

Sir Matt Busby created two great United sides, won the League and European Cup, but also oversaw slump soon after winning the European Cup.

He managed UNited, according to Wikki, from 1945 to 1969, so 24 years, and yet has a win percentage of only just over 50%.

After Busby left, United finished 8th, 8th, 18th then 21st and were relgated.

After promotion back to the top tier in 1975, they finished 3rd, 6th, 10th, 9th, 2nd, 8th, 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 4th, 4th. At that point, Alex Ferguson was appointed, and in his first season they dropped to an 11th finish.

Then 2nd, 12th, 13th, 6th and 2nd.

Since arriving at Old Trafford, Ferguson had rebuilt all aspects of the club, from scouting schoolbys to recruitment, coaching and developing young professionals.

In the 1992/93 season, they won the title, the first Premier League title.

Ferguson retired at the end of the 2012/13 season, putting Ferguson's choice, David Moyes as replacement. That lasted ten months.

Then came Louis van Gaal. He stayed two years, with a win percentage of over 52% and won the FA Cup in his last game, but was still fired.

José Mourinho took over, the same summer as Pep Guardiola was made Manchester City manager. It seemed we were in for a Battle Royale. But The Chosen One only lasted 144 games and a little over two years.

Ole Gunnar Solskjær was made manager, despite having no real record of managing a top flight team, has last also two and a half years winning 54% of games.

Ralf Rangnick was made interim manager. He had had a quiet career as a coach, and had been one of the architechts behind the high press that most teams now play, so the appointment made sense. But he was no manager of players. Or ones with egos, and left at the end of the season, going on to transform the Austrian national side.

And then came Ten Hag who was fired today.

What is the point of this post, then? Well, to point out that in the 80 years since the War, only two managers had any real success at Old Trafford, and between then they account for 50 of those 8 years, and both had period when they didn't win any trophies. So, Manchester United winning things wasn't the natural way of things, and Ferguson's run of trophies from 1993 onwards really has been the exception.

United were warned that Ferguson was going to retire, he changed his mind but did step down a few years later, so United should have been prepared. But cleary were not.

The choice of Moyes was Ferguson's, but the picks since were all by the club's management structure. Choices that as the years went by, go no better. Neither did their recruitment of players since Ferguson left, hundreds of millions of pounds spent with few cups to show for it. Meanwhile, Pep had lead the Noisy Neighbours to glory year after year.

The same structure that appoint the succession of average managers and results since 2013 will be the same that appoints the next, with little real chance of the club getting it right. Ineos are now in charge of the footballing side, if they have a say, will they get it right? Maybe, maybe not. They didn't do well in cycling this year, so the omens are not good. Looking at this year's record in cycling for Ineos, its not good either. Maybe they took their eye off the ball to manage UNited, in which case that didn't work, but in total, the once mighty Sky/Ineos team won just 14 stages in the whole of 2014, and none of them in a Grande Tour.

Ineos cannot wave a magic wand and make it all better.

Uniteds hiring and firing and spaffing over a billion quid on players shows that profligacy is no guarantee of success, and ends up frustrating players and creating a series of part-built squads that each manager was over-hauling.

And now that process starts again.

Probably with the same result.