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Manchester United have confirmed the departure of manager Jose Mourinho. In the club’s official statement, they have announced that a caretaker boss will be installed until the end of the current season.
Amongst the candidates for this interim position has to be Laurent Blanc, who played for the English giants before his retirement, and was most recently the manager of Paris Saint-Germain.
On the chalkboard
If the Frenchman does indeed take up the Old Trafford hot seat, then United fans can expect a significant tactical shift away from what they have grown used to under Mourinho.
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The 53-year-old former defender prefers a possession-based game that implements sharp pass-and-move football, to some degree inspired by the innovations of Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique at Barcelona, where Blanc himself also spent time as a player.
What’s more, Blanc knows how to win. In his three years in charge at the Parc des Princes, he picked up three Ligue 1 titles and a hatful of other domestic honours. He also had to wrangle some big egos in that dressing room, including Zlatan Ibrahimovic – experience that may serve him well at United.
The Blanc effect
Two big characters he’ll be tasked with getting the best out of at Old Trafford are his compatriots, Paul Pogba and Anthony Martial. Blanc will certainly back himself to coax some good form out of his fellow Frenchmen, and he will certainly arrive with a long-standing knowledge of their games given that they both represented the French national team’s youth ranks whilst Blanc was in charge of the senior squad.
Finally, the 53-year-old’s connection with United – having won a Premier League title with the club as a player in the 2002/03 season – ought to stand him in good stead to forge a strong relationship with what is currently a divided and unsettled fanbase.
In short, Blanc offers an ideal solution for returning good football to Old Trafford, coaxing the best out of key players, and repairing the club’s relationship with the fans.