He certainly talks the talk but will he walk the walk? Whatever you think about Mourinho he had the balls to drop Pogba when he thought he needed to. Will Solskjaer do the same to his favourites?
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
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He certainly talks the talk but will he walk the walk? Whatever you think about Mourinho he had the balls to drop Pogba when he thought he needed to. Will Solskjaer do the same to his favourites?
The first step to succeed is to take control over the dressing room.
Authority comes with actions. Cheap talk means nothing when you’re dealing with overpaid prima donnas. Either he (OGS) has to walk the walk or step down. That means taking bold short term decisions, benching under performing players until the seasons ends, addressing what’s acceptable or not, hold players accountable and show that he has a plan and a vision.
Next step is to clear the deck. Instead of accepting whatever Woody delivers it’s better he goes to the board and gives them a ultimatum. “Either the club backs me up all the way or I walk out today”. That means get rid of toxic players, whatever it takes, and giving founds to replace them. Building a competitive squad takes time, probably two three seasons but you longer you wait the longer it takes.
Only when the players sees that the manager is the top dog they will stay in line and starts to work their socks off to succeed.
Authority comes with actions. Cheap talk means nothing when you’re dealing with overpaid prima donnas. Either he (OGS) has to walk the walk or step down. That means taking bold short term decisions, benching under performing players until the seasons ends, addressing what’s acceptable or not, hold players accountable and show that he has a plan and a vision.
Next step is to clear the deck. Instead of accepting whatever Woody delivers it’s better he goes to the board and gives them a ultimatum. “Either the club backs me up all the way or I walk out today”. That means get rid of toxic players, whatever it takes, and giving founds to replace them. Building a competitive squad takes time, probably two three seasons but you longer you wait the longer it takes.
Only when the players sees that the manager is the top dog they will stay in line and starts to work their socks off to succeed.
He'll clear the decks, and set us right.
As long as he's given the authority to do so, which I'm unfortunately not very certain that he will.
As long as he's given the authority to do so, which I'm unfortunately not very certain that he will.
Absolutely agree. I genuinely think he's going to smash it next season. Just hope the more entitled section of the support dont turn things toxic in the meantime.
3 weeks of excuses and it’s still crap… ta ra Ole?
A performance that beggared belief today. A new nadir post-Ferguson? It was right down there.
I would love to know that managerial insight that played Romelu Lukaku up top and attempted to service him with a one-footed, right-footed Dalot at left back, a centre back at right back in Lindelof and then Martial and Rashford on the wings, both of whom want to cut inside and never cross. What about Paul Pogba? Surely he could offer Lukaku some morsels to run onto? No, we decided to pay him as the most advanced midfielder, essentially tasked alongside Lukaku with pressuring the Everton centre backs.
For the first 45 minutes, United couldn’t leave their half. The only moments were when Pogba presumably broke rank, dropped between the two centre backs and hit a stunning ball for Rashford to run onto, followed by another that Digne did well to dig out. Please, anyone explain me how that team was supposed to function? How was Pogba supposed to playmake? How was Lukaku supposed to be any sort of threat? You can blame individual players as much you want, but that was Moyesian today. Sheer incompetence.
People actually want to pin performances like this on Pogba. He’s such an isolated talent in this team. Sell him and see where we are. We’ve can’t progress down the pitch without him. Martial was absolute wank yet again. Dalot has nothing to recommend him bar a transfer fee. Matic looks cooked and devoid of the capacity to compete any longer. De Gea is a liability right now and should be dropped, despite our eagerness to re-sign him.
Ole should be fighting for his job. Some may scoff and question how you can think about sacking a manager already? If he hadn’t already been signed, he wouldn’t even be considered for the job now. This is United’s worst run since 1988-89, the season of the famous “ta ra” bedsheet, that was the last time we lost 6 in 8:
A loss to City and midweek and we will be on our worst run since 1961, when we were still recovering post-Munich. Ole frankly has no such excuse. Even Moyes never got close to these depths. This squad needs work, but it’s capable of far more than what we saw today.
Some how we’re still in for the fight of top four. Spurs lost as expected, but Arsenal dropped three points at home. Amazingly, we might look at this weekend as actually a decent weekend results wise. I only had us down for a point today, Arsenal for three and us still finishing in the top four, despite losing to City in midweek. It’s difficult to be optimistic, however, after a performance like that, that we can beat Chelsea and then not feck up against Cardiff and/or Huddersfield. The other three sides in the race for top four will feel the effect of Europe. but we don't look able to capitalise on this run.
A performance that beggared belief today. A new nadir post-Ferguson? It was right down there.
I would love to know that managerial insight that played Romelu Lukaku up top and attempted to service him with a one-footed, right-footed Dalot at left back, a centre back at right back in Lindelof and then Martial and Rashford on the wings, both of whom want to cut inside and never cross. What about Paul Pogba? Surely he could offer Lukaku some morsels to run onto? No, we decided to pay him as the most advanced midfielder, essentially tasked alongside Lukaku with pressuring the Everton centre backs.
For the first 45 minutes, United couldn’t leave their half. The only moments were when Pogba presumably broke rank, dropped between the two centre backs and hit a stunning ball for Rashford to run onto, followed by another that Digne did well to dig out. Please, anyone explain me how that team was supposed to function? How was Pogba supposed to playmake? How was Lukaku supposed to be any sort of threat? You can blame individual players as much you want, but that was Moyesian today. Sheer incompetence.
People actually want to pin performances like this on Pogba. He’s such an isolated talent in this team. Sell him and see where we are. We’ve can’t progress down the pitch without him. Martial was absolute wank yet again. Dalot has nothing to recommend him bar a transfer fee. Matic looks cooked and devoid of the capacity to compete any longer. De Gea is a liability right now and should be dropped, despite our eagerness to re-sign him.
Ole should be fighting for his job. Some may scoff and question how you can think about sacking a manager already? If he hadn’t already been signed, he wouldn’t even be considered for the job now. This is United’s worst run since 1988-89, the season of the famous “ta ra” bedsheet, that was the last time we lost 6 in 8:
A loss to City and midweek and we will be on our worst run since 1961, when we were still recovering post-Munich. Ole frankly has no such excuse. Even Moyes never got close to these depths. This squad needs work, but it’s capable of far more than what we saw today.
Some how we’re still in for the fight of top four. Spurs lost as expected, but Arsenal dropped three points at home. Amazingly, we might look at this weekend as actually a decent weekend results wise. I only had us down for a point today, Arsenal for three and us still finishing in the top four, despite losing to City in midweek. It’s difficult to be optimistic, however, after a performance like that, that we can beat Chelsea and then not feck up against Cardiff and/or Huddersfield. The other three sides in the race for top four will feel the effect of Europe. but we don't look able to capitalise on this run.
100% They clearly hit a wall a few weeks ago and have struggled since. The energy and sharpness is completely gone. They are playing twice a week against teams who are only playing once a week. They look absolutely spent. Ole has said himself they are nowhere near fit enough and he's dying for a preseason to put that right.
Yet for some reason supporters would rather believe they just decided to stop trying when it mattered most after working so hard to beat PSG and get into the top 4. Basically people are thick.
3 weeks of excuses and it’s still crap… ta ra Ole?
A performance that beggared belief today. A new nadir post-Ferguson? It was right down there.
I would love to know that managerial insight that played Romelu Lukaku up top and attempted to service him with a one-footed, right-footed Dalot at left back, a centre back at right back in Lindelof and then Martial and Rashford on the wings, both of whom want to cut inside and never cross. What about Paul Pogba? Surely he could offer Lukaku some morsels to run onto? No, we decided to pay him as the most advanced midfielder, essentially tasked alongside Lukaku with pressuring the Everton centre backs.
For the first 45 minutes, United couldn’t leave their half. The only moments were when Pogba presumably broke rank, dropped between the two centre backs and hit a stunning ball for Rashford to run onto, followed by another that Digne did well to dig out. Please, anyone explain me how that team was supposed to function? How was Pogba supposed to playmake? How was Lukaku supposed to be any sort of threat? You can blame individual players as much you want, but that was Moyesian today. Sheer incompetence.
People actually want to pin performances like this on Pogba. He’s such an isolated talent in this team. Sell him and see where we are. We’ve can’t progress down the pitch without him. Martial was absolute wank yet again. Dalot has nothing to recommend him bar a transfer fee. Matic looks cooked and devoid of the capacity to compete any longer. De Gea is a liability right now and should be dropped, despite our eagerness to re-sign him.
Ole should be fighting for his job. Some may scoff and question how you can think about sacking a manager already? If he hadn’t already been signed, he wouldn’t even be considered for the job now. This is United’s worst run since 1988-89, the season of the famous “ta ra” bedsheet, that was the last time we lost 6 in 8:
A loss to City and midweek and we will be on our worst run since 1961, when we were still recovering post-Munich. Ole frankly has no such excuse. Even Moyes never got close to these depths. This squad needs work, but it’s capable of far more than what we saw today.
Some how we’re still in for the fight of top four. Spurs lost as expected, but Arsenal dropped three points at home. Amazingly, we might look at this weekend as actually a decent weekend results wise. I only had us down for a point today, Arsenal for three and us still finishing in the top four, despite losing to City in midweek. It’s difficult to be optimistic, however, after a performance like that, that we can beat Chelsea and then not feck up against Cardiff and/or Huddersfield. The other three sides in the race for top four will feel the effect of Europe. but we don't look able to capitalise on this run.
Why focus on the last 3 weeks? Why not the last 4 months. We were 12 points off Arsenal and Chelsea and about 17 behind Spurs when he took over. The least he deserves is a preseason (something he himself says is desperately needed) and a chance to sign/sell a few players.
Edit: my figures are way off here. Point still stands though. We were miles behind top 4.
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I wouldn't ever pay much attention to what a new manager does until he has a sticky period. Judge him then after. History is littered with managers whose primary asset has been "not being the old manager". That isn't a sustainable motivation technique.
What I can't get my head around is why we appointed him when we did? There was just no need to. It is as if we felt the need to convince ourselves that he was right long term, at the first sign of trouble.
Kneejerk shit. Wait until next season when he had a fit squad than can carry out his vision. Slating him now is mental because hes outperformed all of his closest rivals since he took over
Obviously it won't be the only thing. But it's a pretty fundamental problem don't you think?! They're supposed to be fecking athletes.
As I said, I couldn't give a toss about a new manager's first few games when they are just able to rely on giving the player's something new and being a breath of fresh air. It's meaningless in judging a manager's longer term success, as your dependent upon a completely different skill set. The "kneejerk shit" was appointing him when we did. Reviewing his performance on a bigger sample of games is the opposite of kneejerk.
Everything since the first set back has been crap. Our football is so confused. Please unpick the tactics today and some of the previous few games. We're getting outplayed each and every week with no coherent gameplan. The team today were sent out with no chance. You can perhaps criticsm their effort, but it is hard to put effort in when you don't understand the strategy. Who running more would have helped today? Pogba was isolated up top with Lukaku, the four wide players were all basically asked to do unsuited roles, and none of our four deepest players have shown the capacity to confidently build from the back.
The last two managers got more than two windows.. I know you're a Jose apologist so I'll leave this tweet here..
Did you write all this? You wasted your time...3 weeks of excuses and it’s still crap… ta ra Ole?
A performance that beggared belief today. A new nadir post-Ferguson? It was right down there.
I would love to know that managerial insight that played Romelu Lukaku up top and attempted to service him with a one-footed, right-footed Dalot at left back, a centre back at right back in Lindelof and then Martial and Rashford on the wings, both of whom want to cut inside and never cross. What about Paul Pogba? Surely he could offer Lukaku some morsels to run onto? No, we decided to pay him as the most advanced midfielder, essentially tasked alongside Lukaku with pressuring the Everton centre backs.
For the first 45 minutes, United couldn’t leave their half. The only moments were when Pogba presumably broke rank, dropped between the two centre backs and hit a stunning ball for Rashford to run onto, followed by another that Digne did well to dig out. Please, anyone explain me how that team was supposed to function? How was Pogba supposed to playmake? How was Lukaku supposed to be any sort of threat? You can blame individual players as much you want, but that was Moyesian today. Sheer incompetence.
People actually want to pin performances like this on Pogba. He’s such an isolated talent in this team. Sell him and see where we are. We’ve can’t progress down the pitch without him. Martial was absolute wank yet again. Dalot has nothing to recommend him bar a transfer fee. Matic looks cooked and devoid of the capacity to compete any longer. De Gea is a liability right now and should be dropped, despite our eagerness to re-sign him.
Ole should be fighting for his job. Some may scoff and question how you can think about sacking a manager already? If he hadn’t already been signed, he wouldn’t even be considered for the job now. This is United’s worst run since 1988-89, the season of the famous “ta ra” bedsheet, that was the last time we lost 6 in 8:
A loss to City and midweek and we will be on our worst run since 1961, when we were still recovering post-Munich. Ole frankly has no such excuse. Even Moyes never got close to these depths. This squad needs work, but it’s capable of far more than what we saw today.
Some how we’re still in for the fight of top four. Spurs lost as expected, but Arsenal dropped three points at home. Amazingly, we might look at this weekend as actually a decent weekend results wise. I only had us down for a point today, Arsenal for three and us still finishing in the top four, despite losing to City in midweek. It’s difficult to be optimistic, however, after a performance like that, that we can beat Chelsea and then not feck up against Cardiff and/or Huddersfield. The other three sides in the race for top four will feel the effect of Europe. but we don't look able to capitalise on this run.
Perhaps new signings wouldn’t commit unless they knew who the manager was? We might well have deals being negotiated as we speak but they won’t be interested unless they know the full facts.
It's absolutely crazy to me for any Premiership side to have this issue. Let alone Manchester United.
It's negligence.
Ole ain't a draw for players to sign. He's a reason against signing frankly. I love the guy, but he's not a high profile manager.
They sign for the club, but players will want to know their ideas, what position they’re being signed for and what style of football etc.
Having no manager doesn’t help answer those questions. Ole is well known to many people of the current football group anyway.
I saw a discussion on Twitter after the midweek result about types of fitness, and the conditioning required, and basically, what Solskjaer wants them to do is such a far cry from what Mourinho had them doing, that they've all become gassed much, much quicker than they would have had they spent a pre-season preparing for that style.
Might all be bollocks, but superficially it seems to explain the drop off in intensity compared to the first weeks/months of Solskjaer's time.
It's not a fitness thing as such - I think a lot of our players just can't be bothered or aren't good enough.
I know that, it's not realistic, but it needs to happen over the next couple seasons. Ole has a rebuilding job to do
Ole's done everything but give these players a bath and a wank at this point, he's praised them and kept upbeat despite the utter garbage they have served up since Paris, I don't think there's any particular way to get something out of them, Pogba, De Gea, Herrera and Rashford all on the greed train trying to bleed us for stupid wages, more focused on that than the football.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't think appointing Ole permanent manager before the end of the season was a great idea, and those that convinced themselves he's a better option than Poch are quite frankly daft IMO, his selections of Young and Matic are hugely questionable to me, as is putting Lindelof at RB and his obssession with Rashford, but these players lost me today, they've been given protection and the kid gloves treatment since Christmas and for 2 months now have produced one flaccid display after another and today was the zenith of this malaise, the complete lack of effort and competitive self respect was evident, it's truly one of the worst performances I have ever seen from a United team.
What I find alarming is that people think recent weeks are giving Ole a greater mandate to overhaul the squad and not a weaker one. That's a terrifying thought. We're abysmal right now and we want to handover the long term planning for this team to the club legend, who we appointed on a emotional kneejerk, who has entered a tailspin now the new manager bounce has dissipated.
This is why we need to bring in a DOF
I am sick of his excuses. He is just full of nice words which will buy him time with board and fans. In reality he is just like Moyes; out of his depth.
Sack him now. If he stays, he will spend 200 mil and do nothing next season.
Sack him now. If he stays, he will spend 200 mil and do nothing next season.
Despite all the issue with Ed and his operating structure, Ole needs to be given time to have his team and his ideas implemented. Fans need to be patient. We can’t be calling for his head already. Everyone talks about wanting and needing a rebuild but no one is showing the patience of what a rebuild requires.
If Ed refuses to hire a DoF, he needs to back the manager 100% not this wishywashy thing that he’s been doing with the previous few managers. He can’t dictate who we buy and who we sell or who we give new contracts to. He has to listen to the manager he has hired 100%. If he doesn’t want to do that, then he needs a DoF.
If Ed doesn’t do either of those, Ole is destined to fail.
If Ed refuses to hire a DoF, he needs to back the manager 100% not this wishywashy thing that he’s been doing with the previous few managers. He can’t dictate who we buy and who we sell or who we give new contracts to. He has to listen to the manager he has hired 100%. If he doesn’t want to do that, then he needs a DoF.
If Ed doesn’t do either of those, Ole is destined to fail.
You have nailed the problems at the club my friend. Fire him and appoint someone else to spend 200 million. Problem solved.
Yes, someone else. Ole should not be that guy.
Pretty worried after today, happy to give Ole time but some of the omens aren't looking good already.
He says the right things in press conferences but doesn't back them up in his team selections. Hard work blah blah but Martial doing flip all in the last two games earns him a start away against Everton.
It's all well and good talking about youth, but sticking them on the bench and giving them 10 or 15 minutes isn't good enough. He's got nothing to lose starting with Greenwood today instead of Martial.
Greenwood's been doing it week in, week out for months and can't get a decent opportunity, whereas a waste of space like Matic walks back into the team.
I hope I'm wrong about Ole but my biggest hope, that players would get picked on merit rather than reputation seems to be fading with every passing game.
He says the right things in press conferences but doesn't back them up in his team selections. Hard work blah blah but Martial doing flip all in the last two games earns him a start away against Everton.
It's all well and good talking about youth, but sticking them on the bench and giving them 10 or 15 minutes isn't good enough. He's got nothing to lose starting with Greenwood today instead of Martial.
Greenwood's been doing it week in, week out for months and can't get a decent opportunity, whereas a waste of space like Matic walks back into the team.
I hope I'm wrong about Ole but my biggest hope, that players would get picked on merit rather than reputation seems to be fading with every passing game.
I don’t think he will spend that much. He knows it’s not about splashing the cash.
He isn't ruthless enough, or at least has not been yet
Add to this we played Huddersfield and Cardiff in the first week. We tonked Fulham 5-1 or something under Mourinho and looked good.
My issue with Ole is he hasn’t had a plan besides counter attack. Pep when he came to Man City had a plan. He tried to play out from the back and the players were embarrassing at it especially the defenders.
You can always show what kind of tactical set up you doing even if the players are bad at it. At the end of the day most of these players sadly will be here next year, so we need to sort it out.
what??
the players were telling him where to pass ffs. The whole passage of play was his doing.Our pressing under Jose and Ole has always been a half arsed press. Never fully committed, which is why we suck at it.
LVG I can't really recall, thought we pressed OK enough but we played a possession game more than anything else so I just recall us recycling the ball to no end.
If Ole wants us fit I have little doubt it's to embed a proper press off the ball. Problem is we don't look any better at it. When Klopp came after Brendan there was a difference in Liverpool's style after a few months. It wasn't the end product but progress was there to see.
LVG I can't really recall, thought we pressed OK enough but we played a possession game more than anything else so I just recall us recycling the ball to no end.
If Ole wants us fit I have little doubt it's to embed a proper press off the ball. Problem is we don't look any better at it. When Klopp came after Brendan there was a difference in Liverpool's style after a few months. It wasn't the end product but progress was there to see.
He was taking the piss out of you.
Throwing Greenwood or any of the other youngsters into that dysfunctional mess would essentially be throwing them under the bus.
What happened to the counter attacking football that was so fun to watch when Ole came in? I haven't seen us try anything like that for past 10 games .
A good thing about having Ole is that he has so much goodwill and is so beloved, by most Utd fans anyway, that the players can't now hide behind the manager.
The vast majority of Utd fans have turned on the players now, we see them for what they are. Spineless low quality cowards.
The vast majority of Utd fans have turned on the players now, we see them for what they are. Spineless low quality cowards.
Ole simply has to wield the axe much like Pep spectacularly did also on the back of a 4-0 hammering at Goodison Park. My worry is that he hasn't got it in him to be that ruthless but also our joke of a board will have the final say on how many he will be allowed to ditch.
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