Ange Postecoglou joining Manchester United sounds batsh*t, but this is one of five left-field but potentially brilliant next moves for Premier League managers.
Mind you, Ange Postecoglou to Nottingham Forest was left-field but potentially brilliant…
Marco Silva to Aston Villa
Silva is one of three Premier League managers due to be out of contract at the end of this season, though he is the odd one out compared to Crystal Palace’s Oliver Glasner and AFC Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola.
While it does feel inevitable that all three managers will secure an upward move in 2026, Silva may have to settle for a less lavish job than Glasner and Iraola, who are currently dominating the headlines for their immense work at high-fliers Palace and Bournemouth.
But Silva also warrants his next job being at a club at least in contention for Europe, even if his chances of joining a Big Six club in the near future are slim to none.
Nottingham Forest stand out as an obvious next move for three reasons, including Silva bucking a trend to retain a strong bond with Evangelos Marinakis, while Aston Villa could provide another option.
A four-game winning run has quashed the premature Unai Emery sack talk, though worrying issues remain at Aston Villa as they struggle for goals and risk losing their best players in upcoming windows due to a) their long-term PSR problems and b) player ambition.
The same can be said for Emery; he may decide to have another crack at managing an elite club, having taken Aston Villa as far as he can. Silva would be a safe pair of hands to take over, albeit as an uninspiring downgrade.
READ: Premier League CRISIS Rankings: Forest 2nd, West Ham 3rd, but what of Liverpool and Man Utd?
Fabian Hurzeler to Chelsea
It’s Chelsea raiding Brighton for another key asset and if they are going to hoard all of the best teenagers in the world, they may as well have a baby in the dugout too.
The 32-year-old has acquitted himself well in the Premier League, riding out poor spells of form and emerging better for the experience. Last season’s eighth-place finish in the Premier League was a solid return, and it says a lot about how far Brighton have come that a top-half finish feels the norm and that they perhaps should have finished one or two places higher.
As with most people at Brighton, Hurzeler will eventually move on to greener pastures and the AMEX Stadium is among the best places in Europe for a manager/player to hone their craft, with big clubs to come calling if he guides them to another top-ten finish and potentially some overdue silverware this season.
For Chelsea, Enzo Maresca has remained in the dugout longer than most imagined he would, but the club is at a crossroads this season, and he’ll be at risk if/when they do not kick on.
Chelsea are currently among the many clubs being heavily linked with Glasner and Iraola, but Hurzeler would be a great alternative if they are to continue prioritising projects rather than the ready-made final product.
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Enzo Maresca to Everton
Still, Maresca has certainly done enough at Stamford Bridge with the Club World Cup and Europa Conference League wins to earn another Premier League club post-Chelsea, and the door could eventually open for him at Everton.
Beloved boss David Moyes is doing a wonderful job at Everton as their move from Goodison Park to their stupidly named new stadium has been as seamless as it could have been, thanks partly to great management and the positive impact made by their summer signings.
Moyes being brought back to oversee the major transition at Everton over the past year just felt right, but he does have a limited shelf life and at some point, he’ll face the same problem he had at West Ham.
Everton’s ambitious new owners really backed Moyes in the summer as it finally appears that the club is on track to return to the European picture, but there will come a time when club chiefs and potentially supporters grow tired of the manager’s pragmatic style and demand a change of approach.
As West Ham learned, clubs need to be careful what they wish for when ousting Moyes, but they could see the appointment of modern coach Maresca as a coup that’s capable of taking them to another level. Whether that works is another matter…
Ange Postecoglou to Manchester United
Right, hear me out…
I’m not saying that Postecoglou deserves the Man Utd job following failures at Spurs and Nottingham Forest because there are plenty of more suitable targets on the market to replace Ruben Amorim, including Iraola as potentially the best candidate.
But, the under-fire Forest boss, who is the favourite to be the next manager sacked despite only being seven games into his reign, would be far better off at Man Utd than the City Ground, while the Red Devils would be better off with him than Amorim.
Postecoglou to Forest was bound to fail from the start for a multitude of reasons, particularly because his playing philosophy is completely different from Nuno Espirito Santo’s.
Forest’s squad is also built for Nuno’s style, with Postecoglou, trying and unsurprisingly failing to overhaul their approach in the middle of the season.
But at Man Utd, the arrival of Postecoglou would surely spark an immediate upturn in performances and results, largely from a switch to the more-suited 4-2-3-1 formation that would allow Man Utd’s top stars to be played in their preferred positions. It really could be as easy as that for Amorim…
READ: The 7 Man Utd managers put forward by pundits: Southgate, Simeone, Dyche…
Ruben Amorim to Nottingham Forest
And how about a never-before-seen manager swap deal?
Co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe had to be bluffing when he said that Amorim would be given three years at Man Utd, as they would likely be playing in the Championship by the end of this miserable period if that were the case.
The actual state of affairs is that Amorim quickly needs results, with a victory against fellow crisis club Liverpool on October 19, to secure back-to-back Premier League victories for the very first time, a fine place to start.
But given that it’s been proven under Amorim that the Red Devils wilt at the earliest sign of adversity, they are bound to remain in the dire cycle of inconsistency until he’s gone.
Amorim is dying on his sword with a formation that isn’t suited to this group of players and never will be fit for Man Utd, and this will eventually be his undoing at Old Trafford.
One positive for Amorim is that he won’t have much trouble finding another job post-Man Utd, with his insistence on his formation a boost in that regard.
And as Postecoglou to Man Utd would be sensible for both parties, this is also the case with Amorim and Forest. The Premier League strugglers have a group of players already fit for the head coach’s set-up, which is certainly more appropriate for a side on the back foot than a giant like United.