Forget Oliver Glasner: Manchester United's next manager decision should be obvious as Ruben Amorim sacked

It was only just in October that Sir Jim Ratcliffe, part-owner of Manchester United, said in an interview that he intended to give Ruben Amorim “three years” to prove himself at Old Trafford. In the end, he was given just three months.

The axe has now fallen on a reign which never felt right. Amorim’s 3-4-3 system didn’t suit the squad and he never looked like the leadership figure required to get a persistently toxic dressing room back in line. This was a man who steadfastly refused to adjust his tactics in the face of a mountain of evidence that they didn’t work, but who then turned his back on his own players as they were knocked out of the EFL Cup on penalties by Grimsby Town. He had moral fibre in all the wrong places.

Behind the scenes, meanwhile, Ratcliffe and director of football Jason Wilcox apparently conducted an internal review which found that insufficient progress was being made on the pitch – something that a glance at the league table probably could have told them – while Amorim himself seethed about the division of labour between himself and Wilcox. A few frustrated words in a post-match press conference later, and the game was up.

Now, the club find themselves in search of a seventh permanent manager since Sir Alex Ferguson, and reports suggest that Oliver Glasner is the early favourite. But would the Crystal Palace man make sense for Manchester United? And what do they really need to succeed again at long last?

Why Oliver Glasner makes no sense for Manchester United after Amorim’s sacking

The Daily Telegraph led a series of reports on Monday which suggested that Glasner was Manchester United’s “top target” to replace the outgoing Amorim – not that they seem to be looking to appoint their new manager with much urgency.

BBC Sport claim that United would prefer to appoint an interim head coach (not Darren Fletcher, who takes charge against Burnley on Wednesday) before making a permanent appointment in the summer. That would give them the chance to do their due diligence and perhaps make it slightly easier to prise a manager like Glasner away from his current club.

There have been plenty of rumours suggesting that Glasner’s reign at Crystal Palace will end before its time, too, not because Palace want rid of him – they most certainly don’t – but because he himself has become frustrated behind the scenes. Those rumours bubbled up with particular frequency around the end of the summer transfer window, when Glasner objected to his club’s plans to sell Marc Guéhi to Liverpool.

The 51-year-old got his way on that occasion, with Palace pulling the plug on the deal when they failed to sign an appropriate replacement, but it fit a pattern which has carried across Glasner’s career – as impressive as results have been on the pitch, tensions between him and the boards that he works alongside have been a constant problem in London, Germany and in Austria. He is no diplomat, and won’t stand for interference from above.

Palace have, so far, allowed him to have his way for the most part, but if even a pliant club are finding it hard to placate Glasner then one wonders how long it would take for things to boil over behind the scenes at Old Trafford. If Amorim was at all justified in ranting about the fact that he was meant to be a manager rather than a head coach after the 1-1 draw with Leeds United, then it seems unlikely that Glasner, Wilcox and Ratcliffe would make for a happy family.

That doesn’t change the fact that Glasner is evidently an excellent manager with a lengthy track record of over-achievement, but there are other good managers out there who might be a little more willing to toe the line and to leave squad-building to the directors. Other managers who you might be willing to bet on lasting longer than Amorim’s 14 months.

The same consideration should probably steer United way from Enzo Maresca, although if the BBC’s suggestion that the club want an interim manager for the remainder of the season proves true then that suggests that Maresca isn’t on the shortlist anyway. He’s available right now after his own acrimonious departure from Chelsea, but the similarities between the ways in which Maresca’s relationship with his former employers broke down and the ways in which Amorim found himself on the out at Old Trafford suggest that employing Maresca would represent jumping from one frying pan to another.

What Manchester United need in their next manager

Manchester United need a diplomat to start with, someone who can handle interference and overreach from the board with quiet grace and who won’t fly off the handle in public when frustrations come to the surface. But that isn’t the only requirement.

They need a coach who has a proven track record of improving young players have invested so heavily in players like Leny Yoro, Benjamin Šeško and Patrick Dorgu, and it’s worth noting that Glasner’s handling of young players was questioned at Eintracht Frankfurt with talented youngsters often benched and left underdeveloped during his tenure.

Unied probably also need a coach who’s happy to play 4-3-3, or who at least has the tactical flexibility to work out how to adapt his methods to United’s squad. Under Amorim, there was a massive disconnect between what his players could do and what he wanted them to. He had midfielders who were at their best operating in condensed spaces and asked them to cover huge tracts of land in a two-man system instead. No wonder it was such a mess on the pitch for so long.

So a coach whose style of play doesn’t clash with the tools at his disposal will be just as important as a coach who can handle Ratcliffe’s habit of sticking his oar in. A coach who’s noted for maintaining good personal relationships with his players would be useful, too, given that the cloud which has hung over the dressing room for much of the past decade seems no closer to dissipating. Too many good players lose their way at Old Trafford for it to be dismissed as a coincidence. Something remains rotten at the club’s core, and it would be helpful to find a new broom who can clean that up.

It isn’t necessarily straightforward for United to click their fingers and find a coach who combines tactical élan with a reputation for maintaining a positive working relationships with those around him, but there are a few who could fit the bill.

Perhaps Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola, a forward-thinking tactician who has done remarkable things with young players at the Vitality Stadium, would be worth taking a chance on. Maybe former Barcelona coach Xavi Herández, whose CV is relatively short but who mostly impressed at the Camp Nou and knows how to handle an interventionist board and a room packed with egos.

Both make more sense than Glasner might, despite the Austrian’s many sterling qualities. United have been stumbling around blindly for some time and need to be demanding with their next appointment, but they still have the clout to attract almost anyone who isn’t nicely settled in to an elite position already. They are still choosers, not beggars.

This is Manchester United, however, who appointed both Amorim and Erik Ten Hag with limited thought about how their tactical and technical background might apply to the players in the squad. There has been no evidence of consistent or joined-up thinking behind the scenes, whether it’s managerial appointments, signings or anything else. It would scarcely be surprising if they appointed the wrong man yet again.

And at least if they do indeed go after Glasner, they would be pursuing a very good coach indeed, and one whose work at Palace and with Frankfurt deserves a great deal of credit. Just don’t be shocked if all collapses in a clash of personalities 18 months later.