The Fox who ticks all the boxes...Brendan is perfect fit for United
IF you were piecing together an identikit picture for the next Manchester United manager, it might just come out looking like Brendan Rodgers.
The Leicester boss fits every criteria for what’s required at Old Trafford. Speculation about Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s job is reaching fever pitch after the humiliating 5-0 home drubbing by arch-rivals Liverpool. Ole may still be given more time at the wheel but the juggernaut that is arguably the biggest club in the world is in danger of proving way too heavy for him to control.
And if the wheels do come off then it’s a no-brainer to go out and get the Foxes boss. Rodgers may well have distanced himself from the Tottenham job very quickly, but this would be a totally different matter.
Whether you are a player, head coach, manager or tea boy, the likes of United only come calling once. He’s said how happy he is at Leicester, and why wouldn’t he be? But this is totally different.
My short-list has only two candidates on it – Rodgers and Julian Nagelsman at Bayern Munich.
Bayern very rarely lose a manager. It would prove extremely difficult to get him out of there which leaves Rodgers as the stand-out man.
Yes, the United board would have to get Rodgers’ Liverpool connection out of their heads.
But once they have done that, then chuck a load of compensation Leicester’s way and seal the deal.
United come knocking at your door only once. When the big job, the truly big job is dangled in front of you, then you go.
Managers, head coaches, whatever are guns for hire and Brendan is no different. I just couldn’t see him even thinking about not taking it and what is more I think every Leicester fan would totally get it as well.
Rodgers has been at big clubs and won things. He’s not learning on the job like Ole.
The way he handled a colossus like Steven Gerrard at Liverpool (left) shows he can deal with big players. He’s great at putting round pegs in round holes. He’s a highly-rated coach and he improves players.
He would make Jadon Sancho better; he would make Marcus Rashford better.
He’s got self-belief, he’s an astute ‘politician’ and he likes to play with the kind of attractive style that United fans demand.
Rodgers has never made any secret of the fact that he’s ambitious and there’s no better place to satisfy that than at Old Trafford.
The beauty of it is that he would walk into a club with the deepest squad of players in English football. It’s arguably the second strongest squad in the country.
It’s not as if there’s not plenty to work with. Usually when a manager goes into a club, he assesses things and then says to the money men: ‘Look, I need five players here.’
He wouldn’t need five at United. Just put those round pegs in round holes and away you go. Everything is there.
Some people would think Leicester would be biting their fingernails to the quick, in anticipation of Rodgers going, but I don’t think that would be the case.
It’s a massive thumbs-up to how they have done things that their head coach and their players are continually on the radar of top clubs.
They do things right. They are stable and everything off-field is in place from the staff to the facilities.
If United come, I’m sure Brendan would go and I’m equally sure that by first post the next day Leicester would be sifting through applications from 30 ‘A’ class candidates.