During the course of this week, Manchester United is going to make a decision regarding the future of Erik ten Hag; however, it appears that Thomas Tuchel is no longer in the race to replace him.
The candidate who was able to show the most impressive curriculum vitae and the most persuasive personality to manage a club of this scale was Thomas Tuchel. He was the one who was the best qualified to succeed Erik ten Hag as the manager of Manchester United.
The fifty-year-old German is a master communicator in both his native language and in English. In two press conferences that took place prior to United’s group stage games against Bayern Munich in the Champions League last season, he spoke exceptionally well. He also shared his thoughts on the similarities and differences between the challenges that come with managing both clubs.
Nevertheless, there is a reason why his application to join yet another “super club” was never really able to get off the ground from the beginning. In point of fact, there are most likely multiple.
The fact that Tuchel led Chelsea to victory in the Champions League in the 2020–21 season was a significant accomplishment; nevertheless, other than that, his honors do not stand out. With Paris Saint-Germain, a couple of league titles that were rather ordinary, and with Bayern Munich, the 2022–23 Bundesliga title, which was more due to Borussia Dortmund’s collapse on the final day of the season than to Bayern’s brilliance.
He has led Bayern to third place in the Bundesliga this season, putting an end to their record of eleven consecutive championships, despite the fact that they signed Harry Kane (36 goals in 32 Bundesliga games) in the summer of last year. The narrative in Germany has been dominated by the brilliance of Bayer Leverkusen, but Tuchel has guided Bayern to a campaign that, in their world, must be remembered as a disappointing one.
There is also the fact that he has a history of having disagreements with the executives of virtually every club where he has worked. His verbal altercation with Uli Hoeness, who serves as the honorary president of Bayern Munich, is just the most recent illustration of his notoriously demanding and irritable personality.
One of the reasons why Tuchel does not typically stick around is because of his nature. Just 61 games are going to be played during his time at Bayern. At Chelsea, he scored exactly 100 goals, while at Paris Saint-Germain, he scored 127 goals. The temperature at Borussia Dortmund was 107. The previous time that Tuchel worked for a period of time that was longer than two and a half years was when he was employed by Mainz for a period of five years, finishing his tenure there in 2014.
He may be a well-known figure, and he is without a doubt the most prominent name on the list of contenders in the event that United decides to fire Ten Hag; yet, this did not make him an obvious choice for the position. Sir Jim Ratcliffe had already warned that this was the case when he pointed out the challenges that some of the other big-name coaches had recently encountered at Old Trafford. Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho are two examples of coaches who have failed at Old Trafford in recent times.
“If you look at the 11 years since David Gill and Sir Alex stepped down, there have been a whole series of coaches, some of whom were very good, and none of them have been successful or survived for very long,” Ratcliffe said to reporters.
This is now about a collaborative structure for Ineos, which is something else that Ineos alluded at when Ratcliffe spoke when his minority investment was approved in February, signaling that he was dissatisfied with the authority that Ten Hag possessed.
That means, for example, that they do not have a coach who reports to the chief executive, which is the situation that they are in at the moment. You are going to require the appropriate organizational structure, and that is not going to be too difficult to accomplish.
When it comes to Tuchel, the risk lies in the fact that he has a history of having disagreements with other people. The possibility of him having a disagreement with one of the main individuals behind the scenes at United is something that Ineos does not want to happen, but it is easy to imagine that this could happen. His personality, which is one of the reasons why he is such an interesting character, is also one of the reasons why he is a risky appointment in this kind of system.
It is possible that he was the most appealing candidate to take over the head coach position at Old Trafford this summer; nevertheless, this did not make him the most likely candidate.
“And you couldn’t possibly blame all of the coaches. Your only option is to come to the conclusion that the atmosphere in which they were working was not conducive to their success.
Ratcliffe is aware of the need of ensuring that the environment is conducive to success, which is the reason why Tuchel and Ineos never appeared to be a match made in heaven. Ratcliffe is eager to shake up the football structure at Old Trafford, and he has put a number of prominent individuals to critical jobs in order to do this. The following month, Omar Berrada will begin his role as chief executive officer, Dan Ashworth is scheduled to come as sporting director, and Jason Wilcox has already settled into his position as technical director.
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