The Sports Buff ⚽️ ⚾️ 🏈

Hello, good morning sports fans, I hope you’re well, looking after yourselves and are in good health. Football fans, we need to talk about football managers.

The life of a football manager can be a thankless task. If his team is doing great, then surely that’s down to the talent of his players.

If his team is doing badly, is that then the sign of players who are not good enough? No, it’s the manager who isn’t coaching them correctly.
Of course, my last statement comes with a big serving of sarcasm.

As much as the job of a football manager is a thankless one, the football world rightly recognises modern managers such as Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola as elite managers.

It’s not just based on the titles they have won in the different countries, what makes me say that, it’s the fact they have done what they’re paid to do, coach people.

In the case of both Pep and Klopp, they have coached players to turn them into even better players.

Let me explain, in the case of Liverpool I am adamant that under the German, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson are world beaters.
Ex-Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson’s game under the former Dortmund manager also improved by leaps and bounds.

Good managers, manage squads and manage people. Pep Guardiola, City’s most successful manager this century, has spent a lot of money, yes, but look at the players who have blossomed under him.

The most impressive examples of Pep’s magic are John Stones and Raheem Sterling.

In the case of the former Everton man, he faced some very fierce criticism, but what did he do he managed them both superbly.

Before Sterling left, Guardiola turned him into a Messi 2.0. I am exaggerating, but the former Barca man brought an ice-cold element to the now-Chelsea forward’s finishing.

In the case of Stones, Pep turned him into an elite number six, even though John Stones by trade is a ball-playing centre-back.

So it’s fair to say Liverpool and Man City’s managers deserve credit. After factoring all this into account, I offer you a different perspective, one where a football manager isn’t doing what he gets paid for.

It may sound harsh for me to say this as current Manchester United manager Erik Ten Haag was the most successful Ajax manager of recent times, but his tenure at Old Trafford isn’t going as well as expected.

So, why do I say such a harsh statement, well, as I pointed out that players are improving under Pep and Jurgen, who has improved under ETH?

Marcus Rashford has regressed this term, and Jadon Sancho and even his star signing, Andre Onana has been very shaky.

Anthony is another player, a marquee signing, who has seen his progress stutter and is indeed getting worse.

It’s a short-sighted view it might be, but the constant selecting of Onana when he clearly needs to be taken out of the firing line.

A back-to-basics approach is needed, if that doesn’t work play the kids! Kobee Mainoo and Hannibal have shown fight to be a Man United player.
Food for thought Erik?

Ten Haag is here for the long haul it seems, but he needs to back to the fundamentals. Players don’t seem like they want to run through walls for him.

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