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It is an understandable reaction. More than a century on, Mangnall’s achievements have faded from the conversation around United’s greatest managers. His two titles are often overlooked beside the five won by Busby and the 13 delivered by Ferguson.
But the numbers tell an unusual story. United have won 20 league titles under just three managers. Liverpool have also won 20, but theirs have been shared between six: Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan, Kenny Dalglish, Jurgen Klopp and Arne Slot.
Busby and Ferguson account for 18 of United’s 20. Their influence went beyond trophies. They shaped teams, set standards and helped define the club’s identity.
That raises a question beyond the familiar search for Ferguson’s successor. Have United become so accustomed to the leadership of two extraordinary individuals that it struggles to imagine success without one?
The messiah came, then United waited 17 years for the second coming. United are now praying for a third.
Alex Ferguson was born in Govan, Glasgow, less than 20 miles from Busby's birthplace in Orbiston, Bellshill.
There were obvious parallels between them. Both came from working-class Scottish backgrounds, valued youth development and attacking football, and saw management as more than picking a team on a Saturday afternoon.
Ferguson's route to Old Trafford was different, though. By the time he arrived in November 1986, his achievements at Aberdeen had established him as one of Britain's most respected managers. Beating Real Madrid in the 1983 European Cup Winners' Cup final had announced him on the European stage.
He was not walking into a club ready to dominate. United had not won the league since 1967 and were still living in the shadow of Liverpool's success.
Ferguson had to change the habits of the club before he could change its fortunes.
There was no instant transformation. The FA Cup arrived in 1990, followed by the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1991. The league title finally came in 1993, ending a 26-year wait.
By then, Ferguson had begun building something that would dominate English football for the next two decades.
The Class of '92 became the most obvious symbol of that work. David Beckham, Scholes, Butt, Gary Neville, Phil Neville and Ryan Giggs represented a system that gave young players a route into the first team and expected them to take responsibility when they got there.
Ferguson also understood that a successful team could not stand still. He rebuilt it repeatedly, moving on established players and bringing in new ones without allowing the standards to drop. The treble in 1999 was the high point of one generation. The title-winning teams of the mid-2000s and the side that won the Champions League in 2008 were built around another.
Gary Neville's autobiography, Red, offers a glimpse of how that culture operated from inside the dressing room.
Recalling United's comeback at Newcastle in March 1996, Neville describes how United overturned a 2-0 half-time deficit to win 3-2, with Eric Cantona scoring the winner.
“That second half was an occasion when I felt the Manchester United spirit course through the team,” he wrote.
“It relies on excellence from individuals – from Schmeichel and Bruce, who were immense that evening, and from Eric, who popped up to score the winner – but there is also something collective.
“It's unspoken but unmistakable: let's get this match won. It's our time.”
The word that stands out is collective. Ferguson's United were full of outstanding individuals, but everyone was expected to contribute to the team's cause.
Roy Keane's The Second Half provides another view of the dressing room. Keane describes a group in which senior players helped one another, particularly when new arrivals were struggling to settle.
He recalls the support given to Diego Forlan, who joined from Independiente in 2002 and scored just 17 goals in 98 appearances during his United spell.
“If a player tried – and Diego did – we'd drag him with us; we'd try and help him,” Keane wrote.
It was not the manager's job alone to maintain the standards. The players were expected to take responsibility for the environment around them.
Ferguson made that expectation clear.
In Leading, he wrote: “The minute that we don't work harder than the other team, we'll not be Manchester United.”
Talent mattered, but so did drive, resilience and a refusal to accept that the job was done. Ferguson's teams had to earn their reputation every time they went out.
Neville has also explained what made Ferguson so effective. He pointed to the difficult conversations he was prepared to have with his players.
“If you were left out from one game to the next, he spoke to each individual player every game.”
That personal contact was matched by a willingness to trust the people around him. Ferguson allowed his assistants to lead training and his medical staff to manage their work, rather than involving himself in every detail.
“Now you imagine two things: one about the trust that builds in your team, which is very rare. But secondly, when he actually spoke on match day and he came alive, his words meant a lot. So his words were quite rare.”
“I haven't felt since Sir Alex went that we've actually got a team to win the league,” Scholes added.
That is the standard Ferguson left behind, but it raises a wider question: is winning the Premier League the only measure of success at Manchester United?
If the only measure is a league title, the answer is simple. Only Busby, Ferguson and Mangnall have achieved it.
But football is not always that straightforward. Ron Atkinson won two FA Cups in the 1980s. Louis van Gaal won the FA Cup. Jose Mourinho delivered the League Cup and Europa League in the same season. Erik ten Hag won the League Cup and FA Cup.
Are those managers failures?
Wayne Barton, an esteemed historian of Manchester United and author of several books on the club, is reluctant to make the judgement quite so simply.
“I think in the modern era, it means what the modern era definition of Manchester United manager success is: winning the league,” he told me.
“I think that's the minimum.”
But Barton makes a distinction between the expectation at United and his own definition of success.
“You can't always win the league, but you're second in the league. If your team is in a cup final every season or two cup finals, or competing for the league, I think that is what I would determine as success for a United manager.”
Barton also pointed to Ferguson's own interpretation of the job:
“I think this was Alex Ferguson's interpretation of it: success was winning a trophy every season.”
Winning a trophy is one thing; building a team that can dominate an era is another. The question is whether the club's identity and standards can survive beyond the manager who delivers it.
Ferguson knew replacing him would be an enormous challenge.
In Leading, he was candid about the search for his successor.
“At United we didn't have an obvious internal successor, though it was not for want of trying,” he wrote.
He had encouraged Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, Darren Fletcher, Nicky Butt, Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole to earn their coaching credentials. But he did not believe a player should move straight from the dressing room into the manager's office.
“United tried that once when Wilf McGuinness succeeded Matt Busby in 1969,” Ferguson wrote. “It was a disaster.”
He also revealed that he had admired Pep Guardiola and asked him to phone before accepting an offer from another club. Guardiola eventually joined Bayern Munich in July 2013.
Other candidates were unavailable. Jose Mourinho had given his word to Roman Abramovich that he would return to Chelsea, Carlo Ancelotti was heading to Real Madrid, Jurgen Klopp was staying at Borussia Dortmund and Louis van Gaal was preparing to lead the Netherlands at the World Cup.
Eventually, United chose David Moyes.
Ferguson defended the appointment in his book, pointing to Moyes' work at Everton and the financial constraints under which he had operated.
“Sadly, things did not turn out for David as he and we all wished,” he wrote.
He also acknowledged that the transition could have been handled differently, suggesting that keeping Mike Phelan might have helped Moyes navigate the many layers of the club.
But the transition was bigger than the appointment itself. Ferguson retired. Chief executive David Gill left. The manager who had controlled the club for 26 years was gone, alongside a key figure who had helped him run it.
Danny Taylor, who covered United during Ferguson's reign, remembers just how much of the club's operation revolved around the manager.
After United won the Champions League in 1999, Ferguson held a press conference for local Manchester beat journalists rather than the wider press. It was a small example of the control he exercised, even over details that might seem relatively minor.
Taylor experienced the more difficult side of that relationship, too. After writing a book covering United's turbulent 2005-06 season, he was banned from Ferguson's Friday press conferences from 2007 until the manager retired in 2013.
He had not had an argument with Ferguson.
“He used to always say, 'I really encourage young people',” Taylor told me.
“But the journalists, he thought we were all babies, he thought we were all kids.”
Taylor recalled a colleague's first encounter with Ferguson, after which the manager reportedly remarked that he “looks like the bass player of Oasis”.
It is an amusing recollection, but Taylor's wider point is more serious. Ferguson was fiercely protective of his territory and maintained a tight grip on the club's operation.
“You just thought, when he leaves, the club is just very, very ill-equipped at all levels to deal with what's next,” Taylor said.
The reality is that the authority Busby and Ferguson exercised was part of their success, but it left a vacuum when they went.
Moyes himself later reflected on the difficulty of the job in 2014.
“I was devastated to lose the job because it was something I felt we could make a real success of,” he said.
“In the end, I don't feel I was given the time to succeed or fail.”
He also pointed to the fact that both he and former executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward were new to their roles.
“I had taken over from the most successful manager in history,” Moyes said.
“The chief executive had taken over from one of the most renowned administrators in the game. So it was a new job for two people.”
Roy Keane was less sympathetic towards the players who failed to help Moyes.
In The Second Half, Keane questioned the strength of the dressing room and the responsibility of players to support a new manager.
“Not liking a manager, for whatever reason, can never be an excuse for not going out and doing your best,” he wrote.
His conclusion was damning: “Looking at what happened to David Moyes, I have to conclude that he can't have had a strong dressing room; he had a weak dressing room.”
The failure of the post-Ferguson era cannot be attributed to the manager alone. The players, the owners, the board and the wider structure all had a role in what followed.
Moyes was the first, but certainly not the last.
Ryan Giggs took charge on an interim basis after Moyes' dismissal, before Louis van Gaal arrived in 2014.
The Dutchman brought a clear yet alien philosophy and delivered the FA Cup, but could not restore United to the top of the league.
Jose Mourinho followed, winning the League Cup and Europa League and finishing second in the Premier League.
Arguably he was the closest of Ferguson's successors to delivering a sustained challenge, but the relationship between manager, players and club eventually deteriorated.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, initially appointed as caretaker before getting the job permanently, brought a sense of connection with supporters and came closest to creating a team that felt familiar.
He finished second in the league, reached a Europa League final and restored some optimism around Old Trafford, but could not deliver silverware.
Michael Carrick briefly took charge as caretaker after Solskjaer's departure, before Ralf Rangnick arrived as interim manager.
Rangnick's six months were turbulent, but his assessment of the club has since proved difficult to ignore.
He's famed for suggesting "surgery at the open heart" in relation to improving the playing squad. However, speaking to SPORT in 2025, Rangnick traced United's problems back to Ferguson's departure.
“At the time he was still there, he was the mastermind behind it all,” he said.
“The moment he left, some of those people probably left the club as well. And, since then, I think they have a leadership problem.”
Rangnick said it was difficult even for him, as head coach, to understand who was making the important decisions.
“Who's really making the decisions and why are they making them? Are they really the best people for the job? I can only tell you that the six months I was there, it was difficult to say, even for me as head coach.”
Erik ten Hag took charge in 2022 and won the League Cup before adding the FA Cup in 2024. But his tenure was increasingly defined by inconsistency, difficult relationships and questions over recruitment.
He has since offered his own account of the breakdown with the club. In an interview with The Athletic in October 2026, Ten Hag claimed that INEOS made a series of promises after talks in Ibiza following the FA Cup final.
“They promised me loyalty, they promised me backing, they promised communication, that we get aligned,” he said. “But the promises, they didn't keep.”
Ruud van Nistelrooy then took charge on an interim basis following Ten Hag's dismissal, before Ruben Amorim was appointed. Darren Fletcher also stepped in as caretaker during the latest change in the dugout, before Michael Carrick returned.
The managers and their footballing philosophies have varied enormously, but United have still not found a settled direction.
Ruben Amorim was aware of the weight of that comparison before he had even officially taken the United job.
Ahead of his final Champions League match with Sporting against Manchester City, he was asked about the expectations his arrival might create.
“If we win tomorrow, people will think that the new Alex Ferguson has arrived, and of course, it will be difficult to live up to that expectation,” Amorim said.
Sporting won that game 4-1. The result only sharpened the anticipation around his appointment, but Amorim's warning was telling: the Ferguson comparison was already waiting for him before he had taken charge of a training session.
The 40th anniversary of Ferguson's appointment, marked in November, brought that legacy back into focus.
With his job facing intense scrutiny, speaking to Sky Sports, Michael Carrick reflected on the manager who signed him in 2006. He remembered a demanding figure, but one whose players felt his trust.
“He wasn't nice, he was supportive and he would push you, but you always felt the trust and the respect from him ... you were desperate to please him and you wanted to do well for him,” Carrick said.
Carrick was also careful about drawing direct comparisons with Ferguson's early struggles.
“I understand comparisons but I think it can be a little bit dangerous,” he said.
“It's more of understanding that sometimes you do have to find it difficult; you do have to struggle to get to where you want to be.
"It doesn't mean we're going to do the same thing; we have to make it happen,” he said.
Jamie Carragher, speaking on CBS Sports, put the scale of United's problem into perspective.
“There are only two real giants, in managerial terms, for Man Utd, going back to Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex Ferguson.”
“What we're seeing right now with Man Utd struggling with managers is what we saw in the 70s and early 80s. So it's nothing new, and they've tried everything.”
Carragher contrasted United's experience with clubs such as Bayern Munich, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Liverpool, where success has been delivered by a succession of managers.
“It's an absolute giant of a club, not just in English football, but in world football - and nobody seems to be able to get it right.”
“It can't just be that a manager is going to get them back to the top; you almost feel this manager is going to have to be a legendary figure, not just a football guy. A figurehead, a force of personality.”
“I don't feel like Man Utd will just get a manager and it's going to work. It almost feels like this manager has to be special - and you need to be special to manage the size and stature of Man Utd as a club.”
Smyth believes the club is caught in a contradiction: “You can't get over Ferguson until you win the league, but you can't win the league until you get over Ferguson.”
The problem is not simply that United have failed to find another Ferguson. It is that the authority, relationships and standards he built were not embedded deeply enough to survive him.
There is a wider issue. Busby and Ferguson were products of their time. Both had the authority to shape almost every part of the club. Both could build teams around their own ideas and personalities.
The modern game is different. The biggest clubs increasingly operate through networks of people, departments and decision-makers. INEOS have tried to move United towards that model, reshaping the football operation and bringing in new leadership.
But the changes have yet to produce the clarity, consistency or results the club needs, with their position under constant scrutiny from fans.
The manager remains hugely important, but he is no longer expected to be the entire institution.
The challenge now is to make that structure work.
The irony is that Ferguson himself understood the danger of relying on one individual.
In Leading, he wrote: “If you need one person to change your destiny, then you have not built a very solid organisation.”
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