I still feel that we need to see what we can do under Ole with a DM, CB and RW. Today was a poor one though.
Yeah predictably there will be a lot of moaning here today. We should be beating West Brom but then if we would be beating all the lower teams and not losing against the top teams we would be winning the title.
It’s funny seeing Ole compared to Pep as if it wasn’t clear that Pep is clearly the better coach. So we would need a coach almost as good as him (doesn’t exist at the moment other than Klopp - not the current version obviously) AND a squad as good as his (which we will just not get - the only way for us is to invest in talented youngsters who we can get cheaper).
A world class manager like Klopp managed to match City for two seasons only and for this he still needed most of his players to reach their peak years.
If you ask our top 4-6 rivals who out of Rashford/Martial/Greenwood/Cavani they would take as a starter (striker or wingers) ahead of any of their players most probably only Rashford will mostly be picked. Greenwood is still raw and Cavani can’t start regularly.
Then if you ask them who out of Pogba/Bruno/McFred/Matic/VdB they would pick in the midfield ahead of their players, most probably only Bruno will be picked.
Now I am not saying our team is not good, far from it. But it is a top 4 squad, not a title winning squad irrespective of the qualities of the managers.
We desperately need a winger who is ready now and a DM. Plus a CB to partner Maguire.
I won’t even go into potential Pogba replacement as he is still here.
Otherwise we will get mixed results. Play 3 strikers at the same time (to make it worse none of them is in their peak) and the creativity will suffer. Play no top quality CM and worse no top quality DM and we will get overrun plus creativity will again suffer.
This is very clear to me. Obviously people who want Ole out won’t agree, but if we get another manager who will be facing similar challenges, only then they might agree.
Pep himself wouldn’t be winning the league with our squad and he is clearly much better than our current manager.
In the end Liverpool, Chelsea and United will keep fighting for 2nd to 4th places without at least a couple of quality additions. And who cares who finishes 2nd and who 4th? Finishing 2nd is only beneficial if the potential in the squad is there to win it in the next 1-2 years / or if the necessary transfers will be made.
Unless something changes drastically I can only see Chelsea winning the title in the next 2 years because most probably only they will make the necessary investments until the gap to City has been closed.
In our case if we buy 2-3 crucial players we need (who are ready now, not 17/18 years old) and Ole is still getting mixed results then he should and will leave.
I have seen enough to suggest that Ole will get us to the top with the necessary investments as tactically he is good (yes no “philosophy”, but I don’t care as long as we aim to play an attacking brand where possible, for me tactics which win you games are more important and most of the time when it clicks I like our attacking play).
The board however I believe are in no mood to invest heavily (for any manager) especially with covid - so they will be realistic and satisfied with a slow rebuild (as long as we make top 4 at the same time).