Manchester United's Champions League exit to Atletico Madrid was the icing on a pretty terrible cake for the fanbase this season. Many had accepted it would be an uphill battle to compete after the dismissal of the Ole Gunnar Solskjaer but, as football fans, the hope always has to be there.
The defeat has resulted in outrage online from fans and former United players alike. And in the post-match show on BT Sport, Rio Ferdinand, Paul Scholes and Owen Hargreaves all gave their thoughts. Scholes was the most vocal, continuing down a similar line of analysis that he has taken up over the past few months.
He said: “How [Ralf Rangnick] was chosen to be manager of this club, I don’t know. Getting a proper coach for this team is a massive thing. There is some real talent in this squad."
READ MORE: Paul Scholes tells Manchester United how they can challenge for trophies again
The former United midfielder then went on to say: "You need a manager that strikes fear into players, Sir Alex Ferguson had that, have any of the managers since him had that? I don’t think so. It’s a special talent to have as a coach.
"Those Man City players under Pep [Guardiola], those Liverpool players under [Jurgen] Klopp, they’ll get away with nothing. These players here for the last two or three years have got away with murder. I’m not saying they’ll catch Man City or Liverpool, but I don’t think they’re far away from Chelsea, squad-wise, but once they get that right coach and have two or three years to build, they’ll be challenging again."
The issue here is that Scholes is projecting the aura that these two managers have now onto them when they first started their projects. Some fans had their doubts in Guardiola's first season, and Klopp was not considered an elite coach by others when he joined Liverpool despite his title wins with Borussia Dortmund.
There is no elite coach available that can be the magic bullet for United and even then it would be highly unlikely they succeed with this current crop of players. This squad has been constructed by a combination of five managers and every player has at least had an attempt made by Solskjaer and Rangnick to tactically mould them.
United tried the elite coach to fix it all with Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho and, while they won silverware, there was no long term planning or sustained success. There needs to be a cultural reset from top to bottom to solve a number of issues before a manager is even put in place and then there are more to solve after.
Scholes suggested if Diego Simeone was in the United dressing room they wouldn't have lost, but that is missing the point. The Argentine would need a completely different team to achieve the result.
When the club appoints a new manager they need to go all-in, backing him with every player he needs within reason and putting the staff in place to achieve his goals. Otherwise, that trophy in three years will quickly become five, then a decade will have passed and no one will be able to recognise the husk of this once-great club.
Sign up to our United newsletter so you never miss an update from Old Trafford this season.
