Which squad is worse is subjective. The second half of that sentence is another one of those factually incorrect statements. Our peak position under Mourinho was 2nd with 81 points. Until this season finishes you cannot make that kind of statement because you don't have the results to be able to make it.
You speak of being objective but then allow your bias to colour your statements. We are closer to the top at this stage last season than we were at any point under Jose in 2017/18 after he lost to City at OT. That is an undeniable fact. Where we end up is another matter, but right now this much is at the very least true.
It's fine to disagree but appearances and situation speak for themselves. Rashford made over 100 appearances between 2016 and 2018. Marcus Rashford was a 19/20 year old striker. He was not good enough to be given the starting striking spot at the time. Zlatan was much better than him. At what other club do you see a 19/20 year old as a starting forward? Him and Martial competed for the left wing spot and rightfully so.
Martial went up a level last season and has now gone on to have his worse ever season with us this year, worse than anything we've ever seen, maybe just maybe the problem is Martial and not Ole and not Mourinho. He looks a player void of any sort of conviction.
Well, what part of my initial statement was untrue then? It's an opinion that I hold, and which I feel is grounded in reality. Martial and Rashford were both forced to compete against each other when under the previous management they were playing together. They weren't given the time and patience to develop as they should have been and their development stalled. I'm sure you're also clever enough to also realise that 100 appearances at an average of say, 30-35 mins per appearance doesn't really amount to much more than 40-45 full appearances. I haven't done the maths, but surely you can agree that not all appearances are valid? To be honest, this statement just reminds me of that god awful cringe moment when Jose came out with that sheet of paper which listed 40-odd players he gave a debut to at his unveiling. It was bollocks then, and it's bollocks now.
RE: McTominay, Scott Mctominay is not good enough to be anything more than a squad player at United. Under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer now he IS LITERALLY a squad player. I mean your whole Mctominay post is so inconsistent. You even admit Mctominay played big games under Mourinho against Chelsea and Liverpool. You mention the PSG game as if he would have played in it had we had any other fit players. That post is just the epitome of the spin and gymnastics played to praise Ole and criticise Mourinho. Both managers know his limitations and he was used and is being used exactly how he should be. You say two and a half seasons under Mourinho as if McTominay was even in the squad in 2016/2017. I suppose by the logic being applied to how Mourinho used Rashford and McTominay we can now claim that Ole doesn't want Greenwood and will not progress under Ole seeing as how he's not starting every single game at the minute.
Again, it seems like your projecting the insecurities of your argument on to me. It's not going to work unfortunately. McTominay played 2 big games out of how many under Jose? He played Barca in Ole's first caretaker stint when he had the full compliment of players to choose from and he's pretty much played every big game this season too. That is not screaming squad player status to me. The Greenwood comparison is a bit of a misnomer too. He's not played because of a few very public issues that he's had. The fact that Ole still trusted him to play in the do or die game against Leipzig and against Liverpool just last week shows how much he is valued. That is just this season, and I am sure there's at least another game in there too.
Speaking of squad players, if you want to talk about a player who has been used as one for the bulk of Ole's time here, we don't have to look too much further than Matic. He, who Jose decided that for £40m, was a good investment and who along with Lukaku, Jose famously referenced as "why M and L always play" after he screwed the pooch against Brighton. There's certainly no talk of "why always Matic" these days... I wonder why.
Not much difference with net figures, players sold under Mourinho show between 80-90 million incoming and under Ole between 90 and 100 million. At this stage the facts show Mourinhos net spend at between 60-70 million more, so for arguments sake we can say he's been allowed to bring in ONE more player than Ole has. These are what the facts say but of course I expect myths to continue to be peddled.
Can you provide those figures please? Because from the top of my head, I remember the following: £89m on Pogba, Free for Zlatan, £30m/£35m on Bailly and £23m on Mkhitaryan and he didn't sell anyone of note that summer. Likewise. the next summer he spent £72m on Lukaku, £40m on Matic and £30m on Lindelof with only Schneiderlin (£24m), Blind (can't remember if we even got a fee for him), and Depay (£31m) being notable outs as far as I can recall during that two year period. I'm not even counting the third summer where c.£60m was spent on Dalot and Fred (and Grant on a free), or Sanchez who nominally cost £35m but in actual fact didn't. So, where exactly did Jose recoup enough to say he had a similar type of net spend to Ole? Did he have one outgoing that was on a par with the Lukaku sale, for instance?
Nothing to do with covid? Again you're arguing against actual fact. Every single self run club had to veto heavy spending in the summer because of covid. This literally happened, it's not a theory or an opinion, it's actually what happened.
Again, you're missing my point. The argument I'm having is that Ole has not been backed to the same extent that Jose and LvG did. For every incoming signing, there have been at least 2 outgoings. Rightly so, as the squad was crap and the players in question needed selling, but in turn, they also needed replacing which didn't really happen. The most egregious aspect of this occurred a full year before Covid, where Ole sold Lukaku expecting a replacement to come in which never materialised (until the Ighalo loan), or when he sold Fellaini in January and had to let Herrera go six months later and nobody came in until January 2020. You like to talk about facts, well "this literally happened".
But again, I expect these spins, these narratives. It doesn't matter what the facts or situation say, it's long been decided that Ole has been starved on funds and transfers and Jose and LVG were given heaven and earth.
Like I said, the stats show a similarity in goals and ball possession and my eyes and a lot of other peoples eyes and then pretty much everyone outside the clubs eyes tell us our football is still way behind where it needs to be.
That's fine. It doesn't pass your eye test and we can agree to disagree. I'm pretty confident in my assertion that you're wrong, but there's no way either of us are going to concede on this.
I mean honestly, let's not even go there. Like I accept getting into an Ole/Mourinho debate but let's not even go to talking about Sir Alex's teams. It might not have been swash buckling but we are lightyears away from even the 2011-2013 team which scored 78, 89 and 89 goals in the Premier League in those last three seasons. That team might not have produced a Barcelona standard of football but it scored goals, it showed attacking intent, decision making in the final third, we took risks. None of this is in our play now.
And it is debateable, hence why it's always being debated. Hence why the number of people who do think its dramatically improved is a much smaller sample size than those who don't.
