United are not the only major team to have sacked their manager this week. Christmas and early new year have barely passed us and the spirit of goodwill has certainly bypassed football management!
With the changes at Celtic and Chelsea also producing a tidal wave of disappointment in some quarters and joy in others, it leads me to question again what really makes a good manager or coach in this day and age.
The game has changed dramatically since my era, when management was about total control, encompassing all football matters.
Clubs now, whether big or small are, without much doubt, running a system where managers have morphed into two different roles – a director of football, and a first-team coach.
Because of that, most clubs now just require the first-team coach to do what it says on the can, which is to coach the first team. All other responsibilities outside that job are now down to the director of football.
So, what is needed today to be successful, as a first-team coach at a top club? Firstly, you have to win games!
Also, as we’ve seen with what has happened at United and Chelsea, your relationship with the director of football must be absolutely bulletproof – for many reasons, but again more so for the coach’s benefit.
They have to trust the recruitment of the club’s players, understand the club’s identity and produce a strong bond between all the different departments on the football side, such as the academy or medical staff specifically, that can affect their success.
By doing so, you build a club where, from the top end to the bottom, everyone understands that they are all in this process together.
That enables the club to become a winning club, but for that to happen there are as many things that you need to get right off the pitch as well as on it.
Those are the challenges for whoever does get the job at Old Trafford, and anywhere else.
Tony Pulis was speaking to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan.
