Ole ball has never left as our best strategy. Ole was just much, much better at it. Ten Hag no matter how much he has tried has always failed horrendously when trying to move away from it then reverted back.
Yeah but there are a few plausible and possible reasons he failed so horribly with it last season. But I'll give you that. Oleball is a simple but effective game plan, it can work well for a period of time and especially for specific games. It is a prerequisite of every great team out there - the thing is, at a certain time it isn't sustainable anymore and when you don't manage to reach the next level by then, you hit the wall just like Ole did.
Ole did well because he realised the limitations of himself as a manager and also the squad he had.
It's the same reason he never would have touched Pep or Klopp. Ten Hag I think is equally limited at the top, top level but doesn't accept it as much so we have to suffer more miserable attempts to do something he just isn't capable of.
Well, makes sense, but what is your recommendation? Just accept, that we suck and stick with on a level below other teams? I don't think, that makes sense at all. I had high hopes for ETH and I can totally see people losing patience with him but there is no point in just getting rid of him as long as we don't have a short list of suitable successors lined up. I think, ETH "wasted" his first year stabilizing himself at a big club but continueing a gameplan he didn't really like. And last season, when he made the changes, he was punished for it for many reasons. But I guess coming from where we where - having no clue at all about the modern game was always going to be painful. Because attempting it exposes our shortcomings. But without it, we get stuck somewhere we don't want to be - and for what? For the occasional 3rd or 4th or 5th place? For occasionally giving a great performance against the best teams in the league without ever really competing for it? Ole's 2nd (with what, 14 points difference to City?) place is a great metaphor in my eyes... This is, what will happen, if we put results first forever without adapting to modern tactics: we'll be able to get results without ever really challenging, relying on our rivals to stumble to move up the ladder.
Ole was not the top class manager Utd need but he provided far more enjoyment week to week whilst waiting than Ten Hag who also isn't the manager we need. Imo of course.
Thats highly subjective. I can tell you there were many fans that didn't like what we offered every week. Sleeping for the first 45minutes only to wake up in the 2nd and grind out a result. Playing for goalless draws against shitty teams because they parked the bus. This was the time of the "awfully coached"-thread, so lets not romantisize those times.
The worst thing about watching us these days is how utterly boring we are.
I can handle the results being now what we want, but usually United games are that thing I will mentally circle for the week ahead and genuinely look forward to.
This current version of United suck all the fun out of watching football. I genuinely only ever lost interest for a while under LvG, but EtH is in danger of bringing us there too.
That seems very harsh. I mean, I can see where you coming from but I still think, it is harsh. Out of interest, what did you think about the first half against Brighton? I thought, we played really well.
How much of this pressing improvement is down to starting a 4 man midfield and the intensity of Mount and how much is it to us becoming a better pressing team?
From what I see, the better pressing is due to us clogging the middle of park with 2 central and 2 attacking midfielders. The trade-off is that we look more toothless in attack and are sacrificing someone who should be there as a goal scorer (whether Rasmus or Zizkzee). Also, we started to look like we looked like last season as soon as Mount went off and it gave Brighton more spaces to exploit.
I wouldn't mind this formation in a couple of big games as we as we won't be anything other than an underdog under ETH but it being used against Fulham or a Brighton team with Milner in the midfield didn't impress me at all.
Thats the main question for me too. Against Fulham we stopped the pressing even though he was still on the pitch. Against Brighton it fell off with him being subbed. I can't believe, it is only the player - but I am genuinely curious why there was such a break in our play in both games.
Still blaming Ole for this teams failing at this point just seems a bit desperate. They're all footballers, they're all of a decent level, and yet Ten Hag still has struggled to make them, with plenty of new signings, look like a team after over 2 years. Other managers come into to lesser teams and do more.
Not sure anybody blamed him for stuff that is happening these days but when his name is used to paint a past that was supposedly more entertaining or better, then people will react to it. The Ole years did nothing in terms of us moving forward. On the contrary, we wasted time and money, which was always going to bite us at some point. It would have even if we had appointed Klopp after him and not ETH. Don't get me wrong, Mourinho era was also not helping at all but this is well acknowledged around here, while Oles reign may not be fully processed by some fans. He was a great great interim manager, the right man at the right time. But everything that happened after those initial 3-5 month was just bad.