Comical, narrow-minded approach.
Manning got his team to the same point in the season as us, with a smaller budget, smaller squad, and definitively overall less valuable squad.
When he went into Bristol City, they were bottom half of the Championship, and had lost 5 of their previous 7 games. In the space of 18 months, he has gotten them to a point of having a shot at promotion to the Premier League.
You scoff at the 6-0 playoff scoreline, forgetting that at the point of the tie-changing moment, the red card and penalty award at the end of the first half, the score was 0-0 and highly in the balance. You forget that in the regular season, we were scraping a draw at Ashton Gate until they had a man sent off, at which point we were able to push on and get the win. You apparently easily forget that we were comfortably second best to them in the home fixture, when they got a thoroughly deserved equaliser. And you forget that in the home leg of the playoffs, we got to play a side without its strongest centre back (Dickie), one of its strongest midfielders (Williams, who hit the bar in the first leg), and with the luxury of being able to suckered punch them almost at will, given that they had to chase the game from 3 goals behind.
The finality with which you condemn my suggestion, and the supporting factors you give to do so, suggest that you do nothing but look at the league table to determine what makes a manager good or bad. Which is quite sad, in my opinion.
Southampton have just hired Will Still. A man who, by your apparent standards, is not good enough to polish Wilder's boots. But I'd be pretty confident in saying that if Wilder stays, and continues to play the way we've played this season, Southampton will wipe the floor with us next year.
Wilder this year has often seemed afraid to go for the jugular, to kill games off, while netting a hatful of goals. He's seemingly preferred to play it safe, and sneak wins, while occasionally getting the luxury of an extra goal to put the result out of our opponent's reach. That is just depressing to watch for me.
I want to go to a United game and enjoy being there. I want to walk out at full time with a smile on my face, having seen us win the game, and play entertaining football. Watching us pack our own half for the whole 2nd half while leading 1-0, is absolutely not that.
If you want to disregard Manning so wholeheartedly, be my guest. But bear in mind that, despite all those extra points, and despite that 6-0 aggregate victory, Wilder, just like Manning, has won fuck all this season. And the fact that he has done so, in spite of all the tools he has available to him, is not acceptable.