Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion

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Mainoldo said:
I also love it when things don’t work and he tells players to swap sides :lol:. I think even the CB’s done it this time. It’s as funny as the Kovacic for Barkley substitution.
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At least he has not put Wan Bissaka down the left and Shaw down the right yet ;).
 
Main lineup was spot on for me. We were controlling the match pretty well up till their goal and was bound to score. The problem is we still have a big mental problem : we collapse and lose all composure once we conceded. Could have been a disaster if they scored second in this period. After the half break we regained our composure and again controlled the match. Subs came in a good time, not really delayed imo.

Overall it was well managed by Ole imo.

Though next game against Sheffield we can try shaking things up. They are going to set deep even more so looks a great chance for us to test Pogba-Bruno combo with Scott or Matic behind them.
 
el3mel said:
Main lineup was spot on for me. We were controlling the match pretty well up till their goal and was bound to score. The problem is we still have a big mental problem : we collapse and lose all composure once we conceded. Could have been a disaster if they scored second in this period. After the half break we regained our composure and again controlled the match. Subs came in a good time, not really delayed imo.

Overall it was well managed by Ole imo.

Though next game against Sheffield we can try shaking things up. They are going to set deep even more so looks a great chance for us to test Pogba-Bruno combo with Scott or Matic behind them.
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They was always going to sit deep and he played the double pivot. It wasn’t spot on and it wasn’t working.. we didn’t need two CM picking up the ball from our CB’s. Matić would have don’t that job and let the other two push forward. Then we occupy both of their sitting midfielders.. instead they was having an easy ride looking after Bruno.
 
Mainoldo said:
They was always going to sit deep and he played the double pivot. It wasn’t spot on and it wasn’t working.. we didn’t need two CM picking up the ball from our CB’s. Matić would have don’t that job and let the other two push forward. Then we occupy both of their sitting midfielders.. instead they was having an easy ride looking after Bruno.
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I agree with you. Every Tom, Dick and Harry knows how Jose sets his teams up. It is not rocket science to see that. We fell into Jose's trap. Well you can't call it a trap as you would expect him to play like that. We should have not got Scott and Fred and Bruno in this line up. We should have dropped Scott and let Matic sit back, push Bruno further forward and dropped James for Odion. I would have also dropped Lindelof for Bailly. Yes Bailly could be suicidal but at least he has got pace. When we push up and try to play attacking football, Maguire and Lindelof is a liability.
Some will say we were the better team. Actually we were not as we were the same as Spurs as they scored one and we scored one and this is a game we should have won with better tactics and team selection.
 
rotherham_red said:
fecking hell, I know we're not meant to criticise the poster but you really do make it hard not to at times...

Do the maths: Player A comes on for 30 minutes in a game where players B and C have played for 60 minutes. Which of these players will have expended more energy and become more tired as a result?

I'll give you all the time you need to figure out this particular brain teaser.
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Were Rashford and Kane sharp in the first half, when they had not played 60 minutes?
 
adexkola said:
What team sans Pogba would you have put out
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4-3-3. Matić deep line and take your pick. Don’t however tell your two CM’s to mirror Mourinho’s negative formation. Made no sense and we literally lost the midfield battle with Spurs not even touching the ball in their. Silly stuff.
 
Rozay said:
Were Rashford and Kane sharp in the first half, when they had not played 60 minutes?
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It's a little different playing against players who have started a game compared to players who have been playing for 60 minutes, no?

We've seen Pogba start in comeback games multiple times this season (Rochdale, Arsenal). He didn't stand out in any of them. The one other time he came back to the team off the bench, was against Watford, where he again stole the show... Can you see a pattern developing here?
 
Mainoldo said:
4-3-3. Matić deep line and take your pick. Don’t however tell your two CM’s to mirror Mourinho’s negative formation. Made no sense and we literally lost the midfield battle with Spurs not even touching the ball in their. Silly stuff.
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That's news, if there was a battle then Spurs didn't show up I felt.

I would have liked to see a single pivot with 2 advanced midfielders but I'm not sure how Fred would do more advanced.
 
adexkola said:
That's news, if there was a battle then Spurs didn't show up I felt.

I would have liked to see a double pivot but I'm not sure how Fred would do more advanced.
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In the 1st half Bruno was shut down, and Fred and Scott barely played a progressive pass.

I think our midfield setup was definitely nullified early on which was most likely what Mourinho was aiming to do.
 
adexkola said:
That's news, if there was a battle then Spurs didn't show up I felt.

I would have liked to see a single pivot with 2 advanced midfielders but I'm not sure how Fred would do more advanced.
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We didn’t lose the battle if it was done to who had most of ball. But that wasn’t my point. Spurs did exactly what they set up to do. They didn’t want the ball and until Pogba came on we didn’t know what to do with it. Matić helped too.

As for Fred hard to tell. I think he has energy to hurt teams further up the field and he has the ability to move the ball quickly which exploits space. His option of passing is suspect however.
 
I can understand that some posters here are frustrated because Ole should've started Pogba, Ole should've made his subs earlier, Ole should have started Greenwood or Ighalo. It's valid critique in my opinion, but we cannot forget that we played against Mourinho. Mourinho is a man who, arguably is past his best, has gained a reputation for being fantastic at nullifying his opponent completely, and that was what he was set out to do versus us. And lets remember he coached us for 2.5 seasons, he knows exactly how to hurt us.

Spurs with Mourinho in charge will never be an easy game for United. With all that being said, I think Ole did a good job because we played some beautiful football and on any other day we would've won.
 
rotherham_red said:
It's a little different playing against players who have started a game compared to players who have been playing for 60 minutes, no?

We've seen Pogba start in comeback games multiple times this season (Rochdale, Arsenal). He didn't stand out in any of them. The one other time he came back to the team off the bench, was against Watford, where he again stole the show... Can you see a pattern developing here?
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You said Pogba looked sharper than the other two because they had played 60 minutes, seemingly as justification for the team selection, but they never looked sharp at any point all night. If they were not ready to look sharp against players who started the game, they should also be coming on for 30 minutes, no?

And Pogba has come back from a month or more out and put in MOTM performances from the start before, like vs Newcastle in a 4-1 win, but my point wasn’t really about him anyway. Was more questioning whether there was a rationale to justify team selection yesterday using the respective performances of Kane and Rashford.
 
I am afraid that Ole will keep playing three forwards all the time. Playing Bruno, Pogba, Fred and Matic is better than playing three forwards and dropping Fred or Matic.
 
LJJT said:
Great subs tonight, couldn’t start pogba cos of fitness, we are in a great position now. Look at Chelsea’s fixtures- Leicester, Man City, Liverpool etc. 1-1 away at spurs you would always take that
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Correct me if I'm wrong but before the league was paused Pogba was far closer to making a comeback than Rashford was, yet against Spurs Rashford had played the full 90 minutes, whilst Pogba couldn't have started due to "fitness"?

Seriously?

Vault Dweller said:
Pogba hasn't played for months and months, so he was either gonna start and not finish / not start and finish the game, so not surprised about that at all.

Agreed on James though, I'd have played Greenwood.

So yeah okay, he could have done one thing different :D
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Mate Rashford hasn't played for months either yet he did full 90 minutes...

rotherham_red said:
If Pogba started like he did against Arsenal and Rochdale and got injured, the likes of you would no doubt have been blaming the manager for starting him.
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That's a poor excuse, Rashford was coming off an even bigger injury and prior to the league being halted, Pogba was about to make a return whilst Rashford was still projected to even miss the EURO2020, yet against Spurs Rashford had played full 90 minutes whilst Pogba was brought on for the last half an hour...
 
Fracture90 said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but before the league was paused Pogba was far closer to making a comeback than Rashford was, yet against Spurs Rashford had played the full 90 minutes, whilst Pogba couldn't have started due to "fitness"?

Seriously?



Mate Rashford hasn't played for months either yet he did full 90 minutes...



That's a poor excuse, Rashford was coming off an even bigger injury and prior to the league being halted, Pogba was about to make a return whilst Rashford was still projected to even miss the EURO2020, yet against Spurs Rashford had played full 90 minutes whilst Pogba was brought on for the last half an hour...
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That was the first time Pogba had played since 2019. Rashford had last played a full month further along.

By which logic should be have started the player who had a) been out much longer, and b) had a much more complicated recent history of returning from injury?

Like I said before, if you're going to ignore the context, there's very little point in continuing this cos it's only highlighting your wilful ignorance on the matter.
 
You cannot please everyone. If we took our chances, it worked out! We didn't so that's it. We might do things different but other then their goal, they created really one chance of note and we should have won really. Their goalkeeper had a good games, ours didn't. But I think we looked pretty good away to a spurs team that were close to full strength too. We just need to cut out silly mistakes.
 
Following the early purple patch I've been skeptical about OGS' capabilities as a manager. But we did go on an impressive run pre covid which bought him some time. The performance against Spurs, who are a team I think we should be beating right, was actually pretty good. We were a tad unlucky I thought to not win that game away from home.
 
Striker10 said:
You cannot please everyone. If we took our chances, it worked out! We didn't so that's it. We might do things different but other then their goal, they created really one chance of note and we should have won really. Their goalkeeper had a good games, ours didn't. But I think we looked pretty good away to a spurs team that were close to full strength too. We just need to cut out silly mistakes.
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Fully agreed.

And let's not forget, this was against a Jose with a point to prove and time to prepare, and what I saw in the last 30 mins against a Jose low block, with the game situation at his advantage, was absolutely encouraging.

The people complaining are just being wilfully ignorant because they'd rather be right than have Utd do well. The worst type of 'fan'.
 
Yeah, this is one of those games where I don't get the criticism for Ole. We did fall into the same trap of conceding the first goal and then losing any sort of momentum that we may have had. This is obviously an issue and deserves to be criticized, but I thought we recovered well in the second half. And at the end of the day, there's only so much you can do against a good team that is well drilled and had 10 men behind the ball. They defended deep and done so very aggressively. It was peak Mourinho and It's very hard to break down - I don't care who you are.

With all that in mind, I felt we done quite well and probably deserved to win the game in all honesty.
 
rotherham_red said:
That was the first time Pogba had played since 2019. Rashford had last played a full month further along.

By which logic should be have started the player who had a) been out much longer, and b) had a much more complicated recent history of returning from injury?

Like I said before, if you're going to ignore the context, there's very little point in continuing this cos it's only highlighting your wilful ignorance on the matter.
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It's very convenient how you completely ignored the fact that he played Rashford full 90 minutes despite him coming off a more serious injury than Pogba. If anything it was more logical to play Pogba from the start since he was in full training longer than Rashford.

Also if you remember Ole played Rashford against Wolves when he wasn't fit hence why he got a serious back injury worsened.

Like i said Pogba was projected to return around the time league was stopped whilst Rashford was projected to miss the EURO2020 due to his injury being quite severe.
 
Giggsyking said:
he is a coach, not a sporting director. He should teach them how to play football. Something he lacks obviously because he does not have what is required to manage a club in the size and the prestige of united.
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Well who has it to manage Manchester United? Mourinho? Van Gaal ?
Pep and Klopp and maybe Simeone are the only certainties to suceed I feel..
I am OK with this ride.. At least he is one of us.. and isn't worried about salary or his statistics... he is here to improve Manchester United..
He may not win us the league.. but he has been better than all managers we have had since SAF.. including Mourinho.

Bought young with potential... playing a better system..and doesn't whine..
 
The_Midfielder said:
Well who has it to manage Manchester United? Mourinho? Van Gaal ?
Pep and Klopp and maybe Simeone are the only certainties to suceed I feel..
I am OK with this ride.. At least he is one of us.. and isn't worried about salary or his statistics... he is here to improve Manchester United..
He may not win us the league.. but he has been better than all managers we have had since SAF.. including Mourinho.

Bought young with potential... playing a better system..and doesn't whine..
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What type of system? I struggle to see what we are trying to do... I can see what Bruno or PP tries to do, but the team? No.

Better than outdated and defensive Moyes/Mourinho. LVG, despite the safe and slow passing, improved our player's ability to pass and control the ball. Would have been interesting to see what this would have developed into if he was given another year or replaced by a more possession-oriented manager.

I fear that this "feel good" and buying the "right mentality" players approach is not enough to get us into the top 4. Regardless of the mentality of the players and how motivated they are, unless we have a plan/system on how to play and attack, especially against balanced teams, we are not going to be competitive. Relying on individual moments of brilliance or getting penalties is not a sustainable approach over time.
 
Striker10 said:
You cannot please everyone. If we took our chances, it worked out! We didn't so that's it. We might do things different but other then their goal, they created really one chance of note and we should have won really. Their goalkeeper had a good games, ours didn't. But I think we looked pretty good away to a spurs team that were close to full strength too. We just need to cut out silly mistakes.
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Do you remember a few months ago?

"Ole cannot manage players, his fault our players get injured, he knew Pogba was not fully fit and played him which caused him to be out for longer."

"Ole's fault for over using players"

Ole starts Pogba on the bench because he has played twice since October "Ole doesnt know what he is doing"

The starting 11 was fine. That was the team that beat City. We done well most game. If we started Pogba and were losing 1-0 and he had to come off, we could have lost the game.
 
He is rightly criticised because everyone knows how Jose sets up his team. We all knew that Spurs would be happy to concede possession and counter attack with pace. Yes we fell into that trap by playing James. It would have been much better to start Odion along with Rashford and Martial if Pogba cannot start. Furthermore it would have been better to play Matic instead of Scott and let Fred be the box to box.
 
He needs to get top4 or his job should be taken away from him.

We are Man United, we can't be flirting with top 4 every year. So this is it, he gets top 4 this year and next year needs to make a serious challenge for the league.
 
I actually thought he got the team pretty spot on. Maybe I wouldn't have started James. But Pogba absolutely had to start on the bench. Long layoff, team on a great run prior to the layoff, he had to earn his spot back in the side. Which he did with his cameo.

People are whining about it, but we were in complete control of the game to be honest, and conceded a ludicrous goal due to Shaw, Maguire & De Gea combining for an amazing brain fart.They had one other chance that I can remember, the header which De Gea saved.

We had a number of chances, some great saves by Lloris and some inept finishing by forwards. Also a great block by Dier. We should have won the game. The ball didn't bounce our way. Ole doesn't deserve the blame for that in my opinion.
 
SuperiorXI said:
Pogba not on from the start confuses me. Why would you deliberately leave out your most talented player?
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He may not be fully fit to play the whole game, he may be rusty after not playing for an eternity and needs a soft start. You have a very simplistic view of things. Pogba good = play from start. In reality it's more complicated than that.
 
SuperiorXI said:
Pogba not on from the start confuses me. Why would you deliberately leave out your most talented player?
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So, when Pogba played Vs Arsenal & Rochdale and was not fully fit, why did most of the caf blame Ole for his injury?
 
The bigger mistake was not playing Matic when you know he's actually a player that finished well and usually his form at the start is also good.
 
romufc said:
So, when Pogba played Vs Arsenal & Rochdale and was not fully fit, why did most of the caf blame Ole for his injury?
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He still had a stress fracture and tried to play through it, he is supposed to not have that fracture anymore since March.
 
JPRouve said:
He still had a stress fracture and tried to play through it, he is supposed to not have that fracture anymore since March.
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Yes, that is why Rashford played 90 mins.
Yes, and Pogba? A player who

A player who has started 2 games since September. Out since December?

Seriously, criticising Ole for starting him on the bench, we still have alot of football to play.
 
romufc said:
Yes, that is why Rashford played 90 mins.
Yes, and Pogba? A player who

A player who has started 2 games since September. Out since December?

Seriously, criticising Ole for starting him on the bench, we still have alot of football to play.
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This makes no sense, you are confusing fitness from an athletic standpoint and fitness from a medical standpoint. Both players will lack sharpness and feel for the game when they missed several months but in terms of fitness, you get in shape in a matter of weeks, Pogba has been training since February, he has been working on his fitness for almost 5 months while Rashford was unable to train and forced to rest for the better part of these 5 months. In terms of fitness they are most likely at the same level and a good one, the question is whether Rashford is fully healed because unlike Pogba, June was the optimistic return date.

There is no argument to make where Rashford playing 90 minutes makes more sense than Pogba playing 90 minutes, unless something happened during the week.
 
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