I agree that Ole beating Pep does not make him a tactical genious - but Ole beating Pep 4 times in 8 attempts, clearly indicates that he isn't tactically limited. Does it make him into a tactical genious - but he certainly isn't limited. Because with my definition of the term limited - that would make him at best average by P.L standards.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
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I agree that Ole beating Pep does not make him a tactical genious - but Ole beating Pep 4 times in 8 attempts, clearly indicates that he isn't tactically limited. Does it make him into a tactical genious - but he certainly isn't limited. Because with my definition of the term limited - that would make him at best average by P.L standards.
Sorry but there is no way Maguire and Lindelof isn't better than Silva and Zouma
So you think playing football for 15 years at lower levels and watching football on tv is the equivalent to :
a) 10 years as a player for Man United under Ferguson
b) 3 (I think) years as reserve team coach
c) 1 (awful) year at Cardiff - which probably taught him more than the 3 years as reserve coach
d) 4-5 years at Molde - winning the league twice and playing a lot of European cup matches.
This is just nonsense.
I have no issue with what you think but if you ask Chelsea fans, they would say the opposite. My valuation is based on two-party. Thus, I called it equal as the debate would be 50:50 based on the current ability.
And they would be wrong....if you had said Silva and Rudiger...maybe I would agree with you - but Zouma and Silva never
1. I can accept that another manager might have done a similar job but I still think you're under appreciating the job he has done, which is change the profile of the squad and keep the performances at a high standard. With the movement from experienced pros to younger players you would have expected us to drop out of the top 4 but he's got us in there twice in a row for the first time since Fergie. We've gone from having the highest wage bill in England to a wage bill 50 million below Liverpool and 70 million below City. You have to acknowledge that is really impressive.
2. Pep might have done a similar job but I don't think he would have done any better. Lukaku and Fellaini are just not Pep players and I believe, this all being hypothetical of course, that Pep's purism would have cost us in the short term because we wouldn't have had enough of his type of players to get the results his way.
3. He spent 400 million on his defense. That simply wouldn't have been available at United. Mourinho was told after Bailly and Lindelof that that was it. Pep wouldn't have been allowed to make mistakes in the transfer market under us. We're richer than most but City operate on a different level where you can wait 4 years for a 50 million pounds player to find his feet. John Stones.
4. Any other manager?! Just anyone? I agree that somebody might have done a good a job but anybody? You really aren't appreciating Ole for what he's done.
Aside from that, the main question is why? Why are you looking to undermine Ole's achievements by saying anyone could do it? Why are you not rejoicing that Ole has done it? A club legend has come back and fixed the rot and has us on the right track. Why are you hypothesising about whether somebody else could have done it? Ole did it. It's great. He's not just here for the money or the next step on his career projection. This is brilliant. I can't understand why a United fan would want to pick at that.
5. His inheritance. Yes he's kept players. He was hardly going to get rid of everyone and buy a new squad. But he's got rid of the right people and kept the good ones. That's fantastic. But let's look at your list of 8.
Pogba has been difficult I think we can all agree. Ole has done great to manage his agent and keep Pogba on board and find his best position. But yes he is a world class talent so that helps.
De Gea has gone downhill because he suits playing in a team on the ropes. We have rarely been that since Jose and his negative football has left and De Gea isn't a make one save a game type of keeper so not a great inheritance. Ole has shrewdly moved a more suitable keeper there without spending money. Fantastic. Agreed?
Rashford was a no brainer but Ole should get a little credit for how Marcus has developed.
Shaw was as recently as 4 months ago being written off as terrible by most on here so Ole deserves huge credit for turning him from a really good left back to the best left back in the league.
Martial isn't in our starting team but did have his best season last year. Signing Cavani has had a bad influence on him which is tough luck as far as I'm concerned but I imagine Ole will have him back on form next year. His track record gives me confidence in that area.
Lindelof Mctominay and Fred are still written off here as terrible by a lot of people and I think they're good but they're hardly world beaters that any manager would give their right arm to inherit.
So 2 of the 8 aren't in his first team anymore and another 4 have been regularly criticised on here and in the media as not good enough. It's hardly a great inheritance. He's done stellar work to ship the rotten lot and and add Cavani, Bruno, Greenwood, Maguire, Bissaka and Henderson to the squad.
6. I would always want Lukaku gone. He's not a United player. He's very good but we play football in a different way. Sanchez was never going to start scoring and getting rid of him despite his huge wage bill was hugely necessary.
7. Rodgers has done very well at Leicester but that's his level. He showed that he couldn't cut it for long at a big club. The pressure from the press and the fans is enormous. Again why are you looking for managers who are doing similarly well to Ole? We have Ole. Isn't it great?
"Teams rebuild and develop all the time"
Wow. Just wow. What about the fact that some teams get worse and some teams get better and having a good manager helps. Our progression isn't down to some cyclical inevitability. We're getting better because Ole is doing a great job. If you can't acknowledge and appreciate that, and feel the need to undermine the work done so far, then I really don't understand your motivation.
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I realize you're being hyperbolic for comedic effect, but it's really a bad point. Have you played at the club, coached the reserves for several years, won two historic league titles and domestic cup with your local club?
If not, then it's a silly argument. And to add to that, he was appointed caretaker manager. If he hadn't shown signs of taking the team in the right direction he wouldn't be here.
He's only still here because of what he's achieved since being appointed. If you don't see that, I really don't think you 'get' the club at all.
Love how you have a mixture of wing / Cam when it comes to City but only include CM / CAM for Manutd.
That is your opinion that McFred our our worst players.
Fernandinho has started the same number of games as Matic.
Pogba same as Gundogan
You are including Silva and Foden who play on the wing, Dan James has 10 starts too.
We also all know City have a better quality squad than United. We have seen Donny play in a few games and has always had to be taken off because he has been crap.
I'm amazed he still gets bites.
Which was the point I was making. I thought it was obvious but clearly not to everyone.
No I don't think that I would qualify as a coach of Man United, I was being sarcastic.
10, 15, 20 years as a player even at the side of the GOAT doesn't mean someone will become a great coach, and there are plenty examples of this (Hughes, Stamm, Keane and many more)
Same goes for the others you wrote. He's been at Molde at the Norwegian league and he's been managing for a decade. Not exactly top tier football, is it?
Of course I was being hyperbolic.
I posted earlier that he's done an OK job here, not bad not great but he's earned his 3rd season. I'm just saying that probably someone else could do a lot better, even his fans are claiming that "he still learns on the job". Meaning that he is an unproven manager. It's just that everybody is seeing him as the second coming of SAF just cause of the top4 trophy for two years in a row.
At the moment he hasn't achieved anything yet. If you think that offloading players that are hated around here and aren't "a good fit" and two top4 trophies in a row is an achievement for a club the size of United then...ok
Everybody?
Or do you mean nobody?
Like in not a single person anywhere, no matter how pro Ole they are?
You know you can make arguments without a) being so over the top hyperbolic and sarcastic it becomes farcical, and b) making stuff up?
Who? Which available coach would have guaranteed a better result?
With the club structure we have, we pretty much need the manager to take completely control of all things fotball in the club, and that means that we can't just try out different exciting managers only to then fire them when it fails, like Chelsea. We don't have the structure or the financial backing to operate like that, and we've seen how damaging that is to the club when it doesn't work out.
So who else could deliver exactly what we needed in terms of creating harmony in the club, methodically fixing our squad within the operating budget allowed by the Glazers, while steadily closing the gap between us and the other top teams? I've asked several Ole outers the same question, and funnily enough there's never a good answer.
It's not like Ole came with a guarantee of success, but in terms of how he's managed to rectify the club culture while also making us more competitive, I find it quite strange to focus on how some hypothetical manager might have done better. It's like arguing we should have got a different CB instead of Maguire because they might have done better.
I'll never quite understand people using this as a negative. Do you not think that someone with a deep experience, understanding and love for an institution might be best placed to repair it? It's a unique club, the history, the academy record, the past success laid by two managers that stayed here for so long. Having someone righting the ship that's in tune with all that is deeply rewarding on its own. Resenting it points toward not caring about the history of the club, looking at the plastic oil clubs and cryw*nking.
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I wanted ole to succeed then I felt he wasn't good enough. Now I think he deserves a new contract as long as he gets backed in the transfer window as well. Obviously no manager gets everything he wants as money is a constriction, but he ought to be able to bring in at least a couple of the players he is after to strengthen the first team. What top manager is available out there that would have done any better than get us 2nd behind this City side this season?
People never appreciate failure is the best teacher. No one says "Well he fell off that bike the first time he rode it. He'll never ride a bike, he's not good enough". And yet here we are, surrounded by people who've never tried and failed in life trying to tell successful people that they can't do stuff. Blows my mind.
Out of interest, what caused this flip flopping between thinking he was good enough then thinking he wasn't good enough?
People who think Ole isn't good enough for United only work in extremes, all their arguments are based around definite's. There's no rationality involved.
That whole Ole out subreddit is built around the idea that anyone who doesn't think he's shit and wants him immediately sacked is a deluded idiot who thinks he's the best in the world.
That sounds like some QAnon shit, stay clear of that cool-aid
Silva and Foden both play on the wing for City.
No, I am saying his performances have been crap.
Whenever, Bernado, Mahrez, Foden get a game they still produce good performances. Donny has barely put one good PL performance.
No I mean about 60% of the posters in here.
When there are posts saying that noone would do a better job than Ole and what a fantastic job he's done with limited backing
, I can't help myself, sorry.Noone can guarantee success, but getting an unproven manager is a huge risk that either pays off or we're fecked. At the moment we're doing relative OK.
Of course you are aware that creating harmony is not enough for someone to be Man United manager. I'd say it's the bare minimum for every manager in every team. Don't start about the spend thing man, every United manager has been backed, unless you think that not spending 200m on Haaland and Sancho is not backing.
Telles, VDB and Cavani are great acquisitions that will pay off next season (except Cavani obviously, who is a stop gap, I hope).
But if you want to go hypothetical, there are a number of managers out there that can "rebuild" a team. Poch, Rodgers, Tuchel, Simeone(though I hate the guy and his so-called football) out of the top of my head. Just because of the animosity of Pro/Against Ole, people tend to disregard those or not qualify as a good solution because they don't "get" the club.
No man I don't find any negative in that, just odd that our best bet was someone unproven with just that.
So you're accepting that Ole was an unproven manager and he still learns his way around what managing a big club means.
As for the second part, I don't know who you are surrounded by that never tried and failed...but don't get this personal. You don't know me and I don't know you it's all opinions at the end of the day. You think that Ole done great and that's fine, I think he's done ok.
You're confusing rationality with romanticism.
The rational thing for a club the size of United was to go for someone proven in top level football and has some speciffic attributes like for example attacking football, academy players, not Mourinho-levels toxicity etc.
The romantic is go for an old legend that gets the club even though he has no experience in top football (as a coach).
Also I don't think I've said something so extreme and definitely not anything definite, it was just a suggestion that someone maybe could have done better than Ole.
Ok, so those are your suggestions of managers who "probably would have done better".
Simeone was at Atletico, we would never have gotten him.
Rodgers recently managed our rivals, failed, and retreated to Scotland to manage in a one team league.
That leaves Tuchel and Pochettino. To get one of them, we'd have to compete with PSG and Chelsea.
Look at the squad and state of our club when Mourinho left. No manager with any sense would touch United at that point, especially not two of the most attractive managers in Europe with better offers in terms of success and money elsewhere.
Rodgers is the only one on that list we could have gotten. If you want to dream about what might have been with him, fine, but I don't really see the point with how well we're doing.
Oh yeah, they're batshit on there. Hateful, vile and entitled to boot.
Think it was in response to your claim that "that everybody is seeing him as the second coming of SAF just cause of the top4 trophy for two years in a row."
That's clearly a pretty wild exaggeration, and is something you often see claimed by staunch Ole outers. Make those who support Ole seem as dumb and deluded as possible, so that you seem reasonable in comparison. Not saying you were trying to do that, mind.
1. I can accept that another manager might have done a similar job but I still think you're under appreciating the job he has done, which is change the profile of the squad and keep the performances at a high standard. With the movement from experienced pros to younger players you would have expected us to drop out of the top 4 but he's got us in there twice in a row for the first time since Fergie. We've gone from having the highest wage bill in England to a wage bill 50 million below Liverpool and 70 million below City. You have to acknowledge that is really impressive.
2. Pep might have done a similar job but I don't think he would have done any better. Lukaku and Fellaini are just not Pep players and I believe, this all being hypothetical of course, that Pep's purism would have cost us in the short term because we wouldn't have had enough of his type of players to get the results his way.
3. He spent 400 million on his defense. That simply wouldn't have been available at United. Mourinho was told after Bailly and Lindelof that that was it. Pep wouldn't have been allowed to make mistakes in the transfer market under us. We're richer than most but City operate on a different level where you can wait 4 years for a 50 million pounds player to find his feet. John Stones.
4. Any other manager?! Just anyone? I agree that somebody might have done a good a job but anybody? You really aren't appreciating Ole for what he's done.
Aside from that, the main question is why? Why are you looking to undermine Ole's achievements by saying anyone could do it? Why are you not rejoicing that Ole has done it? A club legend has come back and fixed the rot and has us on the right track. Why are you hypothesising about whether somebody else could have done it? Ole did it. It's great. He's not just here for the money or the next step on his career projection. This is brilliant. I can't understand why a United fan would want to pick at that.
5. His inheritance. Yes he's kept players. He was hardly going to get rid of everyone and buy a new squad. But he's got rid of the right people and kept the good ones. That's fantastic. But let's look at your list of 8.
Pogba has been difficult I think we can all agree. Ole has done great to manage his agent and keep Pogba on board and find his best position. But yes he is a world class talent so that helps.
De Gea has gone downhill because he suits playing in a team on the ropes. We have rarely been that since Jose and his negative football has left and De Gea isn't a make one save a game type of keeper so not a great inheritance. Ole has shrewdly moved a more suitable keeper there without spending money. Fantastic. Agreed?
Rashford was a no brainer but Ole should get a little credit for how Marcus has developed.
Shaw was as recently as 4 months ago being written off as terrible by most on here so Ole deserves huge credit for turning him from a really good left back to the best left back in the league.
Martial isn't in our starting team but did have his best season last year. Signing Cavani has had a bad influence on him which is tough luck as far as I'm concerned but I imagine Ole will have him back on form next year. His track record gives me confidence in that area.
Lindelof Mctominay and Fred are still written off here as terrible by a lot of people and I think they're good but they're hardly world beaters that any manager would give their right arm to inherit.
So 2 of the 8 aren't in his first team anymore and another 4 have been regularly criticised on here and in the media as not good enough. It's hardly a great inheritance. He's done stellar work to ship the rotten lot and and add Cavani, Bruno, Greenwood, Maguire, Bissaka and Henderson to the squad.
6. I would always want Lukaku gone. He's not a United player. He's very good but we play football in a different way. Sanchez was never going to start scoring and getting rid of him despite his huge wage bill was hugely necessary.
7. Rodgers has done very well at Leicester but that's his level. He showed that he couldn't cut it for long at a big club. The pressure from the press and the fans is enormous. Again why are you looking for managers who are doing similarly well to Ole? We have Ole. Isn't it great?
"Teams rebuild and develop all the time"
Wow. Just wow. What about the fact that some teams get worse and some teams get better and having a good manager helps. Our progression isn't down to some cyclical inevitability. We're getting better because Ole is doing a great job. If you can't acknowledge and appreciate that, and feel the need to undermine the work done so far, then I really don't understand your motivation.
I know that you were being sarcastic - you still didn't make a good point.
There is no such thing as romanticism, it's a made up term by fans with an imagination. Ole was not originally intended to be a permanent appointment, he was brought in to steady the ship and bring positivity back to the club. He earned the job based on merit, and will be evaluated like any other manager going forward.
Hope you don't mind that I deleted parts of your post. I want to say that it was a great post and analysis, so I just kept the highlights.
Ole is a relatively inexperienced manager. At the same time, he has done more with United since SAF left than any other manager, including big names like Mourinho and Van Gaal (and David Moyes, sort of the Rodgers-type manager at the time of his hiring). Ole is probably not a tactical genius in the mold of Pep, but then again Sir Alex was never considered to be a tactical genius as much as he was considered to be a man manager. Ferguson always had some very good, tactically minded assistants that he was willing to listen to and learn from. This may be an area that Ole can improve upon - getting a better, more tactically minded assistant and listening to them.
In all honesty, I do not understand the negativity towards Solskjaer as a manager at United. I see a clear upward trajectory for United. Certainly, squad depth is needed. There is too much dependence on Bruno. But, can anyone be certain that Pochettino or Tuchel would have done better over the past 2 1/2 years. I think it makes the most sense to give Ole a few more years as long as United continue to make progress. Progress may not be winning the PL next year, but turning the race for first into a real competition, though winning would be great. It might be making it into the semi-finals of the CL, or further. But, not giving a manager, who has led United to two consecutive top-4 finishes (1st time since Sir Alex) and the Euro championship, a chance seems unreasonable.
Let´s be honest here. The people who still want Ole out, and have wanted him out from day one, does not base it on merits, but rather on how Ole appears in front of the cameras, and the idea that a manager´s most important quality is to look confident, charming and macho.
To be honest I think this nails it in one.
It’s a case of everyone knowing his faults but then those who call them out being scrutinised like these faults don’t exist.
I mean you are pretty much saying he is crap infront of the camera. Whoever if I said that. You’d probably be quick to defend him with a bunch of reason why he isn’t.
Who cares how he appears in front of a camera when we know from numerous sources that he hates doing that stuff and prefers it to be as boilerplate as possible to preserve squad harmony? He's doing it on the pitch, what else matters?
I´d probably not, mate. I have never been a big fan of his press conferences (although I think he handled the SL controversies pretty well). That said, I think he´s growing into the role, but still, e.g. his man management skills is probably a bit more important, and in a modern world, being macho may not be the most important trait as a leader.
Yeah personal I don’t think it matters. Would I like if he was of course. Who doesn’t like abit of Jose razzmatazz. I loved it when he was at Chelsea.
But the point was if he’s crap at it there’s no harm in both sides agreeing. I can agree he has good man management to the players he likes. Now people will probably attack my last line but it goes for every man manager I suppose. Jose was the same the only probably with Jose is he ended up not liking a lot of players as his career went on.
Sorry I thought from the way you phrased that that you meant people could have a point about being aggrieved at how Ole deals with the media/his image
We don't have the structure to go that route. If we'd had a DoF for some time then sure, you can just slot in a good coach and all is well but Sir Alex pretty much ran the whole thing for 26 years and when he left there was no transition plan in place. This is why proven managers came and failed and why Ole's understanding of how the club was run by Fergie is an asset.
Losing at home to liverpool and he brings on Matic and doesn't even use the third sub. Give me a fecking break
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