Rebuilds don't happen overnight. Their long timelines are understandably frustrating for fans. But the dirty little secret about rebuilds is that the best ones never finish.
A bit disappointed that you did not mention Liverpool's need to clear out the old. I would like to read an analysis of that, from the footballing and financial point of view. Because I think Utd have similar ownership constraints, as well as squad issues to be sorted long term.
reat article as usual. Do you think the rebuilds from Sir Matt Busby's and Sir Alex Ferguson's eras also followed the same mould, what are your insights about those? I remembered SAF did quite a lot of deals with potential young prospects (many didn't go anywhere though), but I wá only a kid when he won 99's Champions League with United so I have no idea about his first ten-something years beyond the stuffs I read here and there on the internet. And of course I only get the gist that Sir Matt Busby had built a great side before the Munich disaster, and he had to build everything from the ground up again after that.
Another question: how do you think the restructuring happening simultaneously at the club, and the current COVID affected transfer market would influence the progress of Ole's rebuild? Would it take longer than 3 years to start getting results?
Sir Alex's era was exactly like this. This was going to be in the piece but was cut for length. Once that '99 Treble team ran it's course he had to rebuild. He started stripping away the pieces and added Rooney + Ronaldo even though they weren't ready to lead yet. Settle in, grow, develop. He also added other pieces like Vidic and Evra promoted the likes of Fletcher, O'Shea, Brown to more prominent roles.
In 2005-06 Keane retired and RVN left. Fergie's lone move to replacing them was... signing Michael Carrick. That was it - because he was the final piece. Rooney + Ronaldo were ready. You still had Giggs, Scholes, Saha etc. They won the league and went to the semifinal of the UCL.
To get over that next hump he brought in Tevez and Owen Hargreaves BUT that same year he also brought in Anderson and Nani. Two players who could kinda play now but were really for later. Nani specifically was brought in to be a Ronaldo replacement. The next year he added Berbatov which seemed incredibly odd at the time, but it was done because he knew Ronaldo was leaving and probably Tevez too. He also brought in the Da Silva's and promoted Jonny Evans. Then he signed Smalling, a year later Jones. He always had an eye on the future.
He swung and missed on a few (Obertan, Bebe, Powell, Buutner etc) but he swung and missed on some during the last rebuild too (Fortune, Djemba Djemba, Veron). That last rebuild failed because the Glazer debt at the time prevented him from going out and grabbing those next young stars and having to settle for more mediocre players (Valencia, Young), while the other youngsters never developed into stars (Anderson, Cleverley, Powell).
If there's one thing Busby, Ferguson, and Barcelona have taught us it's this. It is a MASSIVE advantage when you're trying to build a team to have 2-3 world class players coming from your own academy that you can build around. That's the biggest difference between this rebuild attempt and the last one.
Good article. Good read.
A bit disappointed that you did not mention Liverpool's need to clear out the old. I would like to read an analysis of that, from the footballing and financial point of view. Because I think Utd have similar ownership constraints, as well as squad issues to be sorted long term.
reat article as usual. Do you think the rebuilds from Sir Matt Busby's and Sir Alex Ferguson's eras also followed the same mould, what are your insights about those? I remembered SAF did quite a lot of deals with potential young prospects (many didn't go anywhere though), but I wá only a kid when he won 99's Champions League with United so I have no idea about his first ten-something years beyond the stuffs I read here and there on the internet. And of course I only get the gist that Sir Matt Busby had built a great side before the Munich disaster, and he had to build everything from the ground up again after that.
Another question: how do you think the restructuring happening simultaneously at the club, and the current COVID affected transfer market would influence the progress of Ole's rebuild? Would it take longer than 3 years to start getting results?
Sir Alex's era was exactly like this. This was going to be in the piece but was cut for length. Once that '99 Treble team ran it's course he had to rebuild. He started stripping away the pieces and added Rooney + Ronaldo even though they weren't ready to lead yet. Settle in, grow, develop. He also added other pieces like Vidic and Evra promoted the likes of Fletcher, O'Shea, Brown to more prominent roles.
In 2005-06 Keane retired and RVN left. Fergie's lone move to replacing them was... signing Michael Carrick. That was it - because he was the final piece. Rooney + Ronaldo were ready. You still had Giggs, Scholes, Saha etc. They won the league and went to the semifinal of the UCL.
To get over that next hump he brought in Tevez and Owen Hargreaves BUT that same year he also brought in Anderson and Nani. Two players who could kinda play now but were really for later. Nani specifically was brought in to be a Ronaldo replacement. The next year he added Berbatov which seemed incredibly odd at the time, but it was done because he knew Ronaldo was leaving and probably Tevez too. He also brought in the Da Silva's and promoted Jonny Evans. Then he signed Smalling, a year later Jones. He always had an eye on the future.
He swung and missed on a few (Obertan, Bebe, Powell, Buutner etc) but he swung and missed on some during the last rebuild too (Fortune, Djemba Djemba, Veron). That last rebuild failed because the Glazer debt at the time prevented him from going out and grabbing those next young stars and having to settle for more mediocre players (Valencia, Young), while the other youngsters never developed into stars (Anderson, Cleverley, Powell).
If there's one thing Busby, Ferguson, and Barcelona have taught us it's this. It is a MASSIVE advantage when you're trying to build a team to have 2-3 world class players coming from your own academy that you can build around. That's the biggest difference between this rebuild attempt and the last one.
great article, thanks