Appointing Solskjaer was a mistake

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Heschel said:
I find this interesting, because Jose finished 2nd with what you're calling the worst squad you've ever seen. How much time and patience does Ole get for winning 3 in the last 18, just because he scored a goal 20 years ago?
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Well, I'm 40 and followed them since maybe 15...so that's 25 years. Have you honestly saw us have a worse group of players in that time than we do now?

OK Jose finished 2nd but we were 19 points behind City! Ole is trying to play better football than Jose ever did and building for the long term. The changes he's made to the squad make sense.
 
ArjenIsM3 said:
Oh come on. Are we already starting to talk up Lukaku? He is prone to missing absolute sitters himself. Did so for Inter last game and has done so for us many times.
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Lukaku is miles ahead of Rashford when it comes to finishing.
Come back when Rashford start scoring 15-20 goals a season
 
hocane said:
Lukaku is miles ahead of Rashford when it comes to finishing.
Come back when Rashford start scoring 15-20 goals a season
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Maybe if Rashford starts hanging around the box more, looking for easy tap ins. At the moment he’s trying to do everything.
 
What an awful mess we’re in.

Mediocre manager who has nothing of note on his cv (a relegation though)

A squad thin & not good enough. Selling quality players & leaving us with not enough to cope in a long season .

If the board clearly don’t care about the team then apathy will soon set in- how it’s got to this is a disgrace to be honest.

We have Rashford & martial as our ONLY strikers. If they get injured or loss of form we’re absolutely screwed
 
Noc-Z said:
Well, I'm 40 and followed them since maybe 15...so that's 25 years. Have you honestly saw us have a worse group of players in that time than we do now?

OK Jose finished 2nd but we were 19 points behind City! Ole is trying to play better football than Jose ever did and building for the long term. The changes he's made to the squad make sense.
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I have followed them for 37 years - and I have :) But you probably have to go back to the 85-86 or 86-87 seasons to find something worse.
 
hocane said:
Lukaku is miles ahead of Rashford when it comes to finishing.
Come back when Rashford start scoring 15-20 goals a season
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Being a clinical finisher is about finishing the chances you get. According to PL stats Rashford missed 16 big chances last season and Lukaku missed 15. Rashford scored 10 vs Lukaku's 12. Rashford did take more shots but that's because he likes to shoot from outside the box. Those don't count as big chances though. They're about on par in that regard. Truth is they're very different types of strikers. Rashford tends to drop deep to get the ball a lot more than Lukaku.
 
Rafaeldagold said:
What an awful mess we’re in.

Mediocre manager who has nothing of note on his cv (a relegation though)

A squad thin & not good enough. Selling quality players & leaving us with not enough to cope in a long season .

If the board clearly don’t care about the team then apathy will soon set in- how it’s got to this is a disgrace to be honest.

We have Rashford & martial as our ONLY strikers. If they get injured or loss of form we’re absolutely screwed
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We're screwed with these two, regardless of injury or form.
 
lysglimt said:
I have followed them for 37 years - and I have :) But you probably have to go back to the 85-86 or 86-87 seasons to find something worse.
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See I don't remember that far back! In my time I've probably been spoiled with Giggs, Keane, Scholes etc. But at the end of the day this is Manchester United - we're right to expect better.

But it won't happen overnight, the squad has been badly managed for years. Ole has a hell of a job. And Ed & the Glazers to contend with. But I'm positive he's making the right moves. I have no problem with anyone who left leaving and his signings look excellent. I know the squad is very thin, but I'd rather go with what we have than pad it out with any player that will come here and be patient and wait on the right signings as I think he is doing. More signings of the quality of Maguire and Wan Bissaka over the next few windows and I'll be happy. (James is still potential)
 
The season so far has looked positive as a whole. I don't apportion any blame to Ole at all for our current league position. If we put away 2 penalties & DDG doesn't throw 1 in we are looking at 12 pts. We'd have won the game against Palace after equalizing. The momentum we had would have likely carried us on to win at Southampton. It's down to the players to eradicate the basic errors they are making.
 
Tom Cato said:
Jose was also steering us on course to not even get to Europa League with the same squad, which is why he was fired.

How much time and patience does a manager get with his own squad? We're 4 games into his first season and the fans are baying for blood, despite our play indicating we might as well have won the games we drew or lost.

Manchester United fans have absolutely no patience for a rebuild of the squad to mold the team into a new Manchester United. It's a great, great shame. FOUR games into his first season. The mind boggles.

He signed 3 players this window. All of them have been absolutely fantastic. Of course 0 credit given for that, while he at the same time has to handle a roster that is: Not his, full of people who are past their prime (Mata, Matic, Jones, etc), a squad that couldnt do what he wanted them to do at the tail end of last season. And you know what, this same team dismantled Chelsea 4-0 at Old Trafford. So Technically we are 3 games into a unlucky results streak and that is the time it takes for the fans on Stretford End to lose their sh*t.

I absolutely hate how everything gets re-evaluated with every result sometimes. its exhausting.
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Ferguson left 6 years ago. How long will Utd be rebuilding? Also, that was a Chelsea team that will also struggle this season.

Noc-Z said:
Well, I'm 40 and followed them since maybe 15...so that's 25 years. Have you honestly saw us have a worse group of players in that time than we do now?

OK Jose finished 2nd but we were 19 points behind City! Ole is trying to play better football than Jose ever did and building for the long term. The changes he's made to the squad make sense.
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Bloody hell. He finished 2nd, and conceded 28 goals with a back four of Valencia, Smalling, Jones, and Young. However, because Utd finished 19 points behind a club that spends 500 million pounds every other window, it wasn't enough?

Finishing 2nd was the time for Utd to be rebuilding. That ship has sailed.
 
Heschel said:
Ferguson left 6 years ago. How long will Utd be rebuilding? Also, that was a Chelsea team that will also struggle this season.



Bloody hell. He finished 2nd, and conceded 28 goals with a back four of . However, because Utd finished 19 points behind a club that spends 500 million pounds every other window, it wasn't enough?

Finishing 2nd was the time for Utd to be rebuilding. That ship has sailed.
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The original point was about me saying this is the worst squad I've saw us have in 25 years of following them. And someone replied that well Mourinho got second with this squad (first point is the squad is pretty different now). So without realising you're pretty much agreeing that although we got second it doesn't mean the squad was a good one. As you've alluded to it was an achievement of Mourinho to get second with that squad. If it was a batter squad he wouldn't be playing "
Heschel said:
Ferguson left 6 years ago. How long will Utd be rebuilding? Also, that was a Chelsea team that will also struggle this season.



Bloody hell. He finished 2nd, and conceded 28 goals with a back four of Valencia, Smalling, Jones, and Young. However, because Utd finished 19 points behind a club that spends 500 million pounds every other window, it wasn't enough?

Finishing 2nd was the time for Utd to be rebuilding. That ship has sailed.
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No it was enough at that point. The original discussion was about the state of the squad, as you say it had Jones etc. in it. So finishing second may be a good achievement by Mourinho but no, 19 points behind doesn't make it not one of the worst squads Ive ever saw us have.
 
Rafaeldagold said:
What an awful mess we’re in.

Mediocre manager who has nothing of note on his cv (a relegation though)

A squad thin & not good enough. Selling quality players & leaving us with not enough to cope in a long season .

If the board clearly don’t care about the team then apathy will soon set in- how it’s got to this is a disgrace to be honest.

We have Rashford & martial as our ONLY strikers. If they get injured or loss of form we’re absolutely screwed
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So were you complaining when we had managers with pedigree? Jose and Van Gaal?

Selling quality players? which ones?

City have 2 strikers in Aguero and Jesus.
Spurs have 1 Striker
Arsenal have 2 strikers
Liverpool have 3 strikers

It is the same for them too?
 
Son said:
Some of our fans advocating 10th place is acceptable blows my mind just because Ole is in charge.

This blatant favouritism towards Manchester born and bred players has to stop too. Either shape up or get out. Madrid have produced many youth talents but not many get to play for them long due to higher standards enforced.

An insular mindset won’t win us trophies. City have already globalised and we can’t compete atm. We need a lot of outside help in the coming years from new coaches and poaching top backroom talent from around Europe to have any hope of catching up.
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Downfall of the club. You get the feeling that if some ex player went 6 years finishing 10th that the majority would still be shouting... "Give him more time"

Having said that, like Moyes, Ole probably wanted more players n.
 
This is getting tedious. We all know the Glazers are the problem and have been all along. They don't care what you think - all you can do is withhold your money. If you won't do that, you get what you're given.

The rest is noise.
 
romufc said:
So were you complaining when we had managers with pedigree? Jose and Van Gaal?

Selling quality players? which ones?

City have 2 strikers in Aguero and Jesus.
Spurs have 1 Striker
Arsenal have 2 strikers
Liverpool have 3 strikers

It is the same for them too?
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No I wasn’t complaining. Jose won us trophies & got us top 4. Same with LVG.

Under ole we’re going backwards

Selling Herrera & lukaku (who’s guaranteed goals we can’t afford to be losing) & NO replacements is insane
 
Rafaeldagold said:
No I wasn’t complaining. Jose won us trophies & got us top 4. Same with LVG.

Under ole we’re going backwards

Selling Herrera & lukaku (who’s guaranteed goals we can’t afford to be losing) & NO replacements is insane
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So under LVG we went from top 4 to outside top 4 if you recall?

Jose's first season was outside top 4. second season he got us 2nd and a shit show of a champions league campaign.

3rd season we were 6th well of the champions league places?

Herrera was not sold, he decided he wants to go to PSG, he rejected us. Lukaku was not in Ole's plans and quite frankly he was rubbish. He scored 12 goals last season so hardly guaranteed goals. He has only hit 20 plus goals once in the PL.

I don't understand how we are going backwards?

We have got rid of deadwood in Sanchez, Smalling, Valencia, Fellaini and replaced in the first 11 Young, Jones, Matic.

We have an average age of 24 compare to Jose wanting to buy 28 plus only.

We are fitter than we have been in last few years.
 
ExecutionerWasp001 said:
The season so far has looked positive as a whole. I don't apportion any blame to Ole at all for our current league position. If we put away 2 penalties & DDG doesn't throw 1 in we are looking at 12 pts. We'd have won the game against Palace after equalizing. The momentum we had would have likely carried us on to win at Southampton. It's down to the players to eradicate the basic errors they are making.
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Shoulda, coulda, woulda, that’s not how football works.
We’re having a piss poor start to the season and we’ve had a piss poor ending to the previous season.
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
This is the same guy who went to Valencia with no plan and realized there was going to be a culture shock afterwards. No thanks. A proper DoF is someone who is in the pulse of things, already has a network of connections in world football and can liaise and work with agents, other directors, coaches at every level from academy to first team and even with players' families. That someone is not Neville and I don't think he even has the motivation to quit a very comfortable job and put in the hours needed for this kind of role.
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I'm talking about Solskjaer, 100% no chance for Neville.
 
There are always ney sayers out there. Were you happy in acquiring "superstars" at exorbitant amounts of money who win a cup or 2 with the club slowly decaying before us?
Solskjaer understands the way of our club, it was never an over-night success story, just most have missed the process sir Alex had to undertake as well as the shit from such fans he had to take in order to build the club in what it is.
It's not gonna be easy, take some joy in the journey but we'll be back on top under Ole Gunnar, unless we're dumb enough to sack him.

When a change is about to happen it usually needs to get a bit worse untill it gets a whole lot better, stop knee-jerking, let fans of other teams laugh at us, they do it at their own peril. There will be the time when we'll be the ones laughing but you must give it time! Stop carrying on with descent and "manager out" planes and start watching some football, we're still playing it every week, sometimes twice a week.
 
Rafaeldagold said:
What an awful mess we’re in.

Mediocre manager who has nothing of note on his cv (a relegation though)

A squad thin & not good enough. Selling quality players & leaving us with not enough to cope in a long season .

If the board clearly don’t care about the team then apathy will soon set in- how it’s got to this is a disgrace to be honest.

We have Rashford & martial as our ONLY strikers. If they get injured or loss of form we’re absolutely screwed
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Your last paragraph is funny because one is literally injured and the other has terrible form. Europa league hasn't even begun. We could barely navigate that with a much bigger squad under Mourinho.
 
Frank Grimes said:
Your last paragraph is funny because one is literally injured and the other has terrible form. Europa league hasn't even begun. We could barely navigate that with a much bigger squad under Mourinho.
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I guess Greenwood doesn't exist then
 
Heschel said:
He finished 2nd, and conceded 28 goals with a back four of Valencia, Smalling, Jones, and Young. However, because Utd finished 19 points behind a club that spends 500 million pounds every other window, it wasn't enough?

Finishing 2nd was the time for Utd to be rebuilding. That ship has sailed.
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Jose got us 2nd by keeping a lot of men behind the ball, which he had to do because our back four wasn’t up to the task. This worked, but was decried as “boring football”. Then came the biggest mistake of the post-Fergie era: the board pressured Jose to change to a more fan-pleasing attacking style. What the board should have done is invested in quality defenders that would naturally allow a more attacking style without giving up goals. What happened was predictable, losing games and Jose frustrated and ultimately out. And here we are today.
 
4 games - 1 win, 1 loss, 2 draws. I cannot see Ole finishing the season as our manager and I think that's not pessimistic it's realistic we have won 3 in the last 15.

I'm all for getting rid of Ole if results don't even out, but his work at the club shouldn't be in vain and for this very reason give him the DOF role. Solskjaer is nothing as a manager he would be more successful in the upper echelon of football as a director. The trajectory he's putting the club on is a route to success but he doesn't have the pedigree as a manager / coach to make success of that on the field.
 
Frank Grimes said:
You have faith in a 17 old to produce the goods when he hasn't scored a goal in his entire senior career? This is totally unfair expectation to heap on such a young player, could actually end up doing real damage to his confidence at an important time in his career.
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No I just dont agree we have ONLY two strikers

I do have faith that by the end of the season we will benefit from Greenwoods progression long term though
 
After Poch's first 11 games at Spurs in 14/15 (before he had all this pedigree people talk of) he had 14 points (3 wins), Brendan Rodgers (a current flavour of the month) 15 points (4 wins) and LVG 16 points (4 wins).
 
romufc said:
So were you complaining when we had managers with pedigree? Jose and Van Gaal?

Selling quality players? which ones?

City have 2 strikers in Aguero and Jesus.
Spurs have 1 Striker
Arsenal have 2 strikers
Liverpool have 3 strikers

It is the same for them too?
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I would gladly change our strikers with any of the mentioned above. City have 1 worldclass striker in Aguero and one very good back up in Jesus, Spurs have 1 worldclass striker in Kane and a very good back up in Lucas Moura, Arsenal have two good options in Auba and Lacazzete, Liverpool has a good striker in Firminho and a decent back up in Origi.

We have an inconsistent Rashford and Martial and a promising yet not ready 17 y.o. as back up.
 
Noc-Z said:
Well, I'm 40 and followed them since maybe 15...so that's 25 years. Have you honestly saw us have a worse group of players in that time than we do now?

OK Jose finished 2nd but we were 19 points behind City! Ole is trying to play better football than Jose ever did and building for the long term. The changes he's made to the squad make sense.
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How does selling two midfielders, one who was a regular starter and the second who was highly effective and offered something different, without replacing either make sense? The best teams have the best midfield, or at least a midfield that functions with chemistry.
 
Ole might be the most clueless manager in the EPL.

The squad's a joke. Anyone who think "youth" is somehow going to make us a powerhouse needs their heads looking at. The kids aren't even that good. We have no midfielders, some defenders and no attackers. What an incredible rebuild. What a team. What vision. I'm sure he'll turn it around - his experience suggests anything is possible after all.
 
Though still young and I maybe doing him a disservice, I just don't think Rashford has the instincts to be a goal scorer, not a prolific one anyway.

At a much younger age I can see this in Greenwood though but he just doesn't have the physical presence to deal with PL defenders.

Last season Ole talked about Rashford's finishing and he possibly has one of the best teachers to show him composure in front of goal but I'm just not seeing the sort of progress from Rashford that indicates he is taking things on board. I hope to be proven wrong but I feel he wont top 10-15 goals per season.
 
I think the reality is that yes giving Ole the job full-time was a mistake, but it's just one of so many we have made, so until we fix the root of all this then Ole might as well stay, he is no way close to been our biggest problem right now.
 
MonkeysMagic said:
Though still young and I maybe doing him a disservice, I just don't think Rashford has the instincts to be a goal scorer, not a prolific one anyway.

At a much younger age I can see this in Greenwood though but he just doesn't have the physical presence to deal with PL defenders.

Last season Ole talked about Rashford's finishing and he possibly has one of the best teachers to show him composure in front of goal but I'm just not seeing the sort of progress from Rashford that indicates he is taking things on board. I hope to be proven wrong but I feel he wont top 10-15 goals per season.
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I think it´s a bit harsh on him. He hasn´t really had many clear cut chances, and for the one that he scored, he was very relaxed and composed. He could still score a lot of goals this season. I´m more worried about his build-up play, which has been pretty bad. When United fail to break down a weaker opponent, it´s mostly due to the attacking players inability to pass quickly in tight areas. City have better players up front. I don´t think there´s so much Ole can do about that. His trust in Rashford and the youth may lead to his downfall.
 
His 3 signings are our player of the month nominees.

He just needs to be backed in the market and we'll get there.
 
Camilo said:
Ole might be the most clueless manager in the EPL.

The squad's a joke. Anyone who think "youth" is somehow going to make us a powerhouse needs their heads looking at. The kids aren't even that good. We have no midfielders, some defenders and no attackers. What an incredible rebuild. What a team. What vision. I'm sure he'll turn it around - his experience suggests anything is possible after all.
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The squad being a joke is not Ole's fault. All of his signings have been great. He just hasn't been allowed to make enough signings yet. The blame for the squad lies with Ed and the previous managers.
 
The Madness Of It All ( part 2 )

The Problem.
In 2005 The glazers bought our club by incurring a debt on the club of approximately £660m. Fourteen years later with approximately £1400m in various repayments to hedge funds with mouthwatering interest rates between 16% and 18% total we are still over £490m in debt.Add to this the fact that we still owe over £240m for players which we bought on hire purchase and you perhaps see that we really are in a bit of a pickle. Out of a record 2018/9 annual total revenue of £590m we made an operating profit of only £44m. It might happen that the sponsorship which keeps us afloat might become so disenchanted with our fading image that they become less supportive.

The Team
The Glazers are apparently happy with the idea that Ed Woodward will continue his financial wizardry while seeing that CL football isn’t important and when you look at our current thin squad, you perhaps wonder how we are going to be combative enough to sustain us through four competitions.This brings us to the business of trying to improve the squad. I don’t think the Glazers will spend big because contrary to common belief, we are not a cash rich club so relying on the academy product looks to be the way forward. We have some very good talent at our disposal and it beggars belief that those in the squad already do not appear to be getting a reasonable or fair ratio of minutes to show their skills.

The manager
Is the manager (hero worship aside) competent enough to oversee the change around which is obviously required, some find his chummy approach (Rashy) etc not conducive to good management but rather a sign of insecurity. The one outstanding feature in all of our output is that we are far from anywhere near good enough to win any trophies and we are destined to languish in mid echelon for a few years yet.

Depressing but true!!!!!!
 
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I think his appointment was a big mistake but we have been mistakes like this since Woodward took charge. The fact that he has not been back shows that the Board maybe having doubts about Ole. Everyone knows that we needed quality midfield players and strikers. Once Sanchez was gone that saga of over paying is over and now Smalling and Darmian are gone too. Money was never or should never be a problem for United and we really should have bought two quality midfield players even if we did not sign a striker. Mario Mandzukic would have been an ideal type to sign as a variation from what we have.
 
Fussball13251 said:
Downfall of the club. You get the feeling that if some ex player went 6 years finishing 10th that the majority would still be shouting... "Give him more time"

Having said that, like Moyes, Ole probably wanted more players n.
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I agree completely. Although the downfall of the club has been brutal. We used to have Tevez, Rooney, Ronaldo & Berbatov as strikers 10 years ago...

I long for those days again but if I’m completely honest I dunno if the club will ever regain its position. Without the allure of a manager like Ferguson we’ve lost our shine.

Manchester just isn’t that nice of a city and the world changes. In the 90’s for instance it was such a happening place culturally and we took advantage. It’s now more about cold hard cash & City beat us easily in those stakes.
 
SAFMUTD said:
I would gladly change our strikers with any of the mentioned above. City have 1 worldclass striker in Aguero and one very good back up in Jesus, Spurs have 1 worldclass striker in Kane and a very good back up in Lucas Moura, Arsenal have two good options in Auba and Lacazzete, Liverpool has a good striker in Firminho and a decent back up in Origi.

We have an inconsistent Rashford and Martial and a promising yet not ready 17 y.o. as back up.
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Your point was not about the quality of our strikers, it was about the depth, most other clubs have same depth.

So you would take Origi and Firminho over Rashford and Martial?

I love how you ignored the other comment about a pedigree manager. It's so easy to criticise everyone but not look at what is actually happening at the club.
 
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