How can Ole be this bad?

[devilish]

I am actually surprised that he did so well TBH. The guy had no CV, he has no idea of how a top club is run let alone a poisoned chalice like ours and his coaching staff is a laughing stock. Better managers had struggled to get us to top 4 on a regular basis. Ole managed on that regard and he took us to a Europa league final.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Because he was never good enough. He came in after a horrible end to Joses reign, and everyone was happy. Hes a club legend, so the feel good was off the charts. We played well at the start, often taking advantage of our speedsters and hitting teams hard on the counter. Then the cracks started to show. The media started calling him a one trick pony, and for whatever reason he bite and started trying to make us play differently. After than night in Paris, we went on to win just two more game that season in all comps. We drew two, and we lost eight. In including a two nil defeat to relegated Cardiff.

The new season promised a change in form, with wins in all of our pre season games. And then a big four nil win over Chelsea in opening game of the season. It wouldnt be until the end of October that we would start to register concurrent wins again. In the end, from the time he was made permanent manger until the end of the October he registered just SIX wins in TWENTY FOUR games. One of those wins being Rochdale, and needed to go to pens.

Oles history isnt a good one. He started off in Molde with a lose to a newly promoted side. But he would go on to win their league for two seasons in a row. The problem here is that the Norwegian league is of such poor quality that current rules wouldnt allow Ole to have taken over at Utd had those rules been in place in 2018. Villa came calling in 2012 after sacking Mcleish. He refused, as he didnt want to disrupt his family who were now settled in Noway. In 2013, he starts the season badly with only seven points out of the first eleven games. He manages to finish the season in sixth place. His final act as manager that year would be to win the Norwegian cup final.

In 2014 he was announced as manager of Cardiff half way through the season. He only managed five wins in twenty one games, and ended the season dead last with only 30 points for the season. The following year in the Championship Ole was sacked after seven games. He had won just two games in the Championship. Back to Molde and he started of well with a win against Celtic in the Europa league, and even managed to finish first in the group that also included Ajax and Fenerbahce. In the Norwegian league, they would finish sixth. In his first full season back in charge he would go on to finish in fifth place after a season filled with the ups and downs most united fans have now witnessed. Including a run of six games in which he won just one, losing all five of the others. In 2017, a season that was once again mixed, he recorded just one win in seven, but then recorded just one lose in nine. Six of which were wins. This season would see them finish second, seven points behind the winners, Rosenborg. In 2018, it was much the same story. Varying runs of form saw just three wins in eight, but then five wins in a row. Once again, he would finish in second place. On Dec 3rd Molde announced that he had extended his contract until 2021...he left them to be caretaker of us a little over two weeks later.

As you can see, Ole has never been a top manager. Hes been a middle of road manager everywhere hes gone with ups and downs. Mostly downs outside of Molde, but with some big wins in the Europa league, including a one nil victory over eventual winners in 2016. Just a shame they lost the first leg three nil. When he took over at United, we were all of us, miserable. Jose had sucked all the joy out of the club. No matter what you think of him as a manger, he had made this place miserable. His sacking had to happen really, is for no other reason then the mental health of all in involved. Ole rode that feel good time hard and got a solid group of wins as caretaker. The problem is, thats all we saw of him. The guy at the top with all the misery packed away in Joses suitcase. So all we really knew about him, was that he could win when things were going well. The Glazers at first said they would consider his role at the end of the season. This would have been sensible. Because, like I said, we had only seen Ole in charge when everyone was happy. We hadnt seen Ole in charge when everyone was miserable. And that is a far more important skill set for a manager to have. Anyone can get a good performance when players are happy, but it takes a good manager to get a tune out of players who are miserable. And Ole showed us all, that he didnt have what it takes early on. The only problem was the Glazers gave him the job full time before we would see just how bad he was at getting players charged up when they werent winning games.

In his three years here, Ole has done fine. Not any better than who come before him. Lets look at the Champions league stats. After eleven champions league games, Ole actually has the most goals out of Jose, LVG and Moyes. But he also has the most goals against. 21 for, and 20 against. Recording just one clean sheet. Hes won five and lost seven. Jose won eight, drew two, lost four. Goals: Twenty for, nine against with seven clean sheets. LVG won two, drew two, lost two. Goals: Seven for, Seven against with two clean sheets. Moyes won five, drew three, lost two. Goals: seventeen for, nine against with five clean sheets. Despite Ole only being in charge for 4.8% of our matches in the CL, he accounts of 13% of total loses as of the 14th of September.

So we know that hes no better than Moyes, LVG or Jose. We know that he has a long history of ups and downs. And we know that watching us has been just as shit over the past year, maybe even longer, as it was under any of the other three. So I ask with all sincerity, how can anyone be surprised that he is this bad?

Excellent summary of Ole’s career.

The surprise obviously would have been Ole suddenly turning into one of the World’s best managers just because United gave him a chance.

 

[Wednesday at Stoke]

It’s quickly forgotten but for a while, all this team had was a brilliant work ethic with Rashford, Lingard and Martial leading from the front, Fred and McTominay in midfield, Brandon Williams putting in one reducer every game etc. The pace on the counter was so torrid that even Klopp and Pep came in last season setting up for a happy draw.

In a way I agree with Neville that if given the choice, Ole would work with last seasons squad and we might have leveled up too quickly for our own good.

 

[wolvored]

The expectation no longer matches the reality. That’s partly on him but it’s also on the whole United brand and marketing and cult of United that we had to sign Ronaldo for nostalgia reasons rather than spending the money on a midfielder.

Isnt that the reason we had Ole as manager in the first place though? It wasnt for his managerial prowess

 

[Green Arrow]

If he genuinely thought that way then he wouldn't have bothered adding coaches since he came in and would have stuck with the initial few he had. We've consistently added people to both the coaching and analytical teams since he's been here to try and improve the team.

He just likely genuinely believes in the people he has around him. And according to some journalists players believe in the work the coaches are doing.

That's fair enough he has added the coach that I think does some defencing work about marking etc, in recent games that hasn't worked we're conceding more goals. I just don't see what his team is trying to do, what style of play there is, all I see is counter attacking football sit back and hit teams on the break.

 

[NewGlory]

Pending a massive run of consistent wins I think it's almost a given that this is Ole's last season pending a miracle. The comments around the media, player post match interviews there's only a few months left of Solskjaer at the top level in football.

He has only one trick left. He will start playing 5 in the back and try to grind out games. Except it still won't work because we are playing the likes of City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Atalanta. These teams know how to break down pathetic, low-block teams

 

[Ixion]

I am actually surprised that he did so well TBH. The guy had no CV, he has no idea of how a top club is run let alone a poisoned chalice like ours and his coaching staff is a laughing stock. Better managers had struggled to get us to top 4 on a regular basis. Ole managed on that regard and he took us to a Europa league final.

We're a really rich club with a bigger stadium, transfer budget and wage bill than most clubs out there. Despite how we've made it look in recent years we have the resources to usually get top 4 and advance in cup competitions almost by default with the players we can get and other teams can't.

 

[Idxomer]

It’s quickly forgotten but for a while, all this team had was a brilliant work ethic with Rashford, Lingard and Martial leading from the front, Fred and McTominay in midfield, Brandon Williams putting in one reducer every game etc. The pace on the counter was so torrid that even Klopp and Pep came in last season setting up for a happy draw.

In a way I agree with Neville that if given the choice, Ole would work with last seasons squad and we might have leveled up too quickly for our own good.

You're mixing up seasons, that team was sixth in the league and losing to Burnley at home before the signing of Bruno.

 

[Kopral Jono]

We all know someone who's shit at his/her job. Normally it's because of laziness, lack of focus or just being a bit dim. But Ole doesn't look like he's lazy and you don't have to be a particularly bright individual to manage a football club - I mean most of them are ex-footballers.

How is he genuinely that bad?

The simple answer is because Ole was never good enough to manage a club of our stature in the first place. I didn't want him to take the job permanently, I knew what was going to come, but he did get the job after a hasty decision by the upper echelons of the club and to be fair he did fairly well steadying the ship from the absolute shambles Mourinho had left us with (though you could argue that the players were running on adrenaline the first few months post-Mourinho). His tactical ineptness became even more evident during the first half of 2019-20 season right until we signed Bruno. I completely lost faith in him around that time.

On bolded: you do have to be particularly bright to manage a Premier League football club in this day and age. As romantic as it may sound, football of the 'passion and inshallah we score one more goal than you' variety is dead at the highest level of the game.

 

[Jackal981]

Why not ? I can train like ronaldo everyday and wont be able to turn pro. Some people are born with a talent to be great at something and some are not why does not it apply with Ole ? It is like asking why Fred is bad when we got Carrick as coach to teach him play midfield.

 

[House Mkhitaryan]

"In the Champions League you've got six games & if you win your 3 home games AND get a result away from home, you're most likely through."

Incredibly poor mentality.