Laurent Blanc.

Originally Posted by Spiffy

We've been bitten before by bigging up ex-United players as managers. I remember publicly asking for Mark Hughes to be installed ASAP and since then he's joined City and been a @#%&! of the highest order.

Blanc seems to have the best chance though as he has a football brain. He could see things before they happened. A bit like Scholes can but Larry is more comfortable with the public persona you need to be a top class manager. Scholesy probably doesn't want the hassle.

You could argue that Robbo, Keane and even Hughes to an extent relied on their technical ability in the game to get to the top. No surprise then that aren't necessarily successful managers. Bruce is the least technically gifted of them all and he's doing alright. To get the position he did (captaining a double winning team) he had to work hard and get in the positions before the player he was marking rather than take it off them like Rio used to.
Blanc relied on his understanding of the game and that has to be the main asset when coaching players.

who did you ask?

Originally Posted by Zorg

Talking of Larrence, I spotted this photo in a shop window down here in Montpellier the other day.

is that Rocky Dennis in nets?

Originally Posted by borsuk

i think they were toe-curlingly dull. mechanical, robotic football all about power and organisation. horrible. all opinions, i suppose, but maureen was genuinely delighted at stifling barca at home (as you said, makes it even worse), which is just shocking tbh, the kind of thing you'd expect from everton or fulham, not the champions of serie a.

Originally Posted by Coracao

I know you don't like Jose, so I won't spend a great deal of time on the issue.

But, I didn't think his Chelsea side were that bad. Certainly nowhere near as bad as Benitez's Liverpool at the time. They were involved in some very good matches when I saw them play. Notably against an excellent Barcelona side on quite a few ocassions. They were certainly nowhere near as negative as Chelsea were last season under Hiddink, a man who many praise for the football his sides play. He came into a club at the time who wanted someone to come in and turn them into a winning side, which Jose achieved. Personally, I didn't find players like Robben and Joe Cole robotic. They were an annoyingly consistent side. But, dull? Not for me.

I actually thought chelsea were pretty entertaining during the days of robben, duff and cole. The negative bit has mainly stayed in mind due to those successive matches against liverpool. chelsea in the first 2 years with him in charge beat us 3-0 once playing superbly. they mainly went shit once robben got injured and shevchenko was brought in which totally changed the way we play. they even won 4-0 at anfield. where as we used to sneak 1-0 wins there by playing a defensive minded team.

I think pretty much every top coach is negative in top european matches ( which is really sad tbh ). I don't think there is much difference between our own approach to the game against barca in 08 in comparison to inters.

with city's takeover now, it becomes even more important for united to be in champions league now. Maybe if fergie stays on for another 4-5 years which give sufficient time for a novice like larry white. If not I don't think you did get anyone better than maureen who would virtually guarentee you a trophy every other year.

he has 2 league titles in italy, 2 in england, a fa cup, carling cup and god knows how many trophies in portugal. he was assistant to bobby robson at barca. so its not like he doesn't know how to get a team to play attacking football.

and there is plus point that scousers absolutely hate him.

I think United's next manager will be Mourinho, if not then I think Blanc has a good chance of getting it.

I think it will be Mourinho though, it would be a high profile appointment, he guarantees success and he has already managed in England, and he'd love to manage United.

Tbh I think he'd be a top manager for United and we'd win loads of trophies under him.

I don't agree with this 'boring' football thing people say about him, with the players he would have at United we'd play to attack and win, let's be honest, we haven't really been entertaining much in the past couple of seasons, have we?

Originally Posted by believe

who did you ask?

It was more of a rhetorical question unless the Glazers come on here.

HTH.