We're in a very weird spot now with Ole. He's obviously not good enough to win us the PL or the CL, but he's done a lot of good things at the club- a constant upward trajectory, decent signings, seemingly has the backing of the players, and could win us a Europa League final- our first trophy in years. But ultimately, let's be honest, we play pretty awful football and rely a lot on magical moments from our world class talents, rather than carve out chance after chance due to a consistent and structured pattern of play. Our CFs, whoever it is, struggle to find themselves in goalscoring positions often. We are too reliant on Bruno having a great game or a great moment. Our defense, with or without Maguire, is often a complete mess. We are prone to absolute collective meltdowns in matches - Spurs, Liverpool, Leipzig, Istanbul, Everton come to mind.
Next season, City are going to even better with a new striker. Liverpool are probably gonna make top 4 and be back with VVD and on an upwards trajectory again. Chelsea are definitely going to compete for the title. We will probably be middling around the top 4- depending on vibes, we might be near the top for a bit but ultimately will fail to win matches we should be winning because of the aforementioned issues which have not been solved and seemingly won't be.
We can't sack Ole now - after all, we've finished 2nd and are in a final. The only way we sack him is if we don't get top 4 next season (I'm fairly sure top 4 and getting out of the CL group stages will be enough for him to keep his job). The cold, ruthless, ambitious decision would be to sack him now, thank him for the progress he's made at the club, and get in a real manager with actual pedigree who can take this team to the next level (ala Tuchel) because that's what we desperately need. If the club could recognize this, and have the balls to act on it, we could mount a real title challenge next season, but obviously this will never happen- he's a club legend, the fans will hate the board for doing this, it will cause an uproar the likes of which the world has never seen, and there'll be too much pressure on the new manager right from the off. So essentially, what we're stuck with is yet another average season next year, or a terrible one which gets Ole sacked and gets us a tactical genius manager, but only if we fall out of top 4 - which means unhappy players, low morale, and potentially yet another rebuild.
If only football worked like real businesses do where you consistently try to hire the best person for the job and attempt to keep improving your performances, building on previous good work. Don't need to resort to complete catastrophe to enforce a change. Alas, it'll never happen and I completely understand why, but it's just really frustrating.
