The False Equivalency Of Slot vs Ten Hag, and of Replacing Wenger, Ferguson and Klopp

People make really bad comparisons based on spurious factors

I hear it literally every day, in different arenas. ‘It’s almost impossible to replace a massively successful manager’.

But the two most used examples are utterly fatuous.

If you replace excellence with mediocrity (or worse), as Man United did in 2013 and Arsenal did in 2018, then you will find it difficult.

Look at it like this. John Lennon leaves the Beatles in 1970, before the band splits. That would be really tough.

If you were to carry on, do you replace him with David Bowie ... or do you replace him with Freddie from Freddie and the Dreamers?

The David Moyes of music

Mick Jagger leaves the Rolling Stones in 1973. You replace him with Marc Bolan ... or Donny Osmond?

You can’t say for sure that the chemistry will be there in the former cases, but you know the latter would be a car crash.

You can say that David Moyes failing when replacing Alex Ferguson was not so much about the task of replacing Ferguson (as I’ve said many times, including at the time) but the insane choice to pick Moyes, who, while competent, was always far more cautious, pragmatic, dour, uninspiring and unsuccessful.

(Even Ferguson tore it up massively in Scotland and Europe against the odds with Aberdeen, which Slot did in Holland, Rafa Benítez did in Spain, and Jürgen Klopp did in Germany.)

If Man United had got Pep Guardiola, Klopp or Carlo Ancelotti in 2013 – with hindsight now admittedly adding to their excellent reputations in 2013 – does anyone think the slump would happen?

Maybe, but as likely? Never.

(Even José Mourinho in 2013 would perhaps have been just within his shelf-life, but where the scorched-earth policy limited his time at any club, and he often left them in chaos.)

Not that United could have necessarily got those managers at the time, of course, as they had great jobs; but it just highlights the madness of the choice made.

(United failed with their attempt to lure Klopp by being so terrible at pitching the club to him, which is why I always credit Mike Gordon of FSG for doing it so successfully; something FSG’s critics fail to understand.)

Moyes was a far less progressive manager than the man he replaced, with barely a tenth of the aura, and had never won a league title, against the odds or otherwise. He’d never come close.

Unai Emery is a very good manager, and wiser than in 2018 when he replaced Wenger. But back then he was a safety-first, mid-upper-level, Europa League-winning kind of manager. It’s maybe still that, just a bit more competent.

In 2018 he wasn’t some inspired replacement for the man who redefined English football, and his relatively terrible English made the chemistry even worse. Emery has improved his reputation, with further good work, but not to the point where he’s a league winner. So far his ceiling feels about 4th place.

Again, he was a less progressive manager than the man he replaced, who had never won a league title, against the odds or otherwise.

Slot?

He would likely have won the league as an outsider (like Ferguson) in Holland (and I still call it Holland as it makes me think of the 1970s and those glorious orange shirts) had the league not been cancelled in 2020 when they were joint top with Erik ten Hag’s expensive Ajax side; and then he won it with an outsider in 2023.

Not by playing football that was less progressive than the absolute legend that he would be replacing at Liverpool, but at least as progressive; and arguably, as of 2024, slightly more on the cutting-edge of coaching.

Then there’s the false equivalency between the bald Dutch managers.

While we need to spot patterns in life (and data), there are important factors and irrelevant factors.

Not all Dutch people are the same.

And not all bald people are the same (albeit we face the same unbearable prejudice and inhumane treatment, with the little-publicised colonies of millions of bald men kept in camps on remote islands around the world. Be patient, brothers – freedom will come. The bald shall inherit the Earth.)

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