How long did it take you

I was pretty much on board until the Europa final. That made me realise he will always be too small time and cowardly for the job.
 
It’s really two questions … “When did you realise hastily appointed club legend and managerial novice Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was not the man to lead Manchester United to sustained domestic and European glory in the era of astute World Class tacticians operating in the Premier League” - of which id like to think nearly everybody realised right away… or at least once the initial honeymoon period was over

And more importantly - “When did you realise that the much trumpeted rebuilding process had gone as far as It could”… which I would generously like to say was around February last year, when our first real shot at a title challenge dissipated almost as soon as it began, on the back of our Champions League capitulation and Europa failure the year before….All of which had been aided by at least some tactical or team picking inadequacies…(and not just “I can’t see what the tactics are” stuff, just bafflingly obvious things like playing people into the ground, only changing like for like and consistently failing to learn from previous things that didn’t work)

But I was also fairly accepting of the fact that he’d done just about the minimum required to stay on… as he has whenever his job’s been in jeopardy tbf. But that was the point where that in itself stopped being enough, especially in 21st century football management.
 
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Thought he was a great choice to come in after Mourinho but never thought he would cut it here. After the counter attack worked for a while he never figured out a way to break deep lying teams down and that hasn't changed. I gave up last season but as I like Ole I always hoped he could turn this around but after all the signings and all the time he has had here we haven't improved one bit.
 
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Redlyn said:
...to come to the realisation that Ole was not right for the job? For those that were prepared to give him a chance once he was appointed.

It took a while, about 1 month ago (Sept 2021) in my case. Some are still hanging on to Europa final and second place fumes. But most of them will eventually come around. Except those that will support him into the championship.

So out of random curiosity, when did it dawn on you.
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Signing Ronaldo. Always felt he had a positive impact on the football club. Ronaldo’s signing ended that.

Cavani is better for our team than Ronaldo. Fitter, better finisher, better influence. Marginalising him to play Ronaldo is, and was, mad.

This year will be a step back. Needed a central midfielder, signed an ageing 9. Fcuked it all.
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
Signing Ronaldo. Always felt he had a positive impact on the football club. Ronaldo’s signing ended that.

Cavani is better for our team than Ronaldo. Fitter, better finisher, better influence. Marginalising him to play Ronaldo is, and was, mad.

This year will be a step back. Needed a central midfielder, signed an ageing 9. Fcuked it all.
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Tbf imo signing Ronaldo was not entirely on him. Yes he had the veto power but imagine how the fans and media could have reacted if he did.
 
Redlyn said:
Looking at the responses it seems this very poor start has probably turned over 2/3 of anyone that was still somewhat with him at the start of the season.
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Sure seem like it, i am one of those

Basically i thought he did well with the whole rebuild buisness and despite our results and performances under him being a mixed bag to put it mildly overall we showed an upward trajectory results wise

Our performances this season though have just been sheer chaos, especially in defense. You cant spend 200 million on AwB, Maguire and Varane and defend like that
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
Signing Ronaldo. Always felt he had a positive impact on the football club. Ronaldo’s signing ended that.

Cavani is better for our team than Ronaldo. Fitter, better finisher, better influence. Marginalising him to play Ronaldo is, and was, mad.

This year will be a step back. Needed a central midfielder, signed an ageing 9. Fcuked it all.
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Similar for me. I felt like we at least had a plan with our squad building which was crucial to our success.

For me it looked like it all got thrown out of the window with that late move and I was puzzled how they thought they could make it work with such a top heavy squad.
 
McGrathsipan said:
I flip flopped alot - it was the EL final last year that broke me.
2nd rate euro trophy against a 2nd rate team - He Froze.
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Mate, its not flip-flopping, its having an open mind and changing it when presented with new information

This goes way beyond footbll, but this notion that being pig-headed and uncompromising in your stance somehow makes you clever ifs awful and is the reason we have so many conspiracy peddling mentalists in the world today
 
He had my support as long as we were progressing and improving. That seems to have stopped now. If he does leave over the coming weeks, he'll be leaving the club in a significantly better place than when he picked it up.
 
Bobcat said:
Mate, its not flip-flopping, its having an open mind and changing it when presented with new information

This goes way beyond footbll, but this notion that being pig-headed and uncompromising in your stance somehow makes you clever ifs awful and is the reason we have so many conspiracy peddling mentalists in the world today
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True enough.
 
No one knew Ole wouldnt work out. We prayed. We hoped. Anyone could have said on day 1 that this isnt going to work out. The odds and the evidence was obvious. Just look at his C.V. He has nothing. The difference between people is how long they were still hoping that a miracle would occur. There were signs of hope. There was harmony in the dressing room. There was no Mourinho. There was prayer. But deep down everyone knew Ole wasnt the next Klopp or Guardiola. Is this as far as he can take us? Yes.
 
Wouldn’t have hired him in first place and always felt unease even during the purple patch as it meant getting rid would be unlikely.
 
The Young Boys game cemented it but it’s been coming for a long time. I was never happy with him being appointed in the first place but was willing to see what happened after this summer. I was just kidding myself.

It‘s rather telling that at no point would I have vehemently thought ‘he needs more time‘ if he had been sacked, even prior to this season.
 
ivaldo said:
He had my support as long as we were progressing and improving. That seems to have stopped now. If he does leave over the coming weeks, he'll be leaving the club in a significantly better place than when he picked it up.
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I agree though I do feel the recent slump is down to trying to shoehorn in too many new players and disrupting any rhythm we previously had. I suspect if he were to return to McFred and drop Pogba we'd revert to the mean of the last 2 seasons (whether that's good enough is another a question)

I don't get the feeling he's going to drop Pogba though, I feel he's married to playing him in the middle now and it will ultimately be his downfall
 
dwd said:
Bit of a strange one to pick, we've been knocked out by much smaller teams in the past.
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I was really dissapointed with the line-up. Ole needs a trophy and I thought the League Cup was his best chance. That's when I realised that he is not going to win anything.
 
I totally lost the faith with Ole after the lost vs Leicester. I had been patient with him all these years, but ffs this is the 3rd season start and Ole kept talking about how important a good start of season for a title challenge and learned lesson from previous seasons , then our first 8 game stats are like:

2019-2020 Season - 2W3D3L , Lost to Crystal Palace, West Ham, New Castle
2020-2021 Season - 4W1D3L , Lost to Crystal Palace, Tottenham, Arsenal
2021-2022 Season - 4W2D2L , Lost to Aston Villa, Leicester

same slow start without proper game plan and stamina build-up, and we have not even played with big 6 yet this year. This points to me that Ole did not have the solutions for all those issues he mentioned.

I'm sure we will bounce back a bit taken the squad quality, then Ole can talk about challenging next year, see the progress, etc. Basically we would see same old story every year with Ole and 2nd from last year would be the ceiling. I don't mind the waiting, but I also don't want waste time on something that would never happen.
 
For me it wasn't one game but the CL Group last season. The shocking defeat to Basaksehir (conceding one of the worst goals I've ever seen from a professional team) and then not managing to even get a point from the last 2 games. This really showed his level of Management.
 
Mockney said:
It’s really two questions … “When did you realise hastily appointed club legend and managerial novice Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was not the man to lead Manchester United to sustained domestic and European glory in the era of astute World Class tacticians operating in the Premier League” - of which id like to think nearly everybody realised right away… or at least once the initial honeymoon period was over

And more importantly - “When did you realise that the much trumpeted rebuilding process had gone as far as It could”… which I would generously like to say was around February last year, when our first real shot at a title challenge dissipated almost as soon as it began, on the back of our Champions League capitulation and Europa failure the year before….All of which had been aided by at least some tactical or team picking inadequacies…(and not just “I can’t see what the tactics are” stuff, just bafflingly obvious things like playing people into the ground, only changing like for like and consistently failing to learn from previous things that didn’t work)

But I was also fairly accepting of the fact that he’d done just about the minimum required to stay on… as he has whenever his job’s been in jeopardy tbf. But that was the point where that in itself stopped being enough, especially in 21st century football management.
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This

FreakyJim said:
After his first full year and his first three signings. His football is shite and outdated.
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tl;dr version
 
The Europa League Final still pisses me off. We have lost other finals obviously and others a lot more heartbreaking to lose than that but I can't remember such a limp-dicked, cowardly performance. We've been well beaten in Finals before but playing for penalties against an average La Liga side and managing 1 shot on target (thanks to a bunch of deflections falling to Cavani's feet rather than a nice move) and having absolutely no other ideas, no attempt to change things, it's infuriating to even think about.
 
The Everton game.

Last season and prior seasons, the excuses have always been player based. Lack of wingers on the right, Martial's laziness up front, a partner for Maguire. Then we got the influx of talent this summer. 3 world class, internationally renowned talents, one of which may be the greatest player in history. In addtion, Greenwood improved his game. That was the moment the rebuild was over. Ole's aim was to prove that he could have a system that would dominate to reflect the type of squad we currently have.Solksjaer this season has proven that a. he doesn't have a tactical plan b. he may never have had one ( unlike LVG or Mourinho who didn't have the personnel) c. the team behind him are as naive as he is. The Everton game was supposed to see him react to a loss with potentially a new tactical plan to suit the squad, we didn't see it. That's when I knew he had nothing left.
 
AltiUn said:
Europa League final I think. Although I became absolutely certain sometime this season.
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Yeah I can probably say I am the same as yourself. After Young Boys was the absolute final nail in the coffin. It became so abundantly clear that he is a manager with only 1 dimension. He has no tricks up his sleeve, or certainly if he does they are very limited
 
I was all for giving him a chance and plenty of the time. But the Atalanta game made up my mind that he needs to go. Yes, it was a fabulous comeback against a difficult team, but the way in which we failed to take our chances and capitulated in that first half - fresh off the back of an embarrassing defeat to Leicester - sealed it for me.

I've long been of the opinion that Ole is too soft on the players and tries too hard to accommodate every player and generally be a nice guy. Off the pitch, that is fine, but to be a top, top manager you've got to be a bit of a bar steward at times. Ole gives the impression that he's running around trying to be everybody's best mate, and that is where he primarily differs from Fergie, as well as some obvious tactical naivety.

For me, Ole will always be a legend as a player - but sadly I have come to realise that my initial enthusiasm for him as manager was heavily influenced by nostalgia and emotion.
 
If the Board decided upon keeping him (heaven forbid) …they’re basically giving two fingers to the supporters.
 
Europa final was the final nail in the coffin for me - we were awful. However there was several games in the season where we somehow won and didn’t deserve it - I started then
 
For me it was mainly the CL group stage exit last year and when he kept Fred on at halftime to get sent off and Bruno was gesturing for him to make a change around the 70th. All in the same game.

But I did say in summer 2019 that he was the transitional manager to build a better foundation to the next manager. Too bad he overstayed his welcome.
 
I was unsure after last season. I didn’t think we really improved at all from the previous season, just continued our form from the second half of that campaign.

I was nervous coming into this season on the back of the EL defeat but felt that with te kind fixtures and the signings of Sancho and Varane we would certainly be a lot better off than we are now.

Probably mid September is when the belief disappeared.
 
The White Pele said:
I was unsure after last season. I didn’t think we really improved at all from the previous season, just continued our form from the second half of that campaign.

I was nervous coming into this season on the back of the EL defeat but felt that with te kind fixtures and the signings of Sancho and Varane we would certainly be a lot better off than we are now.

Probably mid September is when the belief disappeared.

It will always sadden me that he did not win a trophy. I think he deserved one.
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I have been Ole out before but not very strongly, at various points in his reign. However, every time things tilted upwards after that so gave him benefit of doubt. This season, the signs have been from start that he can't take us any higher and his stubbornness has convinced me to strongly want him out ASAP.
 
Ralph1386 said:
For me it was mainly the CL group stage exit last year and when he kept Fred on at halftime to get sent off and Bruno was gesturing for him to make a change around the 70th. All in the same game.

But I did say in summer 2019 that he was the transitional manager to build a better foundation to the next manager. Too bad he overstayed his welcome.
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TBH, last season's start and lack of preparation showed him and his team up to be amateurs. Could you imagine Fergie having a team that unprepared to start a campaign off. No team looking to win the league could have afforded to do what we did in the beginning of last season. It wasn't just the result, but the performances. There seemed to be no plan, no fitness ..just nothing. Any serious manager , even despite the pandemic complications, would allowed for that lack of preparation. We literally spent about 4 weeks figuring it out. City had a bad start results wise, but we they never looked like a worst team than Brighton or Crystal Palace.
 
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