So the reference point for improvement is Mourinho's lowest point? if so then yes we have improved, it would've been hard not to when players are feed up with the manager and had lowered their guns. But against Mourinho's highest point we havent improved, no metric shows that, less points, less goal difference, no titles. We were closer to the title back in 2018 than what we are today, thats factual.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
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We were 12 points off the title last season and 19 off the title in 2018, that's factual. It wasn't my reference point, it was someone else's who said we hadn't improved in 3 years, which is obviously untrue.
Mourinho's high point (if you're referring to 2018), relied almost entirely on the back of one of the greatest individual season from a goalkeeper in living memory. De Gea's over performance kept us from finishing 6th in consecutive years, our regression to 6th the following season was to be expected as that's the level the team was actually at. 16 points we overperformed by with De Gea keeping out 15 less than expected.
You can turn this into a Solskjaer vs Mourinho debate if you want but I'm not particularly interested in that and likely won't reply further if that's what it's going to devolve into, the time mentioned was the 3 years since Solskjaer took over which is why I specifically referenced that time frame.
So, Ole is a crap manager at the top level & these Ole outers would shut up if we just started winning every game? No duh. Fans wouldn't complain if Mr Blobby was the manager so long as we were winning every game.
True, but do we really expect another season like the last one? One with Chelsea blowing up their season persisting with Lampard, Liverpool ravaged with injuries and City with an awful start. Last season was the lowest point tally for a champion since Leicester's miracle.
Same can be said about Ole and Bruno.
Im not interested in debating Mourinho, I just find funny how some claim there's clearly been an improvement. When IMO its been slim improvement if there's improvement at all. Our highest peak under Ole remains the 2018-19 season after the covid break, that was 14-15 months ago. After that run we havent been able to perform at that level, hence I think we've regressed from that point. Its not been an upward trayectory by any means. Its been a roller coaster of performances that have seen us, and will continue to see us, fail in being even close to win a major title.
The saddest part of this is whoever decided to spunk £50 mill on him, still works here. I cant imagine it was a Mourinho signing
Love your optimism and want so bad to be wrong. But we can't win 3 games in a row let alone mount a challenge
Do you really believe that? I think that is Nagelsmann being humble about his impact.
Go and watch the synchrony in the play of a Nagelsmann, Pep, Klopp or Tuchel (and many other managers too at a lower level, such as Rodgers, Bielsa, Potter etc) team and you'll see that they have obvious progressive, exciting tactics that follow wherever they go. Players don't just walk onto a pitch and play like that without serious coaching, teaching and thought.
I could point you to the Tuchel quote about how he turned things around instantly at Chelsea and you'll see what I mean.
If this is Ole's tactics that we're seeing then lord help us all. Because it's boring and frustrating as hell. It's everything you all criticised Jose for coming into his time here. Negative football that gets results, except Ole's football is far less convincing than Jose's and relies on luck far, far too many times, relying on individual moments to swing a game.
At what point do some realize that this is going to be how it's going to be until we make a change? Go on a good run, then bad, beat a city using counter attacking football, then lose to a Burnley and tie with midtable clubs. Ole gets close to the sack but goes on a small winning streak and here we go around the merry-go-round again. I'm not really Ole out but to say he's the right man for the future seems to be going against the large swath of evidence.
We got second last season in large part, IMO, due to Pool falling off without VVD and Chelsea having their former player take the wheel. We will end up 4th this year.
We got second last season in large part, IMO, due to Pool falling off without VVD and Chelsea having their former player take the wheel. We will end up 4th this year.
Yes it is indeed a stick to beat Ole with. I would be fuming if Fergie was beaming after undesirable results, even Fergie would be outraged if our players were smiling after a bad game. BUT I don't think anyone here is asking for Ole's sack because of this reason.
But take that 30% away and you'd have a team guaranteed to be performing below the very best in PL (cant be challenging for the league). 30% is a massive boost still. Hell even 10% is huge in a competitive space. Like Ole said its about the fine margins.
Never looked at it in this way, makes the progress fanatists look a bit sillier.
The doubters say he cannot win a trophy or challenge for the league.... 3 years later I have not seen him silence any of them? Unless coming 2nd is a trophy in your eyes?
I want him to win us a major trophy, I like Ole and want him to succeed, at the same time, I cannot just wait around hoping he wins us something. I think we will know in 6 weeks time, if we are anymore than 8 points from the leaders, clearly he wont win the title.
Also, I am talking about CL and PL only.
So just to reiterate again, transfer funding doesn't work in the way that you Inject Coin and out comes Immediate Result, and your continued trotting out of transfer sums merely underlines the shallowness of your reasoning and its underlying assumptions. You spend money to improve the team, and improved us it has.
So I absolutely do believe that, yes. So it seems does pretty much all more or less neutral commentary. Even articles who put OGS down generally acknowledge that he has overseen an improvement of the team and the club.
Mourinho's 81 points represented as far as we got with his approach and the squad he had assembled. There was no way forward from that - it had to be torn down, and built up again. As indeed it has been. A typical United starting XI these days will contain 2 players - David de Gea and Paul Pogba - who were regular starters under Mourinho. I would not have put ten quid on United finishing as high as third ahead of the 19/20 season, and not much more on us finishing as high as 2nd the season after. If someone stepped out of a time machine in July 2019 and told me how the next two seasons played out, I would have been pleasantly surprised. We are (or at least should be, squad-wise) closer to being a contender at this point in time than I would then have expected us to be. If your expectation at that point was that we'd challenge for big titles and win trophies within the next two seasons, you either weren't paying attention to what the club said they would do, or you lived in a dream world where Manchester United as a matter of course are Always Up There.
It's downright absurd to put down the results and progress achieved during OGS' first two seasons, and frankly it seems obvious that people are doing so because they've just decided they want a change, and have stopped looking at anything in a way that modifies or contradicts that conclusion in any way.
This season though is a different story. We're not better than last season so far - rather, we are worse. We've dropped 7 points in 7 games against teams we dropped 4 points against during all of last season, and we haven't looked any better than the results. That needs to change. And that's the point, not all this rubbish where people try to convince themselves and others that we've just been seeing the same shit all along.
You're missing the whole point of improvement. You don't "improve" the team if you don't have more points, more trophies, better football. We are in a football business, not in some fantasy world where each season "we're getting close to challenging". This is not Tottenham, it's Man United and yes, a club that spends this amount of money should be "Always Up There" otherwise it's bad business management. I hope you get it, if you spend 300mil in a business and you're still shit, heads need to roll.
As a simple example, Klopp didn't spend 280mil to only get an 8 points "improvement". And even last season when they were through a bad patch, he still played decent footie. Why is Ole exempt for this criticism?
Compared to Klopp's progress during the years, where do you see Ole, what are the main arguments he should keep his job?(Considering he spent way way less, of course)
In regards to this "It's downright absurd to put down the results and progress achieved during OGS' first two seasons", I can't even offer an opinion. It's either plain fanboy bias towards the manager (be it Ole, Mou, or any other manager on the planet), or you're just content with mediocrity.
Genuine question: what were your expectations from us in the last 2 seasons? And should we win say a FA Cup and finish 6th or something in PL, would you have been happy in either of the last 2 seasons? And thirdly, if offered the chance to hire a manager now/end of season, who'd be your pick?
I know this wasn't directed to me but I share a similar stance to the person who are replying to and find these questions a silly argument and wanted to address them.
What were your expectations from us in the last 2 seasons?
The season we finished third I think he did as per expectation which was to achieve top 4. We finished third in goal difference and it went to the final day due to a Leicester collapse, in some ways he was very fortunate. As the final standing was flattering when looking at the season as a whole. We were closer to the teams who got relegated than the winners.
Last season he underachieved for me, the expectation was a trophy, either the Carabao Cup, FA Cup or Europa League were all within reach and the failure to win the EL given the position we were in was shocking. In the league we weren't competitive for the title which I believe Manchester United should always be. I think Ole should have gone after the EL final, so long without a trophy shouldn't be acceptable and wouldn't be for any other club in Europe who claims to be elite.
If offered the chance to hire a manager now/end of season, who'd be your pick?
For context here. I see Ole as probably one of if not the poorest managers in the league any top half table manager would probably be an improvement. That being said we should be aiming for proven managers at the top level. Zidane is the standout candidate who is available, I also think Ten Haag would be a good appointment.
You seem to constantly deflect and try and tie people up with what their previous expectations were.
I've always been on the fence about Ole, but even some of his staunchest supporters have accepted this is the season he needs to deliver. So far we don't look like that's a a possibility.
I've always had a minimum expectation of top 4, but those expectations have adjusted throughout the seasons. Last year, for example, by January I wanted a concerted title push. What we got was nothing short of a capitulation with the manager playing down the importance of being at the top. By seasons end I fully expected a trophy, we all know how that ended.
This season my expectation is a real challenge. Not some tinpot second place when we're as close to mid table as the leaders. Of course if we narrowly miss out I won't be calling for his head. However another expectation I have is to see some good football, something I very much disagree we've seen throughout his tenure. We have never had an on pitch identity under this regime and 3 years in, his ideas should be translated on the pitch. If this is what he deems acceptable, IMO it's not good enough considering the investment he's had, both financially and with time given.
I fundamentally disagree with that. Embarking on a full rebuild was in my view the completely correct thing to do in 2019, and we should have done so much earlier. The measure of that approach is where it leaves us at the end of it, ie this season and next, and United does not have a God-given right to "always be up there". Also, fan expectation that we nevertheless will is just counterproductive to that. It took Klopp several seasons to get Liverpool to their current level, and finished 8th and 4th in his first two seasons.
5th and top 4. FA cup would be nice, but makes no fundamental difference. Don't want change manager at this point.
It's not deflecting. It's as simple as has someone met the original targets that were set out or not! It's as simple as that. It's like saying Leicester underachieved in the league in the last 2 seasons because they didn't get top 4 despite being in those positions for so long. I don' t think anyone would say so irrespective of the circumstances. There was a reason why they weren't rated that highly and it was lack of depth in their side - the same reason why we weren't expected to be challenging for the title last year. The fact that we were top at one point is more of a pleasant surprise than a benchmark for expectation for remaining part of the season.
Similarly, around the cup part, I think people put way too much weightage on cups. They're good to have but are stupid indicators to judge progress, especially as in most cases the difference between whether you've progressed or not is largely dependent on factors like cup draws and a one-off game as the final. The story is obviously different in CL as you're most likely facing top teams to reach the final. So, if Dave's penalty save was what sways people from going between Ole in and out then I think they'll unlikely be satisfied with any manager (mind - I feel we played poorly in that game and ideally should've won before pens, but it's football not a simulation).
And I think most people have conceded that title challenge has to be the expectation this season, else he's underachieved and I doubt people will complain too much should he get sacked. But, let the season pan out instead of extrapolating the performances so far to the rest of the season.
And as far as poorest manager in top 10 clubs is concerned, don't agree but I doubt anything I say will change your mind, or will be classed as a "deflection tactic"
Good Post
Another guy that takes a statement and turns it in whatever he wants just to help his argument and opinion go along. Where did I say it was not correct to rebuild? Where did I say United have a god given right to always be up there? Why do normal discussions on this forum are impossible to entertain without the usual fan bias?
I said that a club spending so much money should be "up there", otherwise it's bad business management, and it is, by a fecking mile.
I gave the Liverpool example, they stuck by Klopp because he didn't spend huge amounts of money and his team was constantly improving, especially in the quality of football department.
As a business manager, you hire a new manager mid season, so you write that season off. You then give him 150 mil to spend, a season goes by, you don't see any particular improvement in the points tally or in the style of play, you give him another 150 mil, it goes the same way, what do you do? How do you keep backing up the "rebuuild" to shareholders, to leadership?
I'm not even going to discuss the quality of football, it's not even worth discussing. We're at the 4th manager who we gave almost 300 mil to and we're still average as feck, doesn't that ring a bell, maybe our managerial appointments need to go into another direction?
How many times did we score 5 goals under Jose? Did we even do it once? Not in the league we didn't. Under Ole we did it in his very first game and have done it quite a few more times since.
Oles football might not be the exact type of football you want to see us play but to compare it to Jose's football is pathetic. We are way more attacking now than we were. We didn't paste Leeds twice, Leipzig, Southampton, Cardiff etc under Jose did we? And I'm forgetting others I'm sure.
Some people on this forum can only see two ends of a spectrum and no in between. It's quite sad. Oles football isn't quite as good as I want i to be either but I have enjoyed more than Moyes LVG and Jose days for sure.
I think the real issue is that's it's just not Fergie days anymore and lots of people can't handle it. Forget those times. We will never experience a period like that ever again. It's over.
Oles football might not be the exact type of football you want to see us play but to compare it to Jose's football is pathetic. We are way more attacking now than we were. We didn't paste Leeds twice, Leipzig, Southampton, Cardiff etc under Jose did we? And I'm forgetting others I'm sure.
Some people on this forum can only see two ends of a spectrum and no in between. It's quite sad. Oles football isn't quite as good as I want i to be either but I have enjoyed more than Moyes LVG and Jose days for sure.
I think the real issue is that's it's just not Fergie days anymore and lots of people can't handle it. Forget those times. We will never experience a period like that ever again. It's over.
I was Ole In last season because he had to rebuild the team from Jose, he done well in that regard and wasn't fully backed last summer and even though we played pretty crap football he got second but, the Europa loss, transfer window he got, start of the season results and performances have shifted towards the fact he is not good enough.
We could have lost 5/7 of our games, we have been outplayed, out thought by any team that comes to OT, that is not good enough to win the league
We signed a RW to play, yet we dont start a RW, we play Pogba and Greenwood, then we wonder why the team is not balanced.
Fred has made crucial mistakes in numerous games, continues to get picked whilst others ignored.
We have no style, we have no system, we have poor coaching, same mistakes that were apparent in his first season are still apparent now, nothing has changed, nothing will change.
If we want to be serious contenders we need a new man in charge
Geniune answer, my expectations in the last two seasons were:
- coach improves players - not really happened (Shaw and Greenwood were natural progressions)
- coach improves style of play - not really happened - we're still slow
- coach starts to dominate the easy games - not happened
- we win a cup here and there and get "close to challenging" - not happened
- better in game management - not happened
- better player management in terms of injuries - not happened
I'm not going to answer the second question, read above. I'm not entirely about winning, I'm about seeing constant progress, I mean, that's why we let the guy spend 300 mil, isn't it?
If offered the chance to hire a manager, I'd go for one that has an obvious playing style, like Rose, Bosz, Ten Haag, Luis Enrique. I would not go for "big names" like Zidane, we know how that ends, he's a man manager not a coach.
Isn't it surprising how the other clubs, City, Liverpool hell even Chelesea achieve success with a manager known for his playing style?
Now that your evaluation is finished, what's the catch, what was its purpose?
Scoring 5 goals in 3/4 games a season does not win you titles. No one thinks we need to go to the Fergie days but saying that just because he is better than Jose and LVG doesn't mean much, they both won trophies for the club.
That's what a manager is judged on, Ole does not have the skillset to win us a trophy.
That point was about the brand of football. Of course Ole needs to win something soon and everyone agrees with that.
I just didn't enjoy LVG and Jose years at all despite the odd cup. The club didn't feel together. It still felt broken. Under Ole it's starting to come back together and now we just need to get that elusive trophy over the line.
I don't disagree with Carragher but we all know he'll struggle to bag his mate Stevie G should he struggle as Liverpool manager.
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I am going to strawman you to an extent here, so I apologise.
Your stance on trophies is one I see regularly on here, that they are less important and don't represent progress. Sorry but that's bullshit. Yes, you'll get some anomalies and the magic of the FA Cup etc. But generally the top teams compete to the end for trophies.
Underplaying them, as you have, and as the manager has, breeds a culture of underachieving. SAF attributed the 2006 Carling Cup win as the catalyst for subsequent years success as it gave Rooney, Ronaldo et al taste of success. We all know what happened after that thrashing of Wigan.
While supporters and management shrug off trophies as "unreliable indicators of progress" or a vanity project the club will continue to flatter to deceive.
To my eyes what we've witnessed from the club and a section of supporters is a lowering of standards and a truly bizzarr belief that trophies other than the PL and CL don't matter.
I remembering having similar discussions with you last season. I had these concerns then, while you didn't agree at that point. It's good to see you haven't planted your flag and refused to acknowledge other things as I believe that's what a lot of people have done, on both sides.
100% hit the nail on the head here, over the years the standards have been dropped to a level where not winning trophies are not an important indicator as to how the club has performed. All the big clubs year in and year out got for the big trophies and they are measured by winning them.
Of course. All pundits are the same.
Comparing each of their first 100 games in charge for Man Utd -
Ole -
Goals for - 181
Goals against - 100
Games won - 55
Games lost - 24
Draws - 21
Points Per Game - 1.86
Clean Sheets - 38
Trophies won in that time - 0
Mourinho -
Goals for - 180
Goals against - 70
Games won - 62
Games lost - 15
Draws - 23
Points Per Game - 2.09
Clean Sheets - 49
Trophies won in that time - 3
Should make interesting reading for anyone who wants to approach the issue objectively and fairly…
Ole has scored 1 more goal. The rest of the comparisons are all heavily won by Mourinho.
The thing is, it felt exactly that way to me anyway. Those that think Ole has brought exciting, attacking football are deluded.
Jose back in then?
I'm sorry but those stats don't paint a true story of how the club was doing then. It felt totally broken come his 3rd season and like the whole club had given up. It was toxic beyond belief.
He didn't actually make back to back CL finishes either. Ole has.
The only thing toxic about our club now is the fanbase. The club is in the best shape it's been since 2013.
1st one - Don't agree with putting everything down to natural progression. Shaw was 24 or something. McT has improved, Lindelof is a good option to have. Marcus has improved (partially due to progression), Bruno has performed better than what most people expected
2nd one - Statistially not true. The slow bit is funny btw. We had 2nd most number of direct attacks. 4th fastest attacks in terms of speed. https://dataviz.theanalyst.com/season-reviews/2021/
3rd one - I can agree as that has only happened occasionally.
4th - Factually right, so no objections
5th - Disagree because stats say otherwise in terms of both holding onto leads and comebacks. But still feel scope of improvement
6th - We had among the lesser number of injuries last season, despite us having played more games than anyone in the past 2 seasons and last season being among the most compact seasons ever.
And these were your only expectations? Or did the others not get a mention as they were met?
No purpose. Just want to get an idea from people who are staunchly against the manager what were they expecting.
I really don't consider those as indicators of progress. Winning them is good and all for the morale, but I wouldn't lose my sleep over not winning LC or FA Cup. It's like if we win, I dont think anyone will say he should be retained as he won a cup/ has shown progress. So the converse has to hold true as well. The league has to be ou bread and butter, and failure there should be sackable irrespective of cup wins
Surprised at those stats, the perception feels totally different, apart from the trophies obviously.
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