7 losses in 11 Champions League games...

Frosty said:
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.
Click to expand...

I mean we also lost to PSG last season at home with an improved squad from our first two encounters with them in Solskjaer's first season. You expect united to be beaten by certain clubs? What have we become?
 
United in sin said:
I mean we also lost to PSG last season at home with an improved squad from our first two encounters with them in Solskjaer's first season. You expect united to be beaten by certain clubs? What have we become?
Click to expand...

We did yes, although you could say the red card swayed that result.

And I do expect us to be beaten by certain clubs. We were spoiled by Fergie in many ways.

I think we are still a level below the elite, not helped by a big central midfielder shaped hole on the pitch. However I think that this is a strongest we have been since 2013 and if we get some luck we could win a trophy or two this season.
 
Bestietom said:
Read today that Ole said loss was down to EXPERIENCE. Does he mean himself and his coaches.
3 semi finals and a final loss tells something.
Click to expand...

Yeah severe lack of experience in Ole and the coaching staff with bugger all being done about that
 
Last edited:
Dan_F said:
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.
Click to expand...
Again. The question was not "how good/bad is Atalanta's record". Atalanta did lose its first ever CL games, I said so in my initial post.

You initial post was :
"I’m going to go out on a limb and say no teams last 11 fixtures in the champions league look like that. "

I only meant to give you an example of a team's last run of games and that you don't need to lose 7 out of 11 just because you are playing strong opposition. Restricting Atalanta's run from 15 to 11 -as your initial post suggests- won't increase the number of losses.

The fact remains Atalanta played many adversaries way above their level in the last 11/15 and only lost 4.

Olé met teams that are in no way as much superior to his side as City, Liverpool, and Madrid are to Atalanta and he managed to lose 7 out of 11.
 
Pintu said:
Again. The question was not "how good/bad is Atalanta's record". Atalanta did lose its first ever CL games, I said so in my initial post.

You initial post was :
"I’m going to go out on a limb and say no teams last 11 fixtures in the champions league look like that. "

I only meant to give you an example of a team's last run of games and that you don't need to lose 7 out of 11 just because you are playing strong opposition. Restricting Atalanta's run from 15 to 11 -as your initial post suggests- won't increase the number of losses.

The fact remains Atalanta played many adversaries way above their level in the last 11/15 and only lost 4.

Olé met teams that are in no way as much superior to his side as City, Liverpool, and Madrid are to Atalanta and he managed to lose 7 out of 11.
Click to expand...

You’ve lost me. You were the one that bought up their past 15 game record and compared it directly to United's 11 game record. You clearly picked that number to avoid having the extra three losses, making it look better.

And again, they haven’t played City in the last 11 matches, so you’ve stretched it to 15 to make the fixtures look harder, but not included the games they lost in that group. You’ve purposely selected stats to help your argument both ways.

As a final point, I’d say Atalanta were favourites in at least an equal number of their last 11 games as United were (4 or 5). So even if you’re going to compare difficultly of fixture to their quality (which wasn’t the point I originally made anyway), it’s about the same.

That said, yes Atalanta are clearing performing better for money spent. No way would I argue against that, or try to claim Ole is doing well in Europe. I just thought context should be given around difficult fixtures.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
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)
Click to expand...
His record vs the top 5 & Leicester in the PL and across the cups has been pretty great since he's been here though.
 
hobbers said:
Not last season it wasn't. 2-6-4 in the league. Lost to Leicester and City in the cups.
Click to expand...
Yea but since his time here his record is near as good as Liverpool & City’s (the two standout teams in that time). Last season was probably the worst from a top 5 perspective.
 
The Corinthian said:
His record vs the top 5 & Leicester in the PL and across the cups has been pretty great since he's been here though.
Click to expand...
I don't even really agree with looking at last season as it stands but it's the closest thing we have for comparison, particularly given it was a weird covid season, but if you're going further back for reference his PL results against City, Chelsea, Pool and Leicester are (in chronological order):

Pool: DDLDL + W (Fa cup)
City: LWWDW + L x 2 (League cup)
Chelsea: DWWDD + W+L (Fa cup), W (League cup)
Leicester: WWWDL + L (Fa cup)

At first glance that looks ok(ish) but the issue is a huge proportion of those W's come from 19/20 and the interim period, look at Leicester for example, Ole's first 3 games against Leicester were WWW, his last 3 are DLL. By season (league):

18/19: 8/12 points
19/20: 19/24 points (I'm amazed how bad we were against lower teams to only get 66 points this season - in the 30 other games we only won 12 and drew another 11)
20/21: 8/24 points
 
macheda14 said:
They have lost their manager and a few players so that would be an irrelevant comparison.
Click to expand...
check out my reply to someone who said the same. Yes, on the manager but only yes to one of the players (sabitzer). Upamecano is hugely overrated if you ask me, has Konate even started for Liverpool ?
 
Jezpeza said:
Its a poor record. Been some difficult fixtures in there though. Had hoped we would beat Young Boys. They to me looked the easiest 6 points to get on the board in our group. Its not the hardest group ever but Atalanta and Villareal aren’t exactly pub teams and have decent european records. Not much breathing space for us now.

Think the red card changed it all last night. We were value for a point which was okay under circumstances but you cant plan around catastrophic errors and red cards so a bit kneejerk for some to act like the sky has fallen in.
Click to expand...
I think the point is, it fell in some time ago
 
Stop picking on Ole! Don’t you know “trophies are for other managers”?
 
Frosty said:
We did yes, although you could say the red card swayed that result.

And I do expect us to be beaten by certain clubs. We were spoiled by Fergie in many ways.

I think we are still a level below the elite, not helped by a big central midfielder shaped hole on the pitch. However I think that this is a strongest we have been since 2013 and if we get some luck we could win a trophy or two this season.
Click to expand...
Who are the elite now though?

Real, Barca, Juventus are all a shadow of the teams they were. I honestly think only City and PSG have stronger overall squads than us, maybe Chelsea at a push, and then Bayern possibly have a stronger (if ageing) first XI. We are easily in the top five squads in Europe now. Calling us a level below the elite now is a tired old excuse, it's not true. We should be getting QF's at a minimum this year, if not SF's. Anything less is total failure.

It's such a tired old excuse that doesn't hold weight anymore. It's always about our team not being good enough or there being some weakness in our squad holding us back. We've spent enormous amounts of money and have some of the best players in the world in their positions now, with a defense and attack as good as just about anyone.
 
mitchmouse said:
check out my reply to someone who said the same. Yes, on the manager but only yes to one of the players (sabitzer). Upamecano is hugely overrated if you ask me, has Konate even started for Liverpool ?
Click to expand...
Multiple reports that their players all disagree with the new managers tactics and lots of Leipzig fans don’t think he’ll last long there. Even if they had the same squad, they are not the same team that finished second in the BL last year. They’ve already lost 3 of their first 4 games in the league.
 
PoTMS said:
Just looking through those performances and most were awful too. Even that first PSG game we got absolutely battered and only snuck through via goalkeeper errors and a late penalty. It's not like we were unlucky in our losses, we were definitely lucky in our PSG and Leipzig wins.
Click to expand...

3-1 away at PSG was an even-ish game. In the 2-1 win last year we played them off the park.

Leipzig was 5-0…
 
For me it all about attitude. So called lesser teams are really up for playing us, the great Man Utd. We seem sometimes to have an ‘We only have to turn up and we will win attitude’ at times. Some players freeze. Now Ronaldo is here, there could be a danger of them thinking he will win every game for us which is impossible. Rio used to say if they were down at HT they dreaded going into the changing room, can see that with Ole.
 
Ole's is not a good record in the CL admittedly, but didn't SAF have some mixed results in his early years with United in Europe, until he found a way to win? Even Pep with all his experience and resources at City still hasn't won the CL with them (perhaps its the missing 17,000 fans that is unnerving him?) and he's been at it longer than Ole.
The loss against YB's was embarrassing in the way we responded, rather than the damage such as loss does to our overall group chances. I suspect apart from those fans who absolutely hate/love Ole (...whatever he does) the rest of us just want to see Ole and the rest of the management and squad learn from these mistakes, which at the moment they are kind of not really convincing!
 
The holy trinity 68 said:
How is it all on Ole? Did he make AWB sent off? Did he make Lingard pull off a howler?
Click to expand...
No, but he pretty much got every substitute and tactic wrong during the game being honest.

10 man football 101 is being solid at the back and counterattack. He made a mess out of it, taking Sancho out. Then somehow he decided to cut our midfield by taking VdB out and building a back 5. I haven't been able to understand that one still.

Finally he took Fred to get Martial, I mean what the actual feck was that? If the subs would had been decided by lottery I don't think they would been much worse.
 
Maticmaker said:
Ole's is not a good record in the CL admittedly, but didn't SAF have some mixed results in his early years with United in Europe, until he found a way to win? Even Pep with all his experience and resources at City still hasn't won the CL with them (perhaps its the missing 17,000 fans that is unnerving him?) and he's been at it longer than Ole.
The loss against YB's was embarrassing in the way we responded, rather than the damage such as loss does to our overall group chances. I suspect apart from those fans who absolutely hate/love Ole (...whatever he does) the rest of us just want to see Ole and the rest of the management and squad learn from these mistakes, which at the moment they are kind of not really convincing!
Click to expand...

We have had some shocking years in the champions league. Went out in the group stages under Fergie the year we signed Djemba Djemba and co if i remember rightly. And the year we got schooled by bilbao in the europa which everyone assumed we would win when we dropped out. Its one bad result. We were value for a point until jeses howler. Cant blame a manager for a red card or a howler backpass. Many already claiming we are as good as out of the champions league after one group stage game. Dont know at what point whinging about the future became more important than watching the games unfold. Plus, to play devils advocate, SAF, widely touted as greatest all time manager, was manager for 27 years and won just 2 CL titles. I would say that either thats a shit record, or its a difficult competition to win. Think the latter.
 
tomaldinho1 said:
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)
Click to expand...
Weren't 2 of those losses when we had 4 games in 8 days?
 
Massive Spanner said:
Who are the elite now though?

Real, Barca, Juventus are all a shadow of the teams they were. I honestly think only City and PSG have stronger overall squads than us, maybe Chelsea at a push, and then Bayern possibly have a stronger (if ageing) first XI. We are easily in the top five squads in Europe now. Calling us a level below the elite now is a tired old excuse, it's not true. We should be getting QF's at a minimum this year, if not SF's. Anything less is total failure.

It's such a tired old excuse that doesn't hold weight anymore. It's always about our team not being good enough or there being some weakness in our squad holding us back. We've spent enormous amounts of money and have some of the best players in the world in their positions now, with a defense and attack as good as just about anyone.
Click to expand...
Yeah fair point. Ole has done a great job. 3 cheers for Ole

Also 4 of the top teams in the world right now happen to be in England as well. That doesn't negate the good job Ole has done because with somebody else we could be miles off the top 3.
 
Last edited:
PoTMS said:
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?
Click to expand...

It’s a very aribitrary and misleading statistic , unless you think that meeting Basaksehir in CL is completely different to meeting Real Sociedad in the Europa League (which I’m sure you don’t), or unless you work in The Guardian and have an agenda of twisting tales against the Man Utd manager (let’s say if your name is Liew, Wilson or Ronay.

Do you wonder how United has fared in Europe? 17 wins in 32 matches.

Do you wonder how we have done against the top dogs? 2 wins and 4 losses. 3 of them in Ole’s first half season, when the team was depleted and injury ridden.

Do you wonder how we have done against CL group level opponents in Europe? 11 wins, 9 losses out of 25 games against the teams that have played CL group stages in later years.

I think I have a clou why Jonathan Liew would cherry pick results to make United look extra bad. I don’t think we need to stoop to that level at a United forum.
 
matsdf said:
Does were the only problems. Before the sending off we were cruising.
Click to expand...

Yeah but Paul Merson on Sky Sports said that if Man City went down to ten men they would have had 95% possession and scored 4 more so obviously Ole is shit
 
Grande said:
It’s a very aribitrary and misleading statistic , unless you think that meeting Basaksehir in CL is completely different to meeting Real Sociedad in the Europa League (which I’m sure you don’t), or unless you work in The Guardian and have an agenda of twisting tales against the Man Utd manager (let’s say if your name is Liew, Wilson or Ronay.

Do you wonder how United has fared in Europe? 17 wins in 32 matches.

Do you wonder how we have done against the top dogs? 2 wins and 4 losses. 3 of them in Ole’s first half season, when the team was depleted and injury ridden.

Do you wonder how we have done against CL group level opponents in Europe? 11 wins, 9 losses out of 25 games against the teams that have played CL group stages in later years.

I think I have a clou why Jonathan Liew would cherry pick results to make United look extra bad. I don’t think we need to stoop to that level at a United forum.
Click to expand...

I don’t really know where pundits or fans get the idea we have always been this mega force in the Champions League and we are in crisis over the form in the competition. We’ve been largely shit in it. There were years under Fergie with some mint teams where we pissed the league but couldn't get a sniff in the champions league. Always had problems in this competition
 
Jezpeza said:
We have had some shocking years in the champions league. Went out in the group stages under Fergie the year we signed Djemba Djemba and co if i remember rightly. And the year we got schooled by bilbao in the europa which everyone assumed we would win when we dropped out. Its one bad result. We were value for a point until jeses howler. Cant blame a manager for a red card or a howler backpass. Many already claiming we are as good as out of the champions league after one group stage game. Dont know at what point whinging about the future became more important than watching the games unfold. Plus, to play devils advocate, SAF, widely touted as greatest all time manager, was manager for 27 years and won just 2 CL titles. I would say that either thats a shit record, or its a difficult competition to win. Think the latter.
Click to expand...

Think you are right!
Its still a cup competition (at the business end) and involves 15 games overall (for those with direct entry) but I still think winning the PL is where we want to go first and suspect Ole does too... was he keeping Greenwood back for Sunday at West Ham???
 
Olecurls99 said:
Weren't 2 of those losses when we had 4 games in 8 days?
Click to expand...
Toward the end of the season we had Leicester/Pool near the EL final if that's what you mean? That was the knock on of the postponement from the protests which I guess affected us and Pool (they won against us and WBA with Alisson's last minute winner for reference). Looking at our matchday squads what is quite weird is we only look like we rested players on the very last game of the season, despite the title race being over and top four long secure, so had a full team out the week before the EL final against relegated Fulham.
 
mitchmouse said:
when we lost in Istanbul, when we lost to sheffield united, when we failed to beat fulham at home...
Click to expand...

2 losses and a draw are the end of a football club? Don’t know what to say to such a hysterical opinion
 
padzilla said:
Stop picking on Ole! Don’t you know “trophies are for other managers”?
Click to expand...
Patience my friend. The trophies are coming. The squad has been brought up to a serious level now and we're relevant again for the first time since Fergie. Rejoice in that
 
The holy trinity 68 said:
True but before the sending off we were winning and fairly comfortable.

We definitely would have beat them by a couple if that didn't happen.
Click to expand...

Yeah probably, but that's not really the point. The sending off changed the match from one sort of challenge to another one, so it's neither here nor there how well we did at first. While going down to 10 men is pretty rare, it tested an ability that is needed at other times, even when you have 11 men. The ability to manage a game with controlled, authoritative possession is something you frequently need in football. Whether it's building from the back, passing through a press, or pushing back the opposition into their own box, it all stems from the same place and is something we're weak at. It's harder with 10 men of course, but it's something we're poor at, even with 11. I feel confident in saying that, if CIty had gone down to 10 men in that game, they'd have done much better at keeping the ball away from Young Boys.
 
That stat doesnt look very good..

Even looking back at the games, the ones we won were great performances and fully deserved, whereas on the other hand we were truly the architects of our own destruction in the losses and fully deserved to lose them too.

I said this in another thread, but I feel for the past 3 years we have no idea which Ole will turn up to manage this team. International teams play very differently to domestic, and he hasnt quite grasped it yet. He will hopefully even out the record, but wouldnt be surprised if we lose at least one more in this group
 
The holy trinity 68 said:
How is it all on Ole? Did he make AWB sent off? Did he make Lingard pull off a howler?
Click to expand...

By the same token, our success has nothing to do with Ole either right? Actually why do we need a manager?

I actually agree with you that AWB red card has nothing to do with anything.

However the performance afterwards where we went into a shell is on Ole. I think that's the point rather than the result or Lingard's howler.

I personally look at performances rather than results. Cuz I firmly believe results catch up to performances usually.
 
Olecurls99 said:
Yeah fair point. Ole has done a great job. 3 cheers for Ole

Also 4 of the top teams in the world right now happen to be in England as well. That doesn't negate the good job Ole has done because with somebody else we could be miles off the top 3.
Click to expand...

I didn't even know ole was a billionaire, let alone spending a billion pounds of his own money to assemble this team. Because we've long been linked with Fernandes, Maguire, Ronaldo and varane all before ole even joined, so I can't imagine he's getting credit for the targets, must be he provided the money himself right?
 
jm99 said:
I didn't even know ole was a billionaire, let alone spending a billion pounds of his own money to assemble this team. Because we've long been linked with Fernandes, Maguire, Ronaldo and varane all before ole even joined, so I can't imagine he's getting credit for the targets, must be he provided the money himself right?
Click to expand...
Deary me.

Jose spent similar money and left us in heap.....

So did Louis.....

Ole is spending similar amounts of the clubs money and bringing us back to relevance. Enjoy the ride my friend.
 
Olecurls99 said:
Deary me.

Jose spent similar money and left us in heap.....

So did Louis.....

Ole is spending similar amounts of the clubs money and bringing us back to relevance. Enjoy the ride my friend.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure Jose wanted Maguire and Fernandes but just didn't get backed in his last summer, when Maguire was apparently available for about 65m rather than 90m. But largely I don't feel as if managers get huge amounts of input into the signings, they'll obviously be consulted, but I mean does anyone really think pogba seemed like a mourinho signing?

Edit: granted ole does get some credit for developing greenwood and helping Luke Shaw get back on track but largely this team was assembled through large amounts of money, spent by the upper management of the club, I don't know how much credit ole gets for the signings of wan bissaka, varane. Fernandes, Ronaldo and Sancho. They seem like signings we would have made regardless of manager
 
You must log in or register to reply here.