The LVG games used to be more than horrid. Jose had some good ones despite everything (The 2 0 against Chelsea when Herrera cancelled out Hazard springs to mind). Ole may not be the man but I could name 10 to 15 really good games against strong/very strong teams. Will he take the extra step to something more is the real question.
Is Ole’s football really any better than José & LVG’s?
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The atmosphere around the club is generally much more positive than it was under Mourinho/LVG, which Ole does deserve credit for. He's a nice, happy, 'glass half full' kind of chap, which is no bad thing. I really do not think that the style or quality of football that we have produced under him compares particularly well with his contemporaries, though.
Agreed and I think his best work and when we played the better football was in the immediate aftermath of Mourinho once the toxic cloud lifted. Truth be told though I think he's been dining out on that ever since. We're not an entertaining side and we don't appear to have a focus or style to our play. Since Fernandes arrived our game plan seems to be to hope Bruno pulls something out of the bag.
Stevie Wonders 
What about this first half was good? We're a borefest in 90% of our matches.
Theres no real debate. They're all boring managers.
Theres no real debate. They're all boring managers.
We may go through or go out tonight but it's embarrassing that he has been manager for over 2 & a half years and this is how we have played against a half decent team over two legs . We can't string two passes together, can't beat the press and can't play against a compact defence . Absolutely pathetic
There'll be some shit stats posted here, some more shit excuses too. He's a negative, boring and defensive manager just like his predecessors.
Right now we’re looking identical to the last days of Jose’s reign.
I feel like you are one of the 0.1% of this forum who actually understands the standards of this club & isn’t brainwashed by sentiment for this fraud. What has happened to our fans? The standards are on the floor. We’re supposed to be the British Madrid/Bayern. Their fans would never accept this.Stevie Wonders
It's mad that we have come into this game needing to win but Milan are completely bossing us. Basically his only tactic is to run in behind against top teams . What does this manager actually do in training
He is an absolutely incompetent coach IMO. Zero tactical intelligence. It's really tragic that United has been reduced to counter attacking football, nothing else. No fluidity in link ups, zero positional awareness, and very poor technical players. Down to coaching and recruitment IMO. This coach will never take united back to the glory days. What a tragedy to the game as a whole!
But he said when he first arrived that he will bring exciting, attacking football back???
Im sure they'll be plenty posters here that will find someway to justify another garbage performance. How can anyone still think we are progressing, performance wise, is beyond me.
Honestly, we are so very boring to watch in every game, I have a need to do just about anything else but watch the game.
But alas, loyalty is important. However, nearly every game is fecking dreary.
But alas, loyalty is important. However, nearly every game is fecking dreary.
I imagine all our training sessions involve two XIs counter attacking each other.
Football is meant to be entertainment. When have we ever been entertaining to watch?
In fairness, we should give him a pre season and a transfer window. That'll automatically make us good.
Ffs the haters out in full force I see. I can't imagine what would have gone down have we lost yesterday. I said it before Ole has a lot of more proving to do but the negativity in this place is just unreal sometimes.
Either you're misremembering or you're deliberately rewriting history, but you're woefully wrong.
Mourinho didn't leave behind "a team that won the EL". He left behind a team that was trophy less the previous season and that had finished 19 points behind Guardiola, despite Mourinho saying in pre season that the team was ready and that he was ready to win the title.
He also didn't leave a 2nd placed team. He left a team that was 11 points behind 4th spot and was already 19 points behind Klopp and 18 behind Guardiola with about half the season played.
A team that improved it's position immediately under Solskjaer as soon as Mourinho left.
No, he doesn't. I may as well say "he needs to be within 19 points of Guardiola" to better Mourinho's best season. But Ole didn't get to break the world transfer record on anyone, unlike Mourinho.
In my opinion the football is definitely better. The only issue I have with the team is it’s passing ability. We give away possession way too easily. I also think our crossing, particularly from the right is poor. I feel like the coaches should train Wan Bissaka how to run down the wing and put in a first time cross.
The end of Van Gaal’s era was still the worse football I’ve ever witnessed. We would create one chance and end up scoring from it. It was painful football. Jose created a team with terrible balance. He had no idea what his best 11 was. If he built that squad in around 2005 we probably would have won things but football has moved on so much, whilst Jose hasn’t.
For the first time in a while we appear to have a settled team. Given the amount of games this season we haven’t had that many injuries. That was always an Achilles heal for José. Even the likes of Bailly has stayed fit.
I’ve criticised Ole a lot. I thought it was the wrong decision to make him manager. I’m still not sure he will win us anything. But if he left today we are in a much better position than when he started. He has to be given credit for that.
The end of Van Gaal’s era was still the worse football I’ve ever witnessed. We would create one chance and end up scoring from it. It was painful football. Jose created a team with terrible balance. He had no idea what his best 11 was. If he built that squad in around 2005 we probably would have won things but football has moved on so much, whilst Jose hasn’t.
For the first time in a while we appear to have a settled team. Given the amount of games this season we haven’t had that many injuries. That was always an Achilles heal for José. Even the likes of Bailly has stayed fit.
I’ve criticised Ole a lot. I thought it was the wrong decision to make him manager. I’m still not sure he will win us anything. But if he left today we are in a much better position than when he started. He has to be given credit for that.
Some b*itches are just diva's and complainers
That's all they are good at.
Talk about having to go a from the 70's to the 90s without a trophy and believing that if the club listened to these type of fans that everyone would be better off.
That's all they are good at.
Talk about having to go a from the 70's to the 90s without a trophy and believing that if the club listened to these type of fans that everyone would be better off.
There is a lot of context to consider here though. Jose is a short term manager, who comes in, spends a lot and then hopefully delivers you some silverware. Its not sustainable in the long run
17/18, despite a very respectable points haul, felt pretty hopeless since it very much felt like we had peaked (which we had)
https://understat.com/league/EPL/2017
Also our points was +18 compared to our xPTS which is almost as ridicolous as Liverpool last season. Particularly our GA compared to our xGA is bizzarre and a testament to how insane DDG was that season
We have improved from last season and should improve next season as well.
You made six posts when the score was 0-0 all complaining about Ole and then disappeared when we scored.
interesting.
Do you seriously compare the Premier League to the Bundesliga and la Liga ?
To start - La Liga basically consists of 2 clubs who are in a league of their own - after that you have Atletico Madrid, and after that you have in reality nothing. Real and Barcelona have a revenue of 700-800 million euros, Atletico Madrid at €350 million - and no other spanish clubs are above €175 million. If you look at the most expensive signings - Real and Barcelona have 15 of the most expensive, Atletico Madrid have 5. However, this is also slightly misleading because with a player like Joao Felix,, they basically took the money from the sales of Griezmann, Rodri and Lucas Hernandez and signed him - while also covering the signings of Thomas Lemar and Diego Costa made the earlier seasons. So Atletico Madrid never buys an expensive players without balancing the books with sales.
In Bundesliga - Bayern Munchen is at €660 million, Dortmund is just above €350 million. Schalke is at €324 million and Frankfurt is at €180 million. But this makes it look a lot tighter than it is because Dortmund buys cheap and sells expensive, and never really makes an effort to compete with Bayern for the most expensive players. Of the 10 most expensive transfers in Bundesliga-history - 9 of them were bought by Bayern. Of the 20 most expensive, 14 were signed by Bayern. Only other club to ever sign a player for more than €30 million euros in the Bundesliga is Wolfsburg whey signed Julian Draxler So basically Bayern can cherry-pick any player from their opponents - which they did with Götze, Hummels, Lewandowski, Pavard, Neuer and Gomez. And they are also the only club who can afford to buy established stars from other european clubs.
So how does this compare to the Premier League ? Well on the list of highest revenues, 11 out of 30 clubs are playing in the Premier League. 6 clubs in the P.L have a higher revenue than the 2nd highest in Germany (Dortmund), and the 3rd highest in Spain (Atletico M). Crystal Palace rank higher than the 5th best highest Germany and the 4th highest in La Liga, so do Wolves, Everton, West Ham, Arsenal, Leicester and Tottenham to name some.
So it's really laughable when you say that Bayern and Madrid would never accept this. No why would Bayern-fans accept that ? They are in a totally different situation than us. If you remove Liverpool, City, Arsenal, West Ham, Everton, Wolves and Leicester - then you can compare United to Bayern Munchen. Fulham have signed 2 players for £22 million pounds (Anguissa and Mitrovic) - the majority of clubs in the Bundesliga have never signed players that expensive. Sheffield United can afford to sign a youngster from Liverpool for £20 million, most clubs in Bundesliga can dream about that. Leipzig have once in their history signed a player for more than £20 million (Naby Keita). Eintracht Frankfurt who are third have once signed a player for more than £10 million (Luka Jovic). The majority of the clubs in the Championship have higher transfer records than the 2nd most expensive signing they have made. Bayern Munchen are basically competing with clubs with the financial strength of mid-to-low table Premier League sides or Championship sides. So yes, I agree - they would never accept not winning against these side. And if you remove Liverpool, City, Arsenal, Spurs or Leicester - I would probably feel the same way about United - we should win it every single season.
But that is not quite the reality is it ? We are competing with some clubs who have more money than us and some clubs who almost have as much as we have. This isn't 2001 when our only competitor was Arsenal due to some brilliant signings by Wenger, when a poor season was ending second behind Arsenal. Those days our gone. If you have a poor season, you can end 3rd, 4th - or look at Liverpool - even worse.
Some of us actually have a hope of seeing United win the league again while also being a bit realistic. Then there are the other 0,1%
City away, Sociedad away, Everton at home, Southampton at home, PSG away, Liverpool at home in the FA Cup, Leipzig at home, Everton away in the cup, West Ham away, Southampton away, Leeds home, Everton away, Newcastle away - apart from that - not too often.
The fact is the fans talking on a thread have no influence on the club.
They will continue to do the things their way whilst 0.1% of the fans will continue to complain until a season brings us a trophy. It doesn't matter how the success happens or for how long the success can be maintained for, some fans can only see the right here right now and will complain about how it should be different.
The fact that you are in the 0.1% sector highlights that you are in a very very very small minority. Being in such a minority highlights the likelihood of what you thinking being right.
I think that thread was just asking if you would be ok if we play boring football and win trophies.
Zombie football thread was from 2010 or 2011, that was when we stopped playing good football.
People actually think we haven’t played good football since then.
Also that thread was after 2007-08 double winning season (playing very good football that season and also season before that was very good) and we played just 1 game in 2008-09 season when the thread was started.
It looks like a hypothetical thread asking if it's ok to win trophies playing boring football.
Difference is how many players in the squad that Ole took over were signed by LVG or Jose ? How many players that Ole signed are in the current squad ? We’re still at a point where we’re unbalanced or need to replace/upgrade on others but because of COVID can’t do it all at once.
Do I think Ole is a tactical genius ? No not at all, do I think Ole has flaws as a manager ? Yes lots of them BUT we’re still not his team yet and it’s a work in progress, if we win the Europa and FA Cup this season then Ole has already matched Jose and overtaken LVG whilst also being the first manager to get us into the Champions League in successive seasons since Sir Alex.
It’s clear that we need a quality centre back with pace, a pure out and out defensive midfielder with lots of stamina, a quality right sided attacker and a centre forward whilst getting rid of the remaining deadwood and once we’ve done that and it becomes a team of Ole’s players we can judge him on our style and whether it’s better than it was under LVG or Jose but right now it’s still a case of working with what we have in the squad.
Do I think Ole is a tactical genius ? No not at all, do I think Ole has flaws as a manager ? Yes lots of them BUT we’re still not his team yet and it’s a work in progress, if we win the Europa and FA Cup this season then Ole has already matched Jose and overtaken LVG whilst also being the first manager to get us into the Champions League in successive seasons since Sir Alex.
It’s clear that we need a quality centre back with pace, a pure out and out defensive midfielder with lots of stamina, a quality right sided attacker and a centre forward whilst getting rid of the remaining deadwood and once we’ve done that and it becomes a team of Ole’s players we can judge him on our style and whether it’s better than it was under LVG or Jose but right now it’s still a case of working with what we have in the squad.
I think that question came about because we had some pretty drab performances in the second half of the season, particularly in Europe. In 08/09 we were pretty poor offensively. There were some threads talking about our low tempo play too. Had to be bailed out by Macheda and our defence towards the end of the season.
Nonsense, Ole brought in the worlds most expensive CB and has been heavily backed in the transfer market. Career-wise Ole is 3-4 levels below Mou, and is yet to win anything significant, while Jose's career is full big trophies, especially in his early years.
Great post, provides some much needed context and perspective.
What Jose was means nothing. It's the present that counts. We got washed up version and he is even worse now.
I think we can play better football under Ole, but if the players can't be arsed, there's nothing to motivate them. We need a winner mentality at the club, and ole doesn't seem to inspire them to roll their sleeves up.
Are you being serious? I think his man management is his best asset.
We start almost every game half arsed. It's not his best asset at all, not being a miserable tw*t like Jose doesn't make someone a good man manager.
@lysglimt I really enjoyed that post of yours. Great stuff