There has been a storm brewing at Manchester United for some time now. And not just the one that penetrated the roof of Old Trafford on Sunday.
This storm is more of a metaphorical one.
when Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013, I don’t think anyone expected it to be smooth sailing by any means. However, I do not believe anyone anticipated the issues that have arisen in the past 11 years.
United, at least from my perspective, seem to find themselves in a constant civil-culture war. With one foot in the past and one foot in the future.
Not knowing whether to stick to their old methods that saw the Red Devils win 13 Premier League titles under Ferguson or move into the future and adopt methods like that of their city rivals Manchester City.
This extends to the dugout, where they have found no consistent answer to their woes.
This season has been no different as Erik Ten Hag, after a rather successful first season at the helm, which saw United finish third and win their first trophy since 2017, it would appear the wheels have well and truly fallen off.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe recently bought 27.7% of the club and has been given complete control of the footballing operations at the club.
The new owner has shown how serious he is about succeeding by hiring some of the most revered names at boardroom level in the sport.
Ratcliffe will take no prisoners and will do everything he can to make sure United become the juggernaut they once were.
His biggest decision is whether to keep Ten Hag at the club or move him on and bring in someone new.
With that in mind here are five potential managers to take Manchester United into next season and potentially beyond.
Now without a doubt, this season has been an absolute disaster for United. They are currently on course for their lowest finish in the Premier League era and admittedly Ten Hag is starting to sound like a desperate man in interviews, seemingly blaming anything but himself.
But is he wrong?
He often cites the injury issues the club have faced this season, and the list truly is unbelievable. So many first-team regulars have had prolonged periods on the sidelines.
That has meant the Dutchman has had to play many players out of position.
Manchester United have long been a club with an emphasis on bringing academy players through, and Ten Hag has upheld that tradition.
He has the ability to bring youngsters in and bed them into the first team seamlessly.
His work last season should not be forgotten either. He turned the club around and brought something resembling the good times back, if only for the season.
It’s hard to quantify this, but he does give off the aura of a Manchester United manager.
He has rules and they are for everyone to follow.
On multiple occasions, he has publicly called players out and kept them in line, those players have included Cristiano Ronaldo, Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford.
Whether you agree with how he handled those situations is irrelevant, he has rules and players must abide by them.
One thing that goes against him is the recruitment.
It must be said, his track record when it comes to bringing players into the club has been poor.
Players have either not performed or spent much of the time injured.
The likelihood of Ten Hag being their next season is low, but I do feel, that should his time at Old Trafford come to an end, it will be only the beginning of his ultimate success as an elite-level manager and I'm sure he would have no problems finding another high-level job.
A few weeks ago, Thomas Tuchel announced that he was to leave Bayern Munich at the end of the season after failing to win the Bundesliga.
Tuchel is quickly gathering a reputation of something an elite-level journeyman.
But I think that at Manchester United, he could truly find where he belongs.
The Old Trafford faithful have been looking for someone whom they can put their trust in and someone who is truly a born winner.
The German exudes the feeling of Manchester United. He is charismatic, a leader and is as tactically astute as anyone.
His already impressive CV should show Ratcliffe that he is more than capable of managing an elite team and personalities. He has won leagues in multiple countries and has a Champions League winners medal to his name.
For anyone who doubts his ability to rebuild a side, they need to look no further than the job he did at Chelsea.
He came into a side looking void of confidence and looking like they did not know left from right.
By the end of that campaign, he guided them into the top four and won Chelsea their second Champions League.
No doubt this job at United will be a rebuild job, Tuchel would be the perfect candidate for that.
Feelings towards Graham Potter are somewhat mixed after his disastrous spell at Chelsea, but is it fair to judge him on that?
Before being appointed at Chelsea, Potter was considered the golden child of English coaching and had already been anointed as the next England manager by many.
The Brighton team he’d developed were simply sensational and were debatably the most pleasing team to watch in the league.
Potter went into a system at Brighton that was largely driven by data and analytics and achieved enormous success.
Jim Ratcliffe comes from the world of cycling, a sport that is heavily reliant on data, maybe more so than any other sport.
There’s a good chance that mindset and those ideas will be brought into the Theatre of Dreams, and Potter would be suited for it.
The argument against his appointment is two-fold. He has spent a year out of the game now, which might not seem like that much, but football (especially elite-level football) is always evolving and moving, if you are to spend too long out of the game the ideas that were once seen as revolutionary can now be seen as out-of-dated.
The second point against him has already been referenced, his time at Chelsea.
While you cannot blame what happened during his tenure in West London solely on him, it does not change the fact that he was the man in charge.
Up to this point, this has been Potter’s only time in charge of a traditional “big team” and it was an unmitigated catastrophe.
We don’t know if that’s because Potter simply isn’t a top-level manager or if circumstances were too much at Chelsea.
If reports are to be believed, he has turned numerous job opportunities down over the past few months, some of which seemed like interesting prospects.
Maybe he has his mind fixated on a different job somewhere else.
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Sebastian Hoeneß
Without a doubt the rouge option on this list, but is that such a bad thing?
Hoeneß is the current head coach at VFB Stuttgart, who with one game to go in the Bundesliga sit third in the league two points behind Bayern Munich.
He has led them to the Champions League for the first time since the 2009-10 season.
If Bayer Leverkusen had not pulled off the miracle season they have, then there would be much more chat about Hoeneß and what he has managed to achieve this season.
Like current Manchester United manager Erik Ten Hag, Hoeneß was the Bayern Munich II coach for a season where he won the 3.Liga title,
Having only watched snippets of this Stuttgart team, I may not be the most qualified to talk about their tactics, but some excellent analysis by the good people over at The Football Analyst indicate he is a shrewd operator.
They liken his build-up play to Roberto De Zerbi’s Brighton. They like to start from the back, invite the press and draw the opposition out. Hoeneß also targets the half spaces between centre-backs and full-backs.
He seems to be at the forefront of young German managers, but maybe that is part of the issue for him.
At the age of 41, he is still an incredibly young coach who only has three years of Bundesliga experience.
Hiring him would be a risky strategy, but it could potentially be worth that risk, should he carry on the trajectory he is currently on.
There have been a lot of rumours circulating that Ratcliffe is incredibly interested in bringing the current England manager to Old Trafford.
Southgate has overseen the national team for nearly eight years now and it’s hard to picture in any setting other than that of England.
The idea of Southgate taking to the Old Trafford dugout has been met with mixed reactions, maybe even leaning towards that of a negative feeling.
But is this such a bad idea?
I know the difference between managing a national team and a club team is stark, but it is worth remembering the state of England’s team and mentality when he came into the job.
They were in disarray and lacked leadership. While England doesn’t have anything tangible to show their progress, the nation’s relationship with the team is testament to the job Southgate has done.
He has developed a whole culture around the side and developed a whole new attitude to playing for your country.
If any club requires something like that, it’s Manchester United.
The relationship between United fans and the club has soured over the past decade, with fans feeling more and more distant from the club as the years go by.
Southgate could very well be the perfect person to bind the two back together again.
The obvious flaw in Southgate becoming United manager would be his lack of tactical acumen.
He is often criticised for being too conservative and not being willing to take the handbrake off, but again would that be so bad?
United are currently sat in eight with a negative goal difference.
Having someone who can bring consistency and discipline to the side might not be the worst idea, even if fans maybe want someone slightly more exciting.
