When Poch got 2nd while at least 3 of the following clubs (City, us, Arsenal and Chelsea, and Liverpool), were shitting the bed at any one time during the course of both of those seasons, were people putting in these same qualifiers as they are doing with Ole now? From my vantage point, it certainly didn't seem so.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
- Thread starter Samid
- Start date
- Status
Fierce fight? I mean we stopped playing after the Villa game, 4 games where we were practically on rest mode.
Also to your point about 74 points in another season, do you want to tell Leicester Fans that the title they won means nothing because 81 points won't win you a title in any other season? Do you think they care how many points?
So if United won the title with 66 points would you not celebrate it?
Finishes 2nd despite hardly anyone thinking he would last summer.
Doesn't lose an away game in the PL all season. Only 3rd manager to ever do this.
Reaches a semi final and final (although didn't win anything)
Nobody gives Ole credit for anything. It's so sad to see. Nobody is saying he deserves to win it but he's definitely in the running when there's 5 people nominated. Ole outers can't praise him for anything.
It's all well and good congratulating the team and Ole on a 2nd place finish, but without looking at the table in closer detail it means nothing.
Only on two occasions since the 2010/2011 season would 74 points have been good enough to finish 2nd. Most of the time we'd have been languishing down in 4th, some seasons we would not have even made top 4.
It's an extreme example, and one that will never happen, but there's nothing to stop every single team in the league next season winning their fixture against X opposition, and then the opposite result in the reverse fixture. That would mean every single team finishes on 57 points, with only goal difference deciding the order of the teams. Is 2nd place all of a sudden such a wonderful achievement?
We are closer to Tottenham in 7th than we are City in 1st.
The away record is fantastic, and Ole does deserve huge credit for that. But like I've said previously, 2nd is massively flattering.
Only on two occasions since the 2010/2011 season would 74 points have been good enough to finish 2nd. Most of the time we'd have been languishing down in 4th, some seasons we would not have even made top 4.
It's an extreme example, and one that will never happen, but there's nothing to stop every single team in the league next season winning their fixture against X opposition, and then the opposite result in the reverse fixture. That would mean every single team finishes on 57 points, with only goal difference deciding the order of the teams. Is 2nd place all of a sudden such a wonderful achievement?
We are closer to Tottenham in 7th than we are City in 1st.
The away record is fantastic, and Ole does deserve huge credit for that. But like I've said previously, 2nd is massively flattering.
I think it was the teams in the latter stages of the CL and EL that played the mini tournment things in later summer.
Because the man utd manager and spurs manager(should) have very different objectives and KPIs.
Looking at it objectively, Ole is by far the least talented and has the most underwhelming CV of the top 6 from last season. Conte coming in at Spurs should really worry United.
Ole will be gone before next season is out unless United have a huge window. I'm not #OleOut either btw. I think he's done a good job.
You either have to have an elite manager or an elite squad. Ideally you'd have both. At the minute it's hard to argue we have either. Hard to put in to words what a huge summer this is for the club.
Ole will be gone before next season is out unless United have a huge window. I'm not #OleOut either btw. I think he's done a good job.
You either have to have an elite manager or an elite squad. Ideally you'd have both. At the minute it's hard to argue we have either. Hard to put in to words what a huge summer this is for the club.
So why then, did we see such a clamour for Poch to join Utd from Utd fans on this forum and other forms of social media, if the standards, objectives and KPIs are supposedly so different for the Spurs and Utd roles?
The same reason we hired Moyes. The same reason we signed Fred. Sometimes you see someone perform at a slightly lower level and believe they can make the step up. Sometimes it works out , sometimes it doesn't.
They mean that Poch overperformed with Tottenham's resources/players and that Ole is underperforming with United's resources/players.
They think that hiring Poch in 2018 would have made our squad perform better over these past years.
You're ignoring that we basically took the last four games of the season off because the PL in its infinite wisdom thought we would be able to play 4 games in 7 days. You are also ignoring that we had a horrid start because of the totally freak occurrence of starting the season without a preseason.
That's basically 7 games during a completely exceptional one-off phase(s) of the season which negatively impacted our performances. Of course, some of those games we won, but the vast majority saw a marked decline in performances and/or results. Would it have been beyond the realms of possibility that we picked up an extra 10 points from those commensurate fixtures?
It most likely would not have been enough for the title as City also faced the same issues at the start of their season, but I do think you're being very kind to the other teams around us who did have that advantage over us. That they didn't is a credit to us, rather than a discredit to them.
It's a hilarious take, if I'm being honest. The jobs of both managers are actually very similar. I just don't understand the leaps in logic that it takes for these same people to deride one and not the other.
I'm guessing it's because he got within a whisker of both the Premier League and Champions League, with a fraction of the money he'd get at United?
He wasn't within a whisker though, was he? He finished 3rd in one of those seasons people like to highlight. And in the other, he finished 7 points behind.
And that CL run masked a horrendous run of league form where they only just got in to the top 4 because of the inadequacies of the teams around them... Does that sentence sound familiar to you? A run of form, might I add, that only worsened the season after, which led to his sacking with Spurs being lower midtable.
So many attempts to discredit the 2nd place. "Liverpool and Chelsea had issues", "Look at the points ", "Closer to 7th than 1st", "2nd isn't anything to be jumping for". Yes because I'm sure alot of you thought we'd be winning or challenging for the title before the season started
That's actually a very good point and one that I agree with.
And although we were dealt a shitty hand by the Premier League with the congestion towards the end of the season, if the mind-set of the players was that we could take a few games off and then switch our form on like a tap ready for the Europa League Final, that's something I'd have expected Ole to nip in the bud as soon as possible.
There's a lot of things that Ole has done well. Recruitment by and large has been good. The mood surrounding the club has lifted since he replaced Mourinho. But there are still things that are of massive issues that he hasn't been able to resolve. These ridiculous swings of form. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground, it's either we're on a rampaging run of form or we're in free fall. Our home form. Our set-play weaknesses. And of course, the lack of silverware thus far.
We don’t have “ridiculous swings in form”. We basically lost 2 league games this season that don’t have massive asterisks next to them. From October to April we were extremely consistent, as we were from February to the end of the season last season.
Our main issue remains breaking down teams set up exclusively to defend against us, so we had too many draws, but we have clearly substantially improved from the point Ole took over.
14/15 - 44m - 5th 64 points
15/16 - 63m - 3rd 70 points
16/17 - 75m - 2nd 86 points - 7 points of city
17/18 - 111m - 3rd 77 points
CL Final - outplayed by LFC 2-0
I am not sure what you mean by whisker.
United finished 12 points of City this season and you are saying Ole was battling top 4 and shouldnt be in the running for MOTY
I mean the hypocrisy is unreal from you.
Alright his net spend over 5 years was fairly low in total, because they managed to sell players on for OK'ish prices if they didn't work out (in fact, Spurs and us sold players for almost the same sum in the time Poch was at Spurs, but we bought for twice as much as them), but he still bought individual players for sums that could have been to us at the time, few of them turned out good. And in fact when he got access to the most money he ever did (final summer) his transfers were the least successful.
https://www.planetfootball.com/quic...ottenham-have-made-under-mauricio-pochettino/
I understand you hate Ole but this is one of stupid excuse you can put here.
The league table doesn’t lie THEY SAY. He’s not necessarily ascribing to it in that sentence, and it his negating it in the end makes perfect sense.
At the face of it, nothing wrong with that statement but it also ignores a feckload of context. That Spurs team, despite being a "small" club had some really good players in it. Lloris, Walker, Verthongen, Alderweireld, Dembele, Eriksen, Son and Kane to name a few. Leichester won the league the year before, so stranger things have happened
Around 2015-2017, most of the big clubs were adrift and struggling, so finishing second was not that impressive.
Its also a pretty damning indictment of LvG imo.
I'm pretty sure that several of the most vocal Ole-out posters on here predicted a disastrous league campaign. As in - we'd struggle massively to get top four.
ETA Let's not forget that the basic stance of some of these people has been not that Ole isn't a great manager (who thinks that he is?) - but rather that he's completely out of his depth.
A PE teacher, etc.
It's only to be expected that when he delivers 2nd, they will try to downplay this in any way possible. Including the oh-so-predictable "2nd is nothing! Lowered standards! Cult of Ole!" strawman shite.
Their problem - given their initial, bombastic assessment of Ole and his ability - is obvious. They weren't skeptical about him. They called him utter shite, tactically clueless, a fraud...and so forth.
Last edited:
I was speaking with a friend about the EL final. The guy mainly watches La Liga and doesn't follow the Prem that closely, and even he said that Ole's showing at the final was one of the worst he'd ever seen from a manager in his life.
I maintain that the fact that he's not gone after his performance in that final is pretty crazy for a big club.
But what baffles me the most is why so many trust the decision-makers, who have constantly steered us wrong post Fergie, to suddenly be right on this call. Why is the decision to keep and back an unproven manager the one thing they've gotten right amongst all the other dross?
If anything they are consistent with their bad decisions, so I wouldn't bet on this somehow being some masterstroke of foresight and forward planning. Odds are, it's simply one of our many shite decisions, and just like with the others we are simply wasting our time.
Ole's not to blame for that though. Obviously he loves his job and he's done very well to exceed everyone's expectations of him. It's up to our decision-makers to make the right call, which unfortunately means we're pretty screwed.
I maintain that the fact that he's not gone after his performance in that final is pretty crazy for a big club.
But what baffles me the most is why so many trust the decision-makers, who have constantly steered us wrong post Fergie, to suddenly be right on this call. Why is the decision to keep and back an unproven manager the one thing they've gotten right amongst all the other dross?
If anything they are consistent with their bad decisions, so I wouldn't bet on this somehow being some masterstroke of foresight and forward planning. Odds are, it's simply one of our many shite decisions, and just like with the others we are simply wasting our time.
Ole's not to blame for that though. Obviously he loves his job and he's done very well to exceed everyone's expectations of him. It's up to our decision-makers to make the right call, which unfortunately means we're pretty screwed.
When sceptical people get advised to maybe rethinking following the club or even the sport, get called blind, having hateful agendas, "must be hating the manager" and get mocked in exclusive threads, that can have a radicalizing effect on some people.
And while I agree with your observation, I am sure you are aware that it applies on both sides and therefor the most enthusiastic Ole-Fans will obviously have adjusted their value framework accordingly as well. Look at some of the "ratings" Poch got the relevant threads because of his 6month of Paris, just because he was thought to be a possible candidate.
How often have we read and heard, "that the season is good and might be very good when the trophy is won... shortly after the final we were reminded, that its just 90min of football plus penalties where "obviously anything can happen".
Overreactions breed overreactions.
Lets see what happens next season. Given that Spurs might get Conte, this will even make the competition more unpredictable. Lets face it, during the summer, I can't see anything to happen, that "objectively" will change the managers public image plainly because he doesn't do anything. Unless he gets caught drunk on holiday of course ^^
So if the rest of the teams were mainly shit, which managers should be on the list instead of Ole, Bielsa and Rodgers?
You'll get no argument from me - in the "in/out" debates you'll get awful posters on both sides.
In my opinion, though, there are more awful ones on the "out" side these days. But then again that could certainly be confirmation bias on my part (because I actually like Ole in many ways - not all of them sentimental).
When sceptical people get advised to maybe rethinking following the club or even the sport, get called blind, having hateful agendas, "must be hating the manager" and get mocked in exclusive threads, that can have a radicalizing effect on some people.
And while I agree with your observation, I am sure you are aware that it applies on both sides and therefor the most enthusiastic Ole-Fans will obviously have adjusted their value framework accordingly as well. Look at some of the "ratings" Poch got the relevant threads because of his 6month of Paris, just because he was thought to be a possible candidate.
How often have we read and heard, "that the season is good and might be very good when the trophy is won... shortly after the final we were reminded, that its just 90min of football plus penalties where "obviously anything can happen".
Overreactions breed overreactions.
Lets see what happens next season. Given that Spurs might get Conte, this will even make the competition more unpredictable. Lets face it, during the summer, I can't see anything to happen, that "objectively" will change the managers public image plainly because he doesn't do anything. Unless he gets caught drunk on holiday of course ^^
Spot on mate. Some utterly horrendous posters on both sides. They love to mindlessly repeat themselves, and seem to think their opinions hold more weight than others.
Ole did enough this season for me to buy himself another season, but he really did freeze like a deer in the headlights against Villarreal.
Other than that dour night in Poland, I’m not sure any other manager could have wrung much more out the squad than Ole did in getting us to second place in the PL. But I’m still fuming over that defeat to the shit Turkish squad, so that’s two strikes against Ole for his overall performance this season.
Other than that dour night in Poland, I’m not sure any other manager could have wrung much more out the squad than Ole did in getting us to second place in the PL. But I’m still fuming over that defeat to the shit Turkish squad, so that’s two strikes against Ole for his overall performance this season.
Explain how we can beat City and Chelsea and lose to Palace, sheff Utd and draw a shit load against other poor sides.
2nd place is just a fact. Right we got 2nd. So what. Means nothing.
Dropping points against dross is the real issue.
Why is so common ?
How come we didn't beat a poor Villareal team ?
2nd place is just a fact. Right we got 2nd. So what. Means nothing.
Dropping points against dross is the real issue.
Why is so common ?
How come we didn't beat a poor Villareal team ?
Every team drops points against dross every season, even City did, they just did it less than us this season (and for quite a few seasons now).
Heck both pool and city lost to Brighton.
But yes it's about delivering over a full season, and we need some more starters (which will also improve our squad depth at the same time since some of our current starters get benched) to be able to compete with the best teams on results against all teams throughout a full season.
Hm. Somehow that sounded like a contradiction.
I really love Ole but i don't see us winning anything with him in charge. Fact that if a whole Man Utd manager was to be fired today, none of the other 19 EPL teams would replace their current manager with him speaks volume.
Don't forget resting Bruno before an international break for our fa cup quarterfinal loss. He did well in the league but terrible in all the cups though maybe par for the course in the league cup.
Before they played for Poch half of the people on that list could have walked into your living room and you wouldn't have half a clue who they are
The keeper of the French NT? Danish international? Two Belgian internationals? One of the all time best players from South Korea? The best English striker of this generation? Yeah, clearly just a bunch of mugsOur poor results are frequent and common.
It's mentality as well as coaching and its on the manager to look after both.
Better players should make a difference but the mentality has to change. I only see Bruno with some fight in him.
Id like to see ole make a statement by dumping some of the high profile duds.
I don't know how to explain "half of the people on that list" and "before they played for Poch" in simpler terms. Would you like me to draw you a picture?
Who are you referring to in this half btw? Pre -Poch
Lloris had been French #1 for 4-5 years I believe. He'd been at Spurs for 2 seasons as well by then.
Walker had been part of PL team of the year before Poch
Vertonghen had also been part of PL team of the year pre-Poch
Alderweireld - maybe I can give it to you, although he was rated pretty highly and had featured in CL final
Dembele- Was a regular at Spurs before Poch came in, and was pretty highly rated
Eriksen- Came pre-Poch and was doing well then as well. Also was incredibly highly rated as a youngster
Son- Very highly rated (I remember RVN speaking highly of him as well), won Asian player of the year the year before he signed, but I can understand if someone says they cant recognize him because not everyone follows Asian football and BuLi
Kane- I can give that to you.
At best it'd be 3/8 but were assuming someone doesnt watch CL finals, and has no idea about Asian football or BuLi at all.
I agree Poch was excellent for Spurs and made the side a lot better, but you can't really credit Poch for making these players household names
He already did that over the past years by looking at the players who left the club.
He also benched Pogba for some time even when he was fit.
As for other duds, I'm not sure who you are referring to, but it's not like we have had a lot of other options. Rashford should have been rested/benched more, but we haven't had many that could play instead of him.
- Status