Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion

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Can’t fault him. We are creating chances and control the game everyone apart from two centre backs and the goalkeeper are playing very well and 3 goals should have been enough to seal the victory. Everton only had 3 shots on target with 6 total FFS. That’s defenders problems. The subs were correct in my opinion. Those are the type of subs that Sir Alex would have done. Tuanzebe subs was like John O’Shea subs.
 
dove said:
Players made individual mistakes of course but for example Everton's 2nd goal is a carbon copy of Sheffield's goal against us. Insane amount of space in our box 30 yard area yet again, we see it time and time again.
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It’s because Maguire and Lindelof are passive defenders. They will never be anything else. But if Maguire shouts at Lindelof to leave that initial cross by Digne that goal never happens.
Maybe the third goal is one to look at the management team because it’s yet another set piece goal we’ve conceded. We need to get this sorted because it’s costing us a lot.
 
Only thing I can blame Ole for would be for a common trend with us, which is being absolutely dreadful at defending set pieces.
 
Womp said:
I don't think he's good enough and believe this team can go up a level with a superior manager, that being said, today wasn't on him. Players make mistakes, but you just cannot switch off in the last kick of the game.

Also his insistence on playing Lindelof has arguably cost him the title. Having favourites doesn't work when they're average as feck.
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You do realize Bailly is injured right? Who else he should play, tuanzebe?
 
groovyalbert said:
Not sure how people can blame Ole today.

We played brilliant attacking football, and it was down to individual feck ups at the back for all of Everton's goals. Can't legislate that, and there's no other back 4 we can play better than that currently.

We need to practice defending set-pieces though, we look like conceding every time.
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As someone who's still not completely sold on Ole, I agree it's lunacy time blame him for tonight. Completely let down by players at both ends of the pitch.
 
Not sure you can pin too much on him today, I thought we played well for the most part and looked more fluent on the ball than we have a lot of the time with all of our attacking players playing well at last but our defence and goalkeeper are shit. One thing that can hopefully die now is this idea that he's bought brilliantly, £150m in his first summer to fix our defence and bring in Dan James has not worked out.
 
RORY65 said:
Not sure you can pin too much on him today, I thought we played well for the most part and looked more fluent on the ball than we have a lot of the time with all of our attacking players playing well at last but our defence and goalkeeper are shit. One thing that can hopefully die now is this idea that he's bought brilliantly, £150m in his first summer to fix our defence and bring in Dan James has not worked out.
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Well he had to do something after the state it was left in by the defensive genius that he succeeded. Not his fault Stevie Wonder could see how desperate we were for defenders and priced the ones we wanted accordingly.
 
Shark said:
As someone who's still not completely sold on Ole, I agree it's lunacy time blame him for tonight. Completely let down by players at both ends of the pitch.
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Yep, agree with you both. We played well, had chances to kill the game and fecked up in defence. I’d definitely blame the defence more than the attack; you’ve gotta win when you score three at home.
 
We looked a bit different tactically I thought, a lot more fluid up front. More interchanging around the front positions which I thought made Rashford and Greenwood a lot more effective. McTominay was taking up the Matic position before Pogba went off as well, sitting deep and falling into the back line to allow Maguire and Lindelöf to push push forward.

We looked a lot sharper, besides a few complete and utter shambolic moments in defence.
 
Shark said:
As someone who's still not completely sold on Ole, I agree it's lunacy time blame him for tonight. Completely let down by players at both ends of the pitch.
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Yup, I'm not entirely convinced by him but we've been good this season in general and should have won tonight. Our CB's and keeper are tragic at times and it keeps costing us.
 
We’re playing a high line with a oil tank at the back. Make it make sense. How do we lose the second half 3-1? Awful.
 
His job is to oversee the coaching of the defence, something is clearly wrong in that department this season. We have taken about 5 steps backwards defensively, I am not sure you can blame that all on individuals.
 
Lunacy to blame it on him. De Gea being a wimp was what cost us.
 
dove said:
Henderson is even worse.
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Right at this moment in time it would be physically impossible to be worse than DDG. How you can draw any conclusions about Henderson is beyond me but literally at the moment I would pick Lee Grant over DDG

The man is scared of the ball and opposition players...bit of a fundamental problem if you're a GK!
 
Womp said:
You do realise we play more than just this Everton game a season, right?

Even when both are fit, he prefers Lindelof.
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But how would that have prevented 3-3 today? You are just blaming Ole for the sake of it now. It’s like hey we drew let us write some shit in Ole thread.
 
No one is blaming Ole for this match as far as I'm concerned. De Gea, Maguire, Lindelof and Rashford are the onest to blame the most. It's that his subs management are appalling and it needs to improve, because it's not the first time. That's all in it.
 
Bringing Tuanzebe on was stupid, and this is not hindsight talking I said it the minute he came on. First of all, 'time-wasting' subs are pointless because you might run down 20 seconds but the referee usually adds a minute on (even thought it's meant to be 30s). Secondly, Greenwood was doing a good job of winning the ball back and holding onto it when we got it. Thirdly, Tuanzebe seems to be one of those defenders who is an accident waiting to happen and once again, it was him who gave away a reckless, stupid free-kick
 
Lentwood said:
Right at this moment in time it would be physically impossible to be worse than DDG. How you can draw any conclusions about Henderson is beyond me but literally at the moment I would pick Lee Grant over DDG

The man is scared of the ball and opposition players...bit of a fundamental problem if you're a GK!
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To me the even more fundamental problem is our defending of set pieces. We clearly don't know what we are doing in those, Liverpool hired throw in coach so we might as well hire set pieces coach. DDG of course made vital mistakes but defending in all the goals we conceded was very bad.
 
Dobba said:
Well he had to do something after the state it was left in by the defensive genius that he succeeded. Not his fault Stevie Wonder could see how desperate we were for defenders and priced the ones we wanted accordingly.
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I just think when you're spending £130m on two defenders you should be able to do better, particularly when you're leaking information about your incredible database of hundreds of players for each position and then the two you find are magically both English lads playing in the Premier League who are decent but not that good. At the very least the recruitment is not a facet of his management that should get as praised as much as it has been (there are other areas where Solskjaer has done very well) because if we keep conceding at the current rate then our defensive record will be almost as bad as it was that season (Mourinho's signings in general were appalling).
 
As painful as it was the way things panned out tonight we need to be realistic: City are on another level and most people would expect them to cruise to the league title. Liverpool at their best are still formidable and can turn things around this season. This is a time for learning and development which we are certainly doing and that includes Ole. We’re on a good track I think.
 
RORY65 said:
Not sure you can pin too much on him today, I thought we played well for the most part and looked more fluent on the ball than we have a lot of the time with all of our attacking players playing well at last but our defence and goalkeeper are shit. One thing that can hopefully die now is this idea that he's bought brilliantly, £150m in his first summer to fix our defence and bring in Dan James has not worked out.
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His spending has been lauded at times, but yeah, I agree that it's been a mixed bag. However, he took over a complete and utter shit show and our squad looks the best it's looked in a long, long time. We have a good squad and some really exciting youngsters.

His biggest mistake was Maguire. Considering he likes a high line, I have no idea why he bought Maguire. Surely that money could have been spent on a player far more suited to his favoured system. James was a punt who hasn't really worked out. I have no real issues with him. Fernandes and Cavani have been excellent and AWB can still become a very good acquisition. I'm not sure what the story is with Telles but he needs time to settle as does VdB, although both look pretty poor signings thus far.
 
I was watching the game with my brother and I told him that Ole was going to bring on a defender to shore up the win and that Everton would get a chance as a result and Lo and behold, Tuanzebe gives away a free kick and we concede.

Why not just leave Mason on or bring in someone in midfield or attack who can keep possession of the ball like Van der Beek or Martial and we would have won that game, Or leave Mason on and take off Rashford because he probably loses the ball more than any of our other forwards.
But Ole has a bad habit of bringing on extra defenders when we have a one goal lead and we always look like we are going to concede whenever he does this. You would have thought he would have learned by now but he keeps repeating it
 
Renegade said:
We’re playing a high line with a oil tank at the back.
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And a right back who, after two years at the club, still can't hold an offside line. Another two tonight from AWB and nothing that seems to suggest that it's being addressed.
 
Robbie Boy said:
His spending has been lauded at times, but yeah, I agree that it's been a mixed bag. However, he took over a complete and utter shit show and our squad looks the best it's looked in a long, long time. We have a good squad and some really exciting youngsters.

His biggest mistake was Maguire. Considering he likes a high line, I have no idea why he bought Maguire. Surely that money could have been spent on a player far more suited to his favoured system. James was a punt who hasn't really worked out. I have no real issues with him. Fernandes and Cavani have been excellent and AWB can still become a very good acquisition. I'm not sure what the story is with Telles but he needs time to settle as does VdB, although both look pretty poor signings thus far.
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For a high line system you need a centre back who not only win you head duels, but one that can carry the ball. 80% of a high line challenges comes through duels. I don’t know of anyone beside Colubaly being at the Same level as Maguire in this. He needs a fast centerback next to him, but that is down to the club. Bailly can’t stay fit for 5 minutes, and Axel is to inexperienced. We are not there yet, and we need investment! And we also need another right back, and some serious coaching on Bissaka. I love him to bits. But he really needs to learn positioning and calm down with the ball in his feet.
 
I generally am very critical of Ole and have my doubts but today after a long time I saw some good play and with better finishing we would have won the game. Hope this draw doesn't make him defensive. Let us continue to play this football attacking wise and fix our defensive woes.
 
130m on two defenders and already conceded 30 goals this season? What the feck does he do in training, What is he teaching them? does he ever word with them on set pieces?
 
RORY65 said:
I just think when you're spending £130m on two defenders you should be able to do better, particularly when you're leaking information about your incredible database of hundreds of players for each position and then the two you find are magically both English lads playing in the Premier League who are decent but not that good. At the very least the recruitment is not a facet of his management that should get as praised as much as it has been (there are other areas where Solskjaer has done very well) because if we keep conceding at the current rate then our defensive record will be almost as bad as it was that season (Mourinho's signings in general were appalling).
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We are only spending £130m on two defenders, not because they're £130m worth of players but because everyone could see how desperate we were for them. In an ideal world sacrificing anything resembling attacking football for those Mourinho Dark Ages would have left us with the ability to buy cheaper players from other leagues and bed them in over time, but we needed starters and paid accordingly, with the United tax on top of that.

Guardiola has spent hundreds upon hundreds of millions on the defence and they still spent most of his time at the club looking like crap without Vincent Kompany. Ole turned up at a club with no right back, because the right winger we had been playing there for years had gone, one left back whose confidence had been absolutely obliterated by the last manager and a centre half cupboard full to the brim of deadwood and permacrocks. Expecting us to go from that to a title challenging defence via two first choice signings and a backup left back is both wildly optimistic and annoyingly exactly what Ed and the Glazers were hoping for.
 
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FatherWolff said:
For a high line system you need a centre back who not only win you head duels, but one that can carry the ball. 80% of a high line challenges comes through duels. I don’t know of anyone beside Colubaly being at the Same level as Maguire in this. He needs a fast centerback next to him, but that is down to the club. Bailly can’t stay fit for 5 minutes, and Axel is to inexperienced. We are not here yet, and we need investment! And we also need another right back, and some serious coaching on Bissaka. I love him to bits. But he really needs to learn positioning and calm down with the ball in his feet.
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Well Magire isn't good enough. I never wanted him and I still don't. As a squad option? Sure. As captain and first choice? No way.

AWB is fine. Needs to improve his attacking output though.
 
Giggsyking said:
130m on two defenders and already conceded 30 goals this season? What the feck does he do in training, What is he teaching them? does he ever word with them on set pieces?
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Here's another stat for you....

David de Gea has made 42 saves this season and conceded 27 goals. That is absolutely mind-blowingly shocking

I don't think people realise quite how bad De Gea is - genuinely now he's the worst GK in the league.
 
Lentwood said:
Here's another stat for you....

David de Gea has made 42 saves this season and conceded 27 goals. That is absolutely mind-blowingly shocking

I don't think people realise quite how bad De Gea is - genuinely now he's the worst GK in the league.
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3 shots on goal tonight and 3 conceded...
 
Defending in general is really bad this season. Hope he has some long term fix for that.
 
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