With its 10th coach in a decade, is Manchester United trapped in a ‘fixes that fail’ cycle?

Manchester United have confirmed the appointment of Rúben Amorim, their tenth permanent or interim head coach since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013.

Under Ferguson’s 27-year tenure, United dominated English soccer, winning a total of 38 trophies, including 13 Premier League titles and two UEFA Champions League trophies.

Since the departure of “Fergie”, the club has failed to win the Premier or Champions leagues.

Despite spending more than A$1 billion on players since 2020, they currently sit 13th in the table, their worst ever start to a Premier League season.

So, did they make the right call in sacking Erik ten Hag after two-and-a-half years in charge?

Systems thinking and soccer

The strategy of sacking a head coach following a period of poor performance is common in soccer.

While it might offer short-term respite, and sometimes even recovery, it often fails to address deeper, systemic issues. These issues can relate to club culture, strategy, processes and decision making, or player quality, health, contentment and morale, to name only a few.

Soccer is complex, hence poor team performance is influenced by numerous interacting factors beyond the head coach.

Just as aircraft pilots, train drivers, ship captains, and surgeons should not be solely blamed when adverse events occur, soccer coaches should not be held solely responsible when their teams fail.

Within the scientific discipline of systems thinking, there is a well-known systems archetype termed “fixes that fail”, whereby a quick but inappropriate fix is applied.

At first, the problem is temporarily alleviated. But issues remain, unintended consequences emerge and the problem either returns or worsens.

This may be the case at United, and in soccer and other sports more generally.

However, while it is quite easy to see the symptoms of poorly performing systems, it is much harder to understand the causes.

To do so requires a holistic “systems thinking” view, where factors within the broader club, community, national and international competitions are considered.

What then is going on when professional soccer clubs fail, and more importantly, what can be done about it?

How to prevent complex system failure

While it is impossible to know exactly what is going on behind the scenes at United, recent events have raised questions over club strategy, processes and decision making.

These include poor performances in the transfer market, an excessive injury list, high profile player fallouts, Old Trafford’s state of disrepair and a recent round of club redundancies.

All the signs point to a complex system that has been failing.

As history and research has shown, simply changing the head coach may not suffice.

On a positive note, new owners and key decision makers are in place at United. They will need to ensure systemic legacy issues are identified and resolved to enable their new coach to succeed.

For failing systems to recover, changing systemic structures and shifting mental models is often required.

For soccer clubs, that means there is a need to shift mental models of club executives, board members, support staff, players, sponsors and even fans, who must understand that solving underlying issues is a long-term strategy.

This process should be informed by an understanding of the myriad factors that are influencing performance. These include those relating to the coach and playing squad, but more importantly factors relating to club strategy, culture, hierarchy, processes, recruitment and so on.

Complex soccer clubs cannot be understood by studying their parts in isolation, and decision makers need to understand how all of the parts interact, and what behaviours emerge from these interactions.

A simple example is player recruitment – understanding who is involved, what strategy and processes are in place, how decisions are made, and what constraints influence them (such as budgetary pressures, club strategy, ethos and norms, and financial fair play rules). And then understanding how player recruitment connects to and influences other club processes.

This kind of analysis is required across all club activities to identify “leverage points” where interventions can address multiple factors at once.

Though leverage points can be counter-intuitive and hard to find, they can be extremely powerful, and resulting interventions often fundamentally change organisations – there are no easy fixes in complex systems.

Can United learn from their own history?

When Fergie joined United in 1986, his and the club’s performances were underwhelming. Pressure reached a peak during the FA Cup third round in 1990, when a loss against Nottingham Forest reportedly would have ended his tenure.

United went on to win the match 1-0, which is rumoured to have saved Fergie, kickstarting a two-decade domination of English soccer.

Fergie’s approach of total club control was unique at the time and arguably won’t be seen again.

Instead, United need to adopt an approach that is underpinned by systems thinking and seeks to optimise the club as a whole rather than its parts.

Only then will United break the decade long “fixes that fail” cycle in which it is currently trapped.