Ole hasn't finished 2nd yet, and it's immaterial in any case. Other factors go into play rather than dick comparing between 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
Knew you were a closet spurs fan.Id take 4th with 75 points over 2nd if it meant I could see what was being built and that the football was exciting. There's no prizes for being 2nd or 4th anyway
Yes, that must be it. I wanted a progressive style that turns 4th into a PL and CL. I must support Spurs.
You wouldn't have known that at the time though
You would have known they would challenge for silverware, because the manager comes with established pedigree, the style of play was progressive and the outlook was clear. And it was all done with less money spent, on top.
Those 3 Chelsea games was every bit as "boring"
Do you watch Tuchels Chelsea? It's fecking tedious, none of his games were any more entertaining than ours.
They are boring generally. LVG was possession based, he was still boring as feck. Their wins were no more convincing nor entertaining than ours.
They controlled the game, I never denied that. I said they were no more entertaining, and actually more boring to watch than we were. In fact in 2 of their games they had similar possession to ours (v Palace and v West Ham).
I do not watch foreign football as much as I used to, but thanks for the compliment
I dont agree overall but do so far, Tuchel’s teams are not boring he has a good style but so far at Chelsea he has done some amazing work defensively but hasn’t got the attack going at all so it looks kind of boring but I feel he will eventually get the right balance plus the forwards firing or replace them. Remember he has only been there over 2 months and got them from 8th to 4th plus past Athletico with ease so I wouldn’t compare to LVG who had 2 years to fix the attacking patterns
Klopp finishing 4th the year Mourinho finished 2nd. A lot of neutrals that year still picked Liverpool as the most likely team to go on and challenge City simply based on the football that Liverpool played and the fact that it was obvious they only needed a CD and GK.
I do not watch foreign football as much as I used to, but thanks for the compliment
I think he can get his teams to have more of a cutting edge with time but broadly if I'm not mistaken this is very much his style, and I think he has players already in his squad to implement this quite well, so that might explain the quick impact. He will likely find good use out of players like Havertz and even Werner who are intelligent and know how to use find pockets of space and exploit.
For what it's worth I rate Tuchel but I for some reason I didn't love him as a choice for United's role, probably too much burn from our LVG experience! But I prefer a more direct approach to our games as that's what I grew up associating Manchester United with. For that reason Ole's style actually suits us more, in my opinion. He might have us on the counter a bit too often but he is more direct and tries to hurt teams quicker.
What I wish Ole can learn more on compared to his counterparts (Tuchel, Klopp, Pep, to an extent Arteta all included) is improvement in team press. It's a bit of an art I think, and not just a "press high" and job done. There is likely an element of coaching for team pressing which Ole needs to implement better.
Chelsea look to press a lot better now under Tuchel, he's actually gotten the best out of Kante since what, Conte days. And collectively there is a systematic approach to how the team will win the ball back. I get that vibe with our rivals but not often enough with us. Part of that is tactical, for example I think Ole purposely leaves Rashford and one other high up the pitch without duties to track back as much, so that he's set up on a counter easier. At least thats how it looks. Some of it may be personnel too - for example Martial isn't one to press proactively.
That's a very good insight and I had slightly misjudged his style of play. You said United were boring, and our games were no less boring and hardly less controlled than theirs bar City, which was a test they never faced.
Relatively speaking we are no less boring than Chelsea, was the point I made.
Thought we controlled both teams just fine and that's reflected in the possession stats.
Possession Chelsea had in their 3 Premier league games in March.
It's all relative. Fans usually accept boring football as long as they're successful. While Tuchel hasn't won anything he's got them into the habit of constantly winning football matches. For the short term that will always please the fans considering the first half of their season. If in the long run his football is boring he won't last unless he wins big trophies. That's how it is at the larger/richer clubs.
If we sign Van Dijk and Allison we might.
It's down to perception but I found them incredibly dull to watch of late, I found Southampton and Leeds games as good examples where they could exploit open defences and just played square balls too many times without hurting them - resulting in lost points. Leeds in particular I think they may well have lost all 3 let alone 2 form the draw.
They lost the guy that glued them all together. Another great player. Claude Makelele.
There are quite a few threads right now suggesting that we should add 1st teamers on around 3-5 positions... So the idea of getting 2 starters in to challenge for a point record is very very optimistic, don't you think? I know you didn't meant it like that but if we start to consider all scenarios and their outcome then it would be an even more open door to invide speculations where we could have been with another manager.
