Yeah, just play Pereira, Lingard or Mata on the right wing instead. Brilliant idea.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
- Thread starter Samid
- Start date
- Status
Yeah, just play Pereira, Lingard or Mata on the right wing instead. Brilliant idea.
You think that would have been more effective? hmmm Fred and Matic against a four man city midfield I can only dream of witnessing that.
Off to Burnley is my hope.
I didn't complain about yesterday game, I simply explained why some won't be happy. People don't switch between happy or irrate, you can also be neutral, in this case the mixed feelings between the average performance and the ultimately negative results means that it's difficult to be happy but I'm also not unhappy.
Fair enough but i don't think we was battered. We rode our luck similar to the game i mentioned against a very strong team and got ourselves ahead with pressure mounting that one more goal would get us to pens. I great comeback was on the cards before the red.
I didn't say that we were battered yesterday. The point is that not being battered doesn't mean that we should be happy, some fans seem to be happy after every game where the team didn't embarass itself.
Lingard barely does any support for midfield as a 10 anyway.
And if that's your problem you can put Periera as a number 8 instead of 10 and play straight 5-3-2.
Plenty of options for us to play without a 10 if we want.
Even if you want to play with a 10 why don't you play Mata there?
Or James on the right wing, or have you deliberately forgotten him?
The only thing Lingard does is press their deep lying CM so i don't think Mata can play there from the start. I agree Periera could come in but now we are just comparing which ugly sister is prettiest so i'd rather move forward to our Cinderella (Bruno) and forget the Lingard nightmare.
Mata every single time. Jesse breakdown alnost every single attacking opportunity and has been awful for over a year now. I cant recall one good game from him. Stupid decision to play him again and again.
Who should play on the left? Because of injuries and the need for rotation, at least one of the three amigos will have to play in most games. Hopefully this will change with Fernandes, and Rashford coming back from injury.
Yeah Bruno is going to solve this issue for good for our own sake, but I was just saying that prior to that we could have tried different formations with no number 10. Anyway forget that and let's all hope Bruno will turn out brilliant for us.
If it's down to me, I would put Martial left, Greenwood central and James right during the period Rashford is injuried. Not extraordinary by any means but that's the best combination we have at the moment, and now with Bruno around I will put him behind them alongside Fred and Matic.
I don't understand the reaction. We were playing for the opportunity to play at Wembley. Yet we played as if we won the first leg. A 1-0 win was the most pointless result and we may as well have not turned up. Ole spoke about the night in Paris. Well at least we showed some attacking intent that night - a game in which we had a depleted XI. Yesterday was as bad as the Sevilla game.
If we had Rashford we may have gone for it more. Martial is too hit and miss for me. He is either interested or not.
Point is what did we achieve by not going for it? Rashford or no Rashford, anything but progress to the final serves no purpose.
Inclined to agree, we most likely would have lost, but who knows, now it doesn't matter. That freekick probably summed it up. Score that at it is a lottery of penalties. Still thought there were some positives in the game though.
There's only one stat that counts. Battered is subjective, winning or losing a game isn't.
The Fernandes deal makes it evident that he has the backing of the board for now. I don't believe he's good enough and do hope that at least they hold him to high standards come the end of the season.
The plan, if like paris, would have been to stay in the game and then go all out for the last period.
Went pear shaped losing Matic.
Solskjaer said this much after the match
In that case the only stat that counts is that we got dumped out of the cup.
And it does count but it's only the League Cup so does it really matter all that much? After the first leg 99% of us presumed we were out of the competition anyway, yesterday was a pleasant surprise if anything.
Pleasant surprise yes. But kinda irrelevant. I mean the league cup is in itself sort of irrelevant. But winning one leg in a lost tie is even more irrelevant.
Was City winning the first leg irrelevant as well? Personally I don't really care much for the League Cup and I'm not bothered about going out of it, in fact, I was that non-fussed about the game I didn't even watch it, but it annoyed City fans last night and that's enough for me to take some enjoyment from the game.
I'm not entirely sure why people feel the need to get all Roy Keane in here, probably because some think it's a 'small club mentality' to be happy about beating a rival but being knocked out of a competition anyway. Let's just enjoy a positive performance from a severely depleted squad. If we had more performances like that this season we wouldn't be where we currently are.
I think one of the biggest positives of his management so far is that whenever people seem to be ready to write him off, he makes the team pull something out of the bag. He is obviously doing something right.
No evidence to prove that either. There is almost universal agreement on this forum that we have don't have enough players of sufficient quality. We should know given we saw what is required under SAF. I posted the below list in another thread but its also relevant here:
1994/95: Cantona, Cole, Hughes, McClair
1999/00: Yorke, Cole, Sheringham, Solskjaer
2003/04: RVN, Saha, Solskjaer, Forlan
2009/10: Rooney, Tevez, Ronaldo, Berbatov
2012/13: RVP, Rooney, Hernandez, Welbeck
2019/20: Rashford, Martial, Greenwood.
A similar dearth of comparative talent would be found if I also complied a midfield list.
When this seasons squad was finalised, there was a thread where majority voted that we'd finish between 4th to 6th. And guess what: that's exactly where we are.
Ole may not be the right person, but until he is provided a squad of players worthy of competing at the top level, we simply don't know. Whether we like it or not, its blatantly obvious that club is in a reset mode and this season was a free pass. I'm still hopeful that we can build something special under Ole, but it will take some time.
Last edited:
The problem, as it always has been, is the lack of any kind discernible attacking tactical intent. It's all very well saying "Ole's tactics worked" (even though we lost) because we were still in the game right to the last and kept City to a reasonable amount of clear cut chances, but that was exactly what Jose used to do. And it wasn't good enough then. We had absolutely no idea what to do once we'd gotten into that position, and couldn't even muster a decent attempt on target!
So saying "well we just don't have the players to do anything else yet" doesn't quite fly, because when you don't have the players, that's exactly when good managerial acumen should come into play! Good managers DO get teams without the required top level players to play in a way that helps them create chances, or exploit the other teams weaknesses. Because literally anyone can pick a team of superstars and expect them to create something, just as anyone can field a weakened team, watch them aimlessly pass the ball around or lump it into the box and then complain that his players aren't good enough!
So it's not about "not giving Ole credit" as much as it's about not really understanding what we're supposed to be giving him credit for?? It's great that he's trying to build a team around the kind of fast and dynamic players we expect at this club, but if we're going to entrust him with a long term rebuild, I think its perfectly reasonable to expect to see something a bit more concrete after a full year in charge than "we look quite good against really shite teams when all our best players, that most fans wanted us to play are fully fit" but are basically exactly the same/worse off otherwise ...personally.
So whilst I somewhat agree it isn't the ideal time to bitch about Ole after what technically counts as a win away a superior side... It's also not remotely proof positive that he's the man for the job long term, either.
So saying "well we just don't have the players to do anything else yet" doesn't quite fly, because when you don't have the players, that's exactly when good managerial acumen should come into play! Good managers DO get teams without the required top level players to play in a way that helps them create chances, or exploit the other teams weaknesses. Because literally anyone can pick a team of superstars and expect them to create something, just as anyone can field a weakened team, watch them aimlessly pass the ball around or lump it into the box and then complain that his players aren't good enough!
So it's not about "not giving Ole credit" as much as it's about not really understanding what we're supposed to be giving him credit for?? It's great that he's trying to build a team around the kind of fast and dynamic players we expect at this club, but if we're going to entrust him with a long term rebuild, I think its perfectly reasonable to expect to see something a bit more concrete after a full year in charge than "we look quite good against really shite teams when all our best players, that most fans wanted us to play are fully fit" but are basically exactly the same/worse off otherwise ...personally.
So whilst I somewhat agree it isn't the ideal time to bitch about Ole after what technically counts as a win away a superior side... It's also not remotely proof positive that he's the man for the job long term, either.
And we lost it because it's a two legged game.
Also, if Ole is going to stay long term, just because he's got a vaguely positive idea about the kind of football he wants to play, then it's paramount he hires a genuinely progressive coach to work under him, and get the team playing the kind of tactically inventive football we need. The fact that he's just hired his mates, and one of the coaches that worked under Fergie in his latter - less attractive - years, doesn't bode remotely well at all. It's Liverpool boot room bullshit, IMO. let it go!
Yeah I'm there with you really. That's why i keep saying he's out of his depth as opposed to being a shit coach or anything, because i don't think he is. I think he could be fine at a smaller club with low expectations, but this is so far above him. At least it's looking like that at the moment.
We play the way we do because we don’t have a world class manager and team anymore, it isnt because fans have lowered their ambitions.
As for not having much of a showing, being what was it 3-0 down in the first half of the first game, and being close enough to almost going to extra time at the Etihad at the end isn’t too bad for this squad at the moment.
The ambitions at United will always be the same, to be the best side in the world and win trophies, but people are allowed to be realistic and take last night as it was, a second win at a difficult ground this season but ultimately not enough to be in the final unfortunately.
Mckeena is one of the most highly rated coaches in the world and for all the jokes we might make about Phelan, he was part of United most successful period ever. The only one we can question is Carrick but he was offered a coaching role by Mourinho(One of the greatest football coaches of all time).
Also ok we lost the overall tie but this is the second time we've beaten Pep at the Etihad and importantly our players are fecking terrible.
Completely agree. We're dying for a bit of a spark coaching wise, something new and a bit different. Not a desperate look back in time for ideas.
No because it won them the tie.
Oh my fecking God.
This is what we're dealing with here. Complete and utter delusion, nonsensical claims with absolutely nothing to back it up,
Newsflash - nobody outside of England knows who McKenna is, mate. He managed our youth team.
Based on what? A good run with our youth team? He's probably a good coach, but "one of the most highly rated in the world"? Come off it.
That team wouldn't have got outplayed by the likes of Burnley, Newcastle, Everton all over the pitch like this team has.
I mean, sure... but we've seen absolutely no evidence of that in the 2 years he's been working with the first team, and presumably much like academy players, it's a big, and unguaranteed step up from youth team to top flight? So far the jury is still very much out..
But that's the point! It was 10 years ago. That style of football was usurped in it's effectiveness by Pep, who has since been largely usurped by the likes of Klopp. Things move at a pace in football. Fergie wasn't playing the same style of football he was in 2009 in 1999, or in 1994. And he had 3 separate assistant's during those periods as well.
This is precisely what worries me about this "jobs for the boys" approach, and why I mention the Liverpool boot room, and their penchant for hiring "people who knew the club" in managing and assistant roles, which eventually kept the club in stagnation when (ironically) Fergie came in and changed shit up!
"It worked 10 years ago" (or even 7 years ago) is a terrible basis for long term planning!
See the post one above that one... Sure our players are terrible, but they couldn't even muster a decent attempt or even a half chance in that second half, when we needed a goal. That's why we need progressive coaching! It’s been a whole year.
If we’re intent on keeping Ole despite all agreeing he isn’t a Pep or a Klopp, it’s imperative we employ someone beneath him to fulfil that function. Otherwise we’re just being negligent
Last edited:
As a PL game, it would have been perfect. It was a drab performance but still a win. I'm not certain about the positive. We don't create much at all and defensively, we looked pretty crap.
- Status