Ole: “maybe something has to give”
- Thread starter Zoo
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Thanks for at least trying to focus on what are the issues on the pitch and how they could be solved, in contrast with most, who sees a problem and evidently can't think of something more interesting or useful to say about it than "sack the manager".
But I think what you write would have been a better description of our limitations last season than it is now. At least against Villarreal and yesterday, we've been much worse than this. To the point where we have really not been a functioning team in almost any aspect of the game. Yesterday, we pretty much collapsed defensively in the final phase of the game. Eye test meets stats - Leicesters xG spiked dramatically in the final half of the second half, and we ended up with 22 shots (11 on goal) against us - generally the kind of figures you see when bottom teams get steamrolled by top teams. And Leicester weren't even all that good.
There was throughout the game an almost complete lack of timing, coherence, intensity, structure, rhytm. I thought our basic game looked a lot better against Everton, though we were still not producing very much offensively and proved vulnerable on the break again.
do you care to elaborate
Something radical such as dropping our best player by a country mile so far this season and picking a midfield pairing that has shown across several seasons that they do not work?
If he hasn't a clue what to change, just go back to a fecking 4-4-2 classic with wide wingers or something outrageous like that. He must know how to implement that at the very least.
Try. Something. Different.
Try. Something. Different.
Bah! If we only started players who are “consistently good enough” we’d not be able to start anyone
Why are you ignoring the other 50% of the post.Bah! If we only started players who are “consistently good enough” we’d not be able to start anyone
If a player is running down a deal/waiting to leave AND isn’t consistently good enough (i.e. Ronaldo pre Real) why play them?
Does Ole's remark mean he knows what he wants to change and this result now enables him to do it? It will be interesting to see what he does because it needs to be quite significant.
After the first game against soton and confirmed against wolves I understood that Ole era was finished
I'm surprised many here claim we should keep Ole as a sporting director or transfer committee or whatever.
Did he unearthed gems or something? I think every signed player apart from James, Amad and Pellestri were known and exposed to everyone. We don't need a sporting director to spot the Maguires, Wan Bissakas, Fernandes, Cristianos and Sanchos.
That's like spotting Mbappe and saying great work scouting team.
It's just to keep him busy so we can move on and hire the other manager. Makes him feel like he's being promoted.
Wouldn't it be better deporting him?
Good point we saw Lampard underperform with a Chelsea squad that Tuchel won the champions League with. I believe this transition would be no different to getting rid of Ole with the right coach replacing him.
Nah, still need them norwegian chocolates for the canteen ladies. Move him "up" as a transfer director or whatever, make something up and make sure it sounds cool. So he will say "yes milord, i am honored". Then we don't have to wait 20 years until he leaves.
Of course. Pity no world class Belgian managers.
If the fans want him gone they have to let everyone know, getting rid of a manager is easy but no guarantees we'll win if he goes.
Ronaldo has nothing to do with it tbh. It's Bruno and pogba. They don't work together against any half decent team.
If it was last season, it'd be McFred and James on the RW against Liverpool. I have no doubt it'll still be McFred next weekend, but who plays the James role? A forward line of Rashford (nailed on due to his threat on the counter), Ronaldo (nailed on because he's Ronaldo), and Greenwood (likely nailed on because he's been our best attacking threat lately) doesn't offer much in the way of helping out defensively, which is what I imagine Ole looking for given how porous we were yesterday.
Lingard?
I'm fairly confident it'll be this:
Rashford Ronaldo Lingard
Pogba Fred McTominay
Shaw Maguire Lindelöf AWB
deGea
Pogba Fred McTominay
Shaw Maguire Lindelöf AWB
deGea
He isn't dropping Bruno.
I just think 'something has to give' means he will start setting us up super defensively, possibly even with a back five. Meaning one of the attacking players will be benched.
Back to McFred, forwards that can press and counter attack is what he probably meant. Very basic and a bit disheartening but it would be interesting if he went with that vs Liverpool and benched Ronaldo, Sancho etc.
Exactly this.
It’s just a preemptive comment in regard to how defensively he’ll set up against the top teams Utd are playing soon.
And he’s quite right to do so - he can’t compete with other elite managers in regards to attacking possession football so it’s a lot wiser to approach the game like a small club would and try and nick a result.
That’s his level as a manager, and he’s actually quite good at doing it!
Hence the cycle of *almost* getting sacked against teams he should be beating and then saving his job with a counter-attacking result against a big club.
He’ll do better against Liverpool, Spurs, City, Chelsea than he has against Villa, Everton, Leicester etc - mark my words.
In my opinion, the biggest issue with United since SAF retired is that our managers were/are more concerned about their ideology and idea then what matters the most ie balance. Balance is what makes a team successful. Which is why a top manager like SAF who had worked with possibly some of the finest CM of his era, ended up with Cleverley in his first team. The guy was a donkey but he provided much needed leg work for an ageing Carrick and Scholes bringing balance in the team.
That something Moyes/LVG/Mou/Ole failed in. It was always job for their boys/the boys, people they fancy or guys who understand their philosophy first. Take Ole for example. He spent 80m on Maguire despite the fact that we already had a very slow CB in Lindelof. What was the result of that? Matic-Maguire-Lindelof simply couldn't play together which meant that we needed to fork more money for Varane. The same on the flanks. Ole simply couldn't live with Greenwood, Pellistri, Jesse, Elanga and Diallo as RW. He had to spend 70m on Sancho and he also had to give a contract to Mata because, well, matey and all. Guess what? Money don't grow on trees and there's a limit to how much money a club can spend.
Urgh I can see him doing that, especially in the big games, we are already insipid enough, let's become even more insipid
There have been so many recurring issues, the slow start to games is coming up time and time again, as is clinging on desperately in the last 20 minutes (and more often than not conceding). He is the manager, yet despite the frequency of these issues, he has not fixed them. It is his job to fix them, which leaves me thinking he doesn't know how to. Not good enough.
The VDB problem is weird, he may help us if he has a consistent run of games, but no he sits on the bench all game bar the odd 5 or 10 minute trot out. At least TRY using him. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but he won't know unless he TRIES. But he won't because his favourites must play.... he's not going to show anything outstanding yet, because he has so little time to do anything!
It said everything that Brentford looked better drilled than us and you could actually see a clear plan when they played Liverpool. A game they very nearly won. They didn't fear Liverpool, they took the game to them. Too often under Ole we are acting like the plucky small team, which is completely unacceptable, especially with the group of players we currently have. When did we last bully a team and completely dominate a game?
Teams roll over for Liverpool and City, they don't for us as he's given us a small club mentality. Where are those days of teams conceding defeat before them game even starts? We are fast becoming a mockery, and he's taking us backwards.
Time for him to go, thanks for the memories as a player but....
Of course benching big ego players, because he doesn't know how to set up the team to incorporate them correctly could add to his losing the dressing room....
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You could be right but the only difference this time is that he's starting to lose the dressing room. That wasn't the case the last times he was about to lose his job. Back then the players were still clearly behind him. Now I don't think all of them believe in him anymore.
Not necessarily. We have a good team. Just need the right manager.
Look at Chelsea. Replaced fat Frank with Tuchel. No signings. Got top 4, FA Cup final and won UCL.
I hope so. Be that with Ole or AN Other it quite clearly doesn't work.
Those 2 have been a problem way before Ronaldo.
The question then is why it takes until late October to see the bleeding obvious.
Indeed, that's the question that should be levelled at Ole.
The elegant solution was playing Pogba as a LF. That makes absolutely no sense now with Sancho in and Rashford back so we went back to trying to fit Pogba in a midfield pairing. It doesn't work, it didn't work before Bruno either.
If that’s the case Pogba must get benched in my opinion.
Have to agree. Unless you drill some positional sense into them. Especially Bruno.
It was finished when he just the EL final. Up to that game he stopped playing his best team, because we wanted to be fit for the final. That went well, we haven't played good football for a long time and have no style or identity under Ole. For me he needs to be removed asap.
That is the only way they can play if he insists on proceeding with Dave in goal unfortunately. It doesn't matter who the defenders are, if he has decided DDG is the #1 for the foreseeable then a deep defensive line is the only way to play. They'll still concede regularly from set plays though.
Ole is falling into the Sven trap of just throwing his best XI footballers onto the pitch and hoping it will somehow work.
Some of our matches this season have been about as bad tactically as I think I have seen from any team ever
Some of our matches this season have been about as bad tactically as I think I have seen from any team ever
I don’t think Bruno and Pogba have ever worked particularly well in the same lineup, and adding Ronaldo into that mix has made things even worse. Basically, we have 3 star players who don’t work very well together. Someone needs to be dropped, that’s what I believe he means.
That's exactly what it means. To me, it's obvious that it'll be Pogba. I'm a critic of Pogba but it's not even his performances that make him the obvious candidate. It's clear as day that he's not signing a new contract and will be off in the summer, unless we offer something obscene - which I doubt many think he deserves.
Simply put, why risk destabilising Bruno or Ronaldo in favour of a player who's likely going to leave? I'll be amazed if he's starts against Liverpool (or maybe even Atalanta)
Why are people talking like we were fantastic before Ronaldo came. The honest truth is we have been generally shit for a long long time. Results are just catching up.