A Manchester City fan account on X posted a skit video on Tuesday night purporting to show Pep Guardiola celebrating Thomas Tuchel taking the England job. The inference being that the ex Chelsea boss now won’t be able to take the Manchester United job.
Accompanied by a photo of Gareth Southgate, giving the current champions and their devotees even glee was the prospect of he who Tuchel is replacing taking over at Old Trafford.
You know, the really annoying thing about it from the perspective of a United fan is the fact that none of the points made therein can be disagreed with.
To the England job first though. There’s no doubt the FA have got the better end of the bargain than their new acquisition. Tuchel could, you’d imagine, have walked into any job he wanted in football.
That said, the lure of the Three Lions job is fairly obvious. After all, they do call themselves the home of football. But that’s the thing you see, if they really believe their own hype, they’ve been locked out of their own house since 1966.
At this point in time, to the English football ‘set’, Tuchel will presumably be the greatest thing since sliced bread. You’d just hope he would be streetwise enough to know that he has just taken on arguably the most poisoned chalice anywhere in sport. Other than the one he had at Stamford Bridge!
However, from a certain viewpoint, Tuchel’s acquisition by the FA is another kick in the stones for Manchester United as it serves as yet another sobering reminder of how far the club has been cut adrift from the real business end of the football world.
Given the ongoing obsession with Erik ten Hag’s job and, more specifically, whose the post will be if and when the Dutch bluffer walks the line, Tuchel – and indeed his newly appointed assistant Anthony Barry – have perennially hovered near the top of any lists of potential suitors for the Old Trafford hot seat.
It depressingly encapsulates just how far United stock has fallen that figures of the status of Tuchel and Barry would opt for the intermittent tedium of international football rather than plump for what was once regarded as the biggest job in world football. Until the Glazers dragged what was a great sport institution into the gutter. As bad as that has been, to be honest, Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s initial overtures at reviving the standing of the club have been underwhelming bordering on farcical thus far.
There has been a tornado swirling about the viability or otherwise of ten Hag’s position at the club almost from the time he assumed the role – despite the fact that, as has seemingly conveniently escaped the memory of some people – he has steered the club to two trophies in his couple of seasons there.
You see, despite what some might like to believe, United are not in a position where they can smugly say that it was “Only” the League Cup or the FA Cup. They are no longer among the elites like Manchester City or Liverpool or – to a certain degree – Arsenal who can, to some extent, pick and chose whatever competitions they want to particularly target. In the overall scheme of things, presently, a trophy to them would mean every bit as much to them as it would to some of the other mid table deadwood like Tottenham or Newcastle United or Brighton.
Mind you, speaking of smug, I’m not exactly where the Daily Mail stands in the pecking order of British newspapers, but whatever it may have been, it must surely have taken a hit following the hideous A Dark Day headline scathing and ridiculing the appointment of a German as coach of their national team.
Their newly appointed coach appointed coach must be a glutton for punishment. Going from Chelsea to Bayern Munich to the England job. On a line of form, Old Trafford will surely be his next step!
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