7 losses in 11 Champions League games...

[Keefy18]

Just out of interest what was Sir Alex's record in his first eleven games?

It's not a rhetorical question as I don't know the answer, but I do remember even after you won it in '99 there being some pretty embarrassing results and didn't you even finish bottom of the group stage one year?

Maybe it's not my place but while last night's result and performance were obviously bad I'd suggest waiting until at least the group stage is over before pronouncing judgement.

There's a long way to go yet.

He won the cup winners cup in his first season.

1​	19-09-1990​	Pecsi Munkas​	H​	Old Trafford​	W​	2​	0​	Clayton Blackmore 9', Neil Webb 17'​	​
2​	03-10-1990​	Pecsi Munkas​	A​	PMSC Stadion​	W​	1​	0​	Brian McClair 77'​	​
3​	23-10-1990​	Wrexham​	H​	Old Trafford​	W​	3​	0​	Brian McClair 40', Steve Bruce 42' (pen), Gary Pallister 59'​	​
4​	07-11-1990​	Wrexham​	A​	Racecourse Ground​	W​	2​	0​	Mark Robins 31', Steve Bruce 35'​	​
5​	06-03-1991​	Montpellier Herault​	H​	Old Trafford​	D​	1​	1​	Brian McClair 1'​	Lee. A. Martin 6' (o.g.)​
6​	19-03-1991​	Montpellier Herault​	A​	Stade de la Masson​	W​	2​	0​	Clayton Blackmore 45', Steve Bruce 47' (pen)​	​
7​	10-04-1991​	Legia Warsaw​	A​	Wojska Polskiego​	W​	3​	1​	Brian McClair 36', Mark Hughes 54', Steve Bruce 67'​	Jacek Cyzio 35'​
8​	24-04-1991​	Legia Warsaw​	H​	Old Trafford​	D​	1​	1​	Lee Sharpe 28'​	Wojciech Kowalczyk 57'​
9​	15-05-1991​	Barcelona​	N​	Feyenoord Stadion​	W​	2​	1​	Mark Hughes 68', 75'​	Ronald Koeman 79'​

The defence of it was poor however.

1​	18-09-1991​	Athinaikos​	A​	Apostolos Nikolaidis​	D​	0​	0​	​	​
2​	02-10-1991​	Athinaikos​	H​	Old Trafford​	W​	2​	0​	Mark Hughes 109', Brian McClair 111'​	​
3​	23-10-1991​	Atletico Madrid​	A​	Vincente Calderon​	L​	0​	3​	​	Paulo Futre 32', 86', Manolo 88'​
4​	06-11-1991​	Atletico Madrid​	H​	Old Trafford​	D​	1​	1​	Mark Hughes 4'​	Bernd Schuster 68'​

The next year - 92/93 - we crashed out instantly to the mighty Torepdo Moscow on penalties.

For the Champions league:

93/94

1​	15-09-1993​	Honved​	A​	Jozsef Bozsik Stadium​	W​	3​	2​	Roy Keane 9', 42', Eric Cantona 44'​	Jozsef Szabados 39', Istvan Stefanov 68'​
2​	29-09-1993​	Honved​	H​	Old Trafford​	W​	2​	1​	Steve Bruce 55', 64'​	Istvan Salloi 77'​
3​	20-10-1993​	Galatasaray​	H​	Old Trafford​	D​	3​	3​	Bryan Robson 3', Hakan Sukur (o.g.) 13', Eric Cantona 81'​	Arif Erdem 16', Kubilay Turkyilmaz 31', 63'​
4​	03-11-1993​	Galatasaray​	A​	Ali Sami Yen​	D​	0​	0​

94/95

1​	14-09-1994​	Gothenburg​	H​	Old Trafford​	W​	4​	2​	Ryan Giggs 33', 66', Andrei Kanchelskis 48', Lee Sharpe 71'​	Stefan Pettersson 26', Stefan Rehn 49'​
2​	28-09-1994​	Galatasaray​	A​	Ali Sami Yen​	D​	0​	0​	​	​
3​	19-10-1994​	Barcelona​	H​	Old Trafford​	D​	2​	2​	Mark Hughes 20', Lee Sharpe 80'​	Romario 34', Jose Mari Bakero 50'​
4​	02-11-1994​	Barcelona​	A​	Nou Camp​	L​	0​	4​	​	Hristo Stoichkov 9', 53', Romario 45', Albert Ferrer 88'​
5​	23-11-1994​	Gothenburg​	A​	NYA Ullevi Stadium​	L​	1​	3​	Mark Hughes 64'​	*Jesper Blomqvist 11', Magnus Erlingmark 65', Pontus Kamark 72' (pen)​
6​	07-12-1994​	Galatasaray​	H​	Old Trafford​	W​	4​	0​	Simon Davies 3', David Beckham 38', Roy Keane 49', Bulent Korkmaz 88' (o.g.)​	​

And yes I'm fully aware of the "foreigner rule" which fecked us over massively.

 

[Keefy18]

Still no excuse to having a whopping 3 shots on target over both legs and roughly 35% possession against a Barca team that was way past his best. So no, games against Barca and PSG cannot excuse his CL record. Especially not looking at how we lost those.

We could of done better sure, still I don't think anyone had us to beat them however.

As has been pointed out the stat needs padding / context added to it.

 

[R.N7]

Istanbul 2 - 1 Man Utd

That Ba goal...Massively underrating the opposition by playing poor fringe players like Tuanzebe in a 4 man defence.

Man Utd 1 - 3 PSG

Fred was a walking red card and he ignored it.

Leipzig 3 - 2 Man Utd

Drastic change in formation that Leipzig took full advantage.

Young Boys 2 - 1 Man Utd

Walking into the second half and only playing for a draw against Young Boys. Embarrassing for a club of this stature, would Real Madrid or Bayern Munchen do that?

 

[Sean_RedDevil]

8 defeat for him against Villarreal and it will be his last defeat here

 

[Pintu]

Not sure where you’ve got those details from.

They lost 3 out of 8 games last season and drew against Ajax and midgetland.

Year before that they played 9 games and lost 4.

4 losses out of the 15 games. Olé with 10 times the Atalanta budget has 7 losses out of 11.

Here is the last 15 Champions League games played by Atalanta. 4 losses (having played 10 vs Real Madrid for 80 mn). The main info was they've faced City, PSG, Liverpool, Ajax and Madrid. So it is not about the draws. Draws can't be an excuse for such a poor record when you coach Manchester Utd.

06/11/19	UCL	Atalanta	1 - 1	Manchester City	View events
26/11/19	UCL	Atalanta	2 - 0	Dinamo Zagreb	View events
11/12/19	UCL	Shakhtar Donetsk	0 - 3	Atalanta	View events
19/02/20	UCL	Atalanta	4 - 1	Valencia	View events
10/03/20	UCL	Valencia	3 - 4	Atalanta	View events

12/08/20	UCL	Atalanta	1 - 2	PSG	View events
21/10/20	UCL	Midtjylland	0 - 4	Atalanta	View events
27/10/20	UCL	Atalanta	2 - 2	Ajax	View events
03/11/20	UCL	Atalanta	0 - 5	Liverpool	View events
25/11/20	UCL	Liverpool	0 - 2	Atalanta	View events

'

01/12/20	UCL	Atalanta	1 - 1	Midtjylland	View events
09/12/20	UCL	Ajax	0 - 1	Atalanta	View events
24/02/21	UCL	Atalanta	0 - 1	Real Madrid	View events
16/03/21	UCL	Real Madrid	3 - 1	Atalanta	View events
14/09/21	UCL	Villarreal	2 - 2	Atalanta

 

[FootyGirl88]

 

[united_99]

8 defeat for him against Villarreal and it will be his last defeat here

No it won’t. Pathetic posts. Give it a rest, hoping for us to lose.
I also remember last season when you predicted we won’t make top 4 and Spurs would overtake us soon (that was when Jose was still there).

 

[Siorac]

God I fcukin hate this mentality.

It's beyond idiotic.

We're Unirah and we should always dominate and win games by 7 goals... what age are you for god sake?

There's quite a massive middle ground between yesterday's game and 'winning by 7 goals'.

 

[Rooney in Paris]

That Ba goal...Massively underrating the opposition by playing poor fringe players like Tuanzebe in a 4 man defence.



Fred was a walking red card and he ignored it.



Drastic change in formation that Leipzig took full advantage.


Walking into the second half and only playing for a draw against Young Boys. Embarrassing for a club of this stature, would Real Madrid or Bayern Munchen do that?

Since when do you post about football?!

 

[Ramshock]

8 defeat for him against Villarreal and it will be his last defeat here

Thanks for outing yourself plastic.

 

[united_99]

Just out of interest what was Sir Alex's record in his first eleven games?

It's not a rhetorical question as I don't know the answer, but I do remember even after you won it in '99 there being some pretty embarrassing results and didn't you even finish bottom of the group stage one year?

Maybe it's not my place but while last night's result and performance were obviously bad I'd suggest waiting until at least the group stage is over before pronouncing judgement.

There's a long way to go yet.

Our record in Europe between 99 win against Bayern and 2008 win against Barca was horrible (Pep at Bayern and City like horrible) - we didn’t beat any big / traditional European team for 7 years in the knock out stages. And we were last in 2005/06 in an easy CL group.
However we still kept winning the league and other domestic trophies so the European performances were easier to stomach.

 

[jem]

It’s abysmal and I don’t think any other top club would stand for it, however many second and third-place finishes and Europa Lesgue semis the manager might have to his credit.

 

[GBBQ]

There is absolutely no pressure. If he wins his home games and gets 1 away win he'll be fine and this match will be forgotten and meaningless. he's top of the league and has some top class players to bed in over the coming weeks.

So no its not an ideal result but lets get a grip.

 

[jem]

2 losses vs Barca
1 vs PSG
2 playing with 10 men

So it is a bit misleading.

Losses that remain most frustrating are Istanbul and Leipzig, especially first one. If we don't improve our CL record Ole will be sacked and rightfully so.

Fair point, but even those 10-men losses don’t reflect well: Fred should never have been on the pitch when he got the red, and ten men or not, a team of United’s caliber should still be beating a team from the Swiss league.

 

[Matthew84!]

Honestly some people are just so pathetic and childish, no one expected us to do well in the last few years and now you're suddenly upset with the stats that prove it,
Remind me again how many times we've won the Champions league since fergie retired?
Exactly the stats are always going to be bad.
Let's wait to the end of the season before getting on your childish high horse and trying to stir up trouble when in reality there really isn't anything to worry about.

 

[jem]

God I fcukin hate this mentality.

It's beyond idiotic.

We're Unirah and we should always dominate and win games by 7 goals... what age are you for god sake?

No what’s annoying is a defeatist mentality bolstered by accusations of exaggerated statements that nobody is actually saying (the win by 7 goals nonsense.)

 

[Salus Populi Suprema Lex]

We've had some tough ties amongst those defeats, but it's poor record, no matter which way you look at it. Last night was the worst, even with ten men, though the defeat is on Lingard, for his crazy back pass in the last minute of injury time. Nothing Ole can do about idiotic things like that.

 

[jem]

Honestly some people are just so pathetic and childish, no one expected us to do well in the last few years and now you're suddenly upset with the stats that prove it,
Remind me again how many times we've won the Champions league since fergie retired?
Exactly the stats are always going to be bad.
Let's wait to the end of the season before getting on your childish high horse and trying to stir up trouble when in reality there really isn't anything to worry about.

So because we’ve been shite in Europe since Fergie left, we really shouldn’t worry about the continuation of said shiteness? Makes perfect sense!

 

[jem]

We've had some tough ties amongst those defeats, but it's poor record, no matter which way you look at it. Last night was the worst, even with ten men, though the defeat is on Lingard, for his crazy back pass in the last minute of injury time. Nothing Ole can do about idiotic things like that.

Yes there is: don’t bring on Lingard.

 

[Dan_F]

4 losses out of the 15 games. Olé with 10 times the Atalanta budget has 7 losses out of 11.

Here is the last 15 Champions League games played by Atalanta. 4 losses (having played 10 vs Real Madrid for 80 mn). The main info was they've faced City, PSG, Liverpool, Ajax and Madrid. So it is not about the draws. Draws can't be an excuse for such a poor record when you coach Manchester Utd.

06/11/19	UCL	Atalanta	1 - 1	Manchester City	View events
26/11/19	UCL	Atalanta	2 - 0	Dinamo Zagreb	View events
11/12/19	UCL	Shakhtar Donetsk	0 - 3	Atalanta	View events
19/02/20	UCL	Atalanta	4 - 1	Valencia	View events
10/03/20	UCL	Valencia	3 - 4	Atalanta	View events

12/08/20	UCL	Atalanta	1 - 2	PSG	View events
21/10/20	UCL	Midtjylland	0 - 4	Atalanta	View events
27/10/20	UCL	Atalanta	2 - 2	Ajax	View events
03/11/20	UCL	Atalanta	0 - 5	Liverpool	View events
25/11/20	UCL	Liverpool	0 - 2	Atalanta	View events

'

01/12/20	UCL	Atalanta	1 - 1	Midtjylland	View events
09/12/20	UCL	Ajax	0 - 1	Atalanta	View events
24/02/21	UCL	Atalanta	0 - 1	Real Madrid	View events
16/03/21	UCL	Real Madrid	3 - 1	Atalanta	View events
14/09/21	UCL	Villarreal	2 - 2	Atalanta

So firstly, we’ve established it wasn’t 3 loses. Secondly, you’ve missed out the first three group games of 2019 of which they lost all 3.

That’s a hell of a way to cherry pick the stats.

 

[gerdm07]

We've played PSG 4 times, 2 wins 2 losses - a fair record.

We've played RB Leipzig 2 times, 1 win 1 loss - not great, but it happens.

We've played Barca 2 times, both losses - this was when we had a shit squad, and Messi was still at Barca.

We've played Istabul 2 times, 1 win 1 loss - that loss was catastrophic.

We've played Young Boys once, and lost - an unfortunate loss due to a red card, and a brainless moment from Lingard.

It's not great, but hyperbole always makes things seem worse.

Well put.

 

[mav_9me]

God I fcukin hate this mentality.

It's beyond idiotic.

We're Unirah and we should always dominate and win games by 7 goals... what age are you for god sake?

Outrageously disingenuous.

 

[Real Name]

3 of those defeats are the one against PSG at home when Ole took over the job and 2 against Barcelona after we progressed from the PSG tie so some perspective is needed, not just bland data like that.
I see @The Corinthian wrote it more nicely already.

 

[RkkMan]

3 of those defeats are the one against PSG at home when Ole took over the job and 2 against Barcelona after we progressed from the PSG tie so some perspective is needed, not just bland data like that.
I see @The Corinthian wrote it more nicely already.

One of the defeats to PSG was avoidable though, the one from last season when it was clear to the average football fan Fred was a walking red card yet Ole chose to keep him on till he got sent off. That makes it 3 unavoidable losses to 4 avoidable losses in the CL

 

[Pogue Mahone]

The Istanbul result and performance was a lot worse than tonight

You think? We actually created a bunch of chances in that game. Check this shit out…

We've played PSG 4 times, 2 wins 2 losses - a fair record.

We've played RB Leipzig 2 times, 1 win 1 loss - not great, but it happens.

We've played Barca 2 times, both losses - this was when we had a shit squad, and Messi was still at Barca.

We've played Istabul 2 times, 1 win 1 loss - that loss was catastrophic.

We've played Young Boys once, and lost - an unfortunate loss due to a red card, and a brainless moment from Lingard.

It's not great, but hyperbole always makes things seem worse.

The more data we have to combine together the more accurate the assessment. So it doesn’t make sense to break it down like that. None of those results in bold would be a worry individually but added together…

 

[The Corinthian]

The more data we have to combine together the more accurate the assessment. So it doesn’t make sense to break it down like that. None of those results in bold would be a worry individually but added together…

I get that - but I think context matters. Every loss or adverse result on this board is met with meltdowns. It gets a bit tiring.

Also, let's see where we are at the end of the group stage. Yesterday's result hinged on two moments - a red card, and a brainfart from Jesse. It would have been a whole different result if AWB received a yellow instead of a red. (I also think we should have had a penalty when Ronaldo was pushed over in the box).

 

[Chief123]

8 defeat for him against Villarreal and it will be his last defeat here

No it won't. Get a grip.

Yes he could have made better decisions with the subs but to blame the defeat all on Ole is stupid. After we went down to 10 men, any manager with any bit of credibility would have taken a draw at that stage of the game considering we were only 30 mins into the game. We ended up finishing the last 15-20 mins of the game rather comfortably and controlled once Matic came on. So from Ole's point of view it was under control until a bad decision made by Lingard. Two bad decisions by AWB and Lingard cost us the game. Nothing else.

 

[Wing Attack Plan R]

Oof. That’s bad. Very bad.

There’s an obvious - and deeply concerning - reason too.

Is it... fluoride in our drinking water?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

It's not the losses it's the manner of the losses.

The complacency from Ole and the entire squad vs Istanbul
PSG game and Fred's red.
The starting system in the must-win game vs Leipzig.
Setting us up at half time to have 6 men camped in our own penalty box for 45 minutes vs Young Boys, and then subbing on Lingard and Martial despite a system that was just looking to hold out for a draw.
Obviously include the inability to make a meaningful change in the EL final.


It's a really grim pattern of incompetence.

Failing to sub De Gea off for Henderson in EL final.

 

[VidaRed]

Unacceptable for Manchester United.

 

[BlahRules]

I never seen Ole able to get the team to have control of the game for the whole 90 minutes.

We only see the team carving the oppisition when we are ahead and the other team is going for it and they leave more space to be attacked.

We are crying out of players to be able to dictate and the very least is able to have a pass completion of 90%. The subbing of Donny is ridiculous when Bruno and Fred are not players that has high success pass rate. Even Pogba is not press resistant and is able to keep it simple.

I don't understand why Lingard was put on to play as a lone striker and then shifted as a midfielder. I kept hearing he will give energy but that could have easily been given by Donny with more control to the midfield.

Ole should have taken off Pogba or Bruno for Matic. Which would have allowed us to play more compact and play on the break but instead Ole decided to be defensive and concede the possession, ole was hoping to hold out for the win and then for a draw.

 

[AshRK]

Don't think that's his point. His point is that Ole's catastrophic CL record for us shouldn't be excused by pointing at our games against PSG or Barca. A Barca team that was convincingly beat by Pool. It's a more than fair point.

That Barca side also convincingly beat Liverpool in the first leg and should have scored more had Dembele not had a mare. Barca just capitulated in the second leg. That Barca side were strong and better than the United side.

 

[izec]

A record you'd expect from a Molde or Cardiff manager

 

[barros]

Don't think this has got enough attention. Ole's record at the top level is awful. 7 in 11 is not even amateur stuff. His record domestically is very good in comparison. Why is there such a disparity between the results in Europe and domestic league/cup football?

Fear

 

[TMDaines]

A bit surprised by some of the replies trying to downplay this. Its an awful record for a club of our supposed size. I mean even if all 11 games were against 2010 Barca it would still be a bit underwhelming.

I'm starting to think rival fans are right, we wont win anything with Ole, and this is easily the best Utd squad since SAF's time and i dont want that fact to be wasted the next few years.

It’s such a small sample though. It’s a given that a 38 game league season has a lot of variance, so 11 games is much more volatile.

 

[TMDaines]

Failing to qualify with this squad of players from a group with Young Boys, Villarreal and Atalanta is akin to finishing bottom half of the EPL table.

Please elaborate.

 

[tomaldinho1]

Don't think this has got enough attention. Ole's record at the top level is awful. 7 in 11 is not even amateur stuff. His record domestically is very good in comparison. Why is there such a disparity between the results in Europe and domestic league/cup football?

It's really not though. Last season we were WDDDDDLL against top 5 in the PL, L to City in the League Cup and L to Leicester in the FA cup (we W against Liverpool the round before for balance).

Therefore in total encounters with top 5 clubs we were: WWDDDDDLLLL

(Please feel free to check, I manually did this from United website so might have missed something)

 

[Frosty]

You think? We actually created a bunch of chances in that game. Check this shit out…

I remember us being defensively all over the place in Istanbul, and resting players when a win would have meant we qualified from a tough group.

There was also no crowd in the stadium - I wonder whether we would have performed so well away from home if most of the stadiums were full? Compared with last night the crowd add something extra to the home team.

The red card also sways my comparison of the two performances as well.

I admit I may be being influenced by hindsight - we know that the Istabul defeat put us out on balance (it was the easiest of the three defeats that we should have won), yet we could easily qualify from this group and this will be forgotten.

 

[United in sin]

2 losses against PSG

2 losses against Barcelona with Messi

With the team we had when we played them we were underdogs I would think.

The other three were not great though.

We've played PSG 4 times, 2 wins 2 losses - a fair record.

We've played RB Leipzig 2 times, 1 win 1 loss - not great, but it happens.

We've played Barca 2 times, both losses - this was when we had a shit squad, and Messi was still at Barca.

We've played Istabul 2 times, 1 win 1 loss - that loss was catastrophic.

We've played Young Boys once, and lost - an unfortunate loss due to a red card, and a brainless moment from Lingard.

It's not great, but hyperbole always makes things seem worse.

Barcelona lost 4-0 to Liverpool and 8-2 to Bayern Munich with Messi around.

why the insult? Are you incapable of speaking like an adult?



But it's not bizarre to judge Ole's record in UCL a few weeks into the job halfway into a season with an inherited team including the likes of Valencia, Young, Smalling and Jones for starters? Thanks a perfectly normal thing to judge him on?

He lost to two inferior teams (Young boys and last season to that Turkish club) with much better and improved squads. It's not the players, it's the manager

I don’t like to insult people, but when I do it’s by unleashing some vicious insults like asking them if they’re feeling well.

Have mercy on his soul!

 

[Frosty]

Barcelona lost 4-0 to Liverpool and 8-2 to Bayern Munich with Messi around.

Yes they did, and Liverpool and Bayern Munich had superior teams and squads to us at the time too. If we drew them I would have expected to be beaten too.

There's a lot of pressure on the next two home group games.