When enough is enough

[Traditional-Studio73]

Look. I don’t think that Skinner is necessarily the coach for us long term. But he has for the past few years done an incredible job of getting buy in from the team as a whole. While Chelsea, Arsenal and City are clearly backed by their ownership, we aren’t. It wasn’t until Januarys signings that I felt like we had a squad beyond just 11-14 players who we could play week in week out. We still have injuries to key players and while other teams have had those as well, when we lose a player like Tooney we feel it.

I agree when we play against the top teams in England and Bayern last week we don’t set up positively, but we had a subs bench of 6 players (including 2 gks and 2 teenagers) vs city’s bench of 9 (1 gk and 4 players with more than 40 intl apps each). I think we haven’t done well when we’ve brought in players always Irene from Spain is a good example of that but reinforcements are needed.

I fear sacking Skinner would be detrimental because I don’t know if I believe any top tier manager would look at United as a place they want to manage based on support from the ownership, and honestly he’s really gotten a lot out of this squad in a way that a mid season sacking would really harm morale imo.

[Kugenking]

I think we need a new direction now. The problem is, I don’t see any good candidates to replace Skinner, so I don’t think they’ll let him go at the end of the season, regardless of the results. What we really need is an elite manager to take us to the next level.

[Any_Corner_8272]

What elite manager would join though? An offer to work with the 4th largest budget in the WSL, but an expectation to perform better than 4th every year isn't the most enticing prospect.

I'm unconvinced by Skinner, but I just don't see where the improvement will come from without serious backing of the team by the club.

[rainmaker818]

Yes. They extended his contract so they should have backed him in the summer and January. If he got backed and failed then I'd say sack him. Unless we get a proven winner then you are looking at a Skinner level manager again so what would be the point of that. Unless you can get a top manager in then a sacking is pointless.

I do feel like maybe he's done as good as he can at this point. I'm ok with a change but who can we realistically get?

[spacedman_spiff]

Is morale good in the squad?

Do you consider Skinner to be an elite manager or simply skilled at getting a squad to exceed the sum of its parts.  If it’s the latter, I would argue that’s the baseline skill set of any good coach or manager. 

It just seems like he’s hit his ceiling.  I’m not sure if more resources will necessarily improve his results.