On the plus side... the only people who are going to get riled by the ‘internet fans’ comment are almost certainly internet fans.
So it just offends the right people.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
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On the plus side... the only people who are going to get riled by the ‘internet fans’ comment are almost certainly internet fans.
So it just offends the right people.
I agree entirely.
If we finish 10th with this squad, I still don't think it would be fair to blame Ole. We are so thin on quality it's a joke.
I think i predicted 6th again a few weeks ago. Performance wise however we've been better than i expected so far, we could easily have 10-12 points with a bit more luck and this thread would be very quiet. We can't afford any injuries to key players (like Martial on Saturday) that will be our downfall.
To a point I agree..
I think you have to question team selection and tactics, he's not completely blameless. Clear that issues run much deeper though than whoever is manager of the club.
If we are on the road to finish 10th he should he sacked way before it reaches the end of the season. No question.
Why are people talking about 10th place? We are two missed penalties and a few near post runs from much better results. Newcastle beat Spurs recently. People need to calm down. The games have been frustrating but some people are working themselves up into a state.
Yup. Big crossover with people that take offence over any mention of the importance of actually going to games, no doubt.
We are a couple of injuries away from that happening. It’s not unrealistic to think we will pick up injuries the way Ole wants us to play.
You gotta be kidding me
Yep. We should only start blaming him if we're about to get relegated, or something like that.
Not completely blameless, and he's not really giving any signs that he's the new Clough or SAF. But we are clearly in a hole right now, and I trust him to get us facing the right way. That's really the only realistic target for us this year, imho.
Are you SERIOUSLY asking that question of a guy who has been bashing Woodward for wasting money and spending it stupidily?
Man....
No! I told you its a nonsense to say that we've spent money properly.....pay attentionTypical. You are the kind of clown who will put up any excuse on the planet to excuse Woodward. Don't freaking tell me about 'net spent'. Look at our signings since he arrived. There is no single window in which he has recruited all the players needed to fix terminal holes, per the window in front of him. It matters not what his manager has asked for.
Look at the signings per window critically. They are characterized on not getting enough, and of the few gotten, there is a clear exorbitant expense on 1 or 2 due to rubbish negotiation skills. Not to mention the sales of unwanted personnel are usually at a loss or not achieved at all. (Darmian's wanted to leave for 2 years is an example....)
He did it with Moyes. LVG. JM. He has just done it with Solksjaer.
The previous excuse was JM was 'holding up the arrival of a DOF'. Well JM is long gone. The same recruitment shit is going on and the manager is different.
But sure. Woodward clearly supports his manager because he spends loads
What would you do differently and how would you implement it? If you think ole is happy with this squad (not saying you do) then you need to think again. How can you possibly start a team better than we have? He clearly wants them to run more, press more, attack more, get balls in the box more bit we just do not have the players to do this. We are scarily thin. We most likely will not finish 4th, the sooner you know the better. Yes we should be but we won't. We can sack Ole and get a new coach then give him 70m and we will still be in the same rubbsih. The board is toxic, we need a football director, we need someone else to buy man united!
Who made the squad so thin? Who sold all the players? It is not the points that worry me. We could drop points any day. We played the best football for a long time under Jose in his first year and we missed so many chances and we only qualified for the CL by winning the EL. But that season we could see the progress.
I have no issues with the missed penalties. It is the basics that worries me. He has no idea how to setup a team. He cannot organise a free kick and neither can he organise a corner kick and now we see that he cannot even organise a throw in. If you are honest you can say that he probably cannot organise a piss up in a pub either.
As some of you have said it is not the missed chance that is the problem. A top class goal scorer would put away about 6 out of 10 usually. Lukaku's statistics are not bad compared to many others. His problem is that he is not a player who holds the ball and brings others into play. His first touch is so poor too. Some of you may remember Ian Rush and John Aldridge who played for Liverpool? None of them can play any football yet fantastic goal scorers. We need to create chances for the goal scorers to score.
We did create chances but we need to create about 5 to 6 good chances for us to score at least a couple. Yes defenders could make mistakes and keeper can mistakes and concede goals but in general the more you create the greater the chances are for us to score goals.
It is the manager's responsibility to see that these chances are created. It is practiced on the training ground, the movements etc.
I do not think we will beat Arsenal to be honest.
I have no issues with the missed penalties. It is the basics that worries me. He has no idea how to setup a team. He cannot organise a free kick and neither can he organise a corner kick and now we see that he cannot even organise a throw in. If you are honest you can say that he probably cannot organise a piss up in a pub either.
As some of you have said it is not the missed chance that is the problem. A top class goal scorer would put away about 6 out of 10 usually. Lukaku's statistics are not bad compared to many others. His problem is that he is not a player who holds the ball and brings others into play. His first touch is so poor too. Some of you may remember Ian Rush and John Aldridge who played for Liverpool? None of them can play any football yet fantastic goal scorers. We need to create chances for the goal scorers to score.
We did create chances but we need to create about 5 to 6 good chances for us to score at least a couple. Yes defenders could make mistakes and keeper can mistakes and concede goals but in general the more you create the greater the chances are for us to score goals.
It is the manager's responsibility to see that these chances are created. It is practiced on the training ground, the movements etc.
I do not think we will beat Arsenal to be honest.
I am actually quite calm. I accept where we are which is probably around the 6th best club in the league. I haven't been surprised by our results, not lost my sh1t because of them. Unlike many on here, who still seem to think we will brush aside all who dare face us.
Poser. I'll take you seriously after you hit 100,000 posts.
Edit: oi @Pogue Mahone you take this literally? I was being facetious in light of 7elevens comments
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The guy is saying even by finishing 10th he won't blame Ole so what's that ? The length people are willing to go to excuse him is like no other manager. I swear put any other manager, any one with the current squad and people will be blaming him for his tactics far more than what they're doing with Ole, so the squad is so shite that finishing 10th doesn't deserve blaming the manager ? We need more and more players to finish ahead of gods like Everton, Wolves and Leicester ? We're not asking for a title challenge or even finishing 3rd you know. I don't even remember the last season we entered with absolutely no hope more than challenging for 4th to 6th positions. Even in our previous crap years we had higher expectations entering each summer before getting disappointed by it not happening.
As for him being happy with the squad :
We can't be selling all these players, whom he wasn't depending on, without his approval. It's a weird ideas. He was starting Rashford even when he was shite by the end of last season while not giving Lukaku the same chances when his performance dropped, so nope, I refuse to exclude Ole from the blame of the last market. Him and Woodward fecked up the squad, and it'll be an impossible task for the next manager to solve this mess next summer, especially with Pogba definitely forcing the move and DDG probably not renewing. Currently the squad needs 300m or so pumped into it to come close to City and Pool and it's all thanks to the last market, selling all dependable squad options without replacing them.
Woodward needs to go but Ole needs to be on the same boat as him. Love him as a legend, but as a manager he doesn't have any style on the pitch and there's no way we can trust him with such rebuild job after that summer.
Patience is fine but when there's evidence that there's work being done on the pitch. In our case it's not. No one can be watching our games and think : "yeah there's an obvious style in progress of developing, just needs few signings and it'll be great". Everything we does on the pitch screams randomness and non coaching. We are clueless with possession of the ball and we have no identity while attacking, even against average teams on our own pitch.
If you see a plan Ole is developing it's fine for you, but for me I see absolutely nothing and even with the Glazers and Woodward being crap and needing to go, Ole isn't the manager to rebuild the squad after these are gone anyway. He'll need to go with them. Again, great legend, but people need to differentiate between being a club legend and a club manager. I'm pretty sure as I said that if there was any other manager instead of him in the current job with the current squad, people would have been blaming him x10 more at least
15 months ago we were finishing a comfortable 2nd in the league with a v good record vs the other top 6 rivals and also in the FA cup final.
How on earth is it now acceptable to finish 6th or 10th etc.
Standards shouldnt fall off a cliff because we like Ole.
Also last year our top 4 rivals all had amazing form before christmas while they are all now on dismal runs bar Liverpool or City. Should be aiming for 3rd.
How on earth is it now acceptable to finish 6th or 10th etc.
Standards shouldnt fall off a cliff because we like Ole.
Also last year our top 4 rivals all had amazing form before christmas while they are all now on dismal runs bar Liverpool or City. Should be aiming for 3rd.
Manchester United author Simon Wadsworth joins Howson to discuss all things #MUFC, from Solskjaer, recruitment, Glazers, and what the future may hold for Manchester United fans.
Ok, thanks, seems realistic to me.
You are judging Ole on what? 4 games into the season the last 9 months? I mirror you thoughts we need to spend money and if you remember, Ole said a few times he hoped to close 3 or 4 deals. It then went to 2 or 3 and then towards the end it was one more. You would be naive to think Ole is happy with the squad by going what Simon Stones is saying. He will hardly come out and say we done a bad job. One of the biggest issues last season was Jose unsettling the players on a constant basis and the media pressures of him and Ed. Again I understand your frustration, I have them too but in reality I do not think Ole had much control over the ins, he possibly did on the outs. The reality is, for many years we over spent on players either past ir or players who came for the money. It created a bad atmosphere within the club and impacted results on the pitch. The way we are playing is not great but it is actually better than last swason post March. The identity is slowly coming out and it will take months. I usually say, judge on 15 games than 4 as that is when you will see the pattern. If we sack him now, who else is there to hire? We will be in the same BS as we are now. Patience is not the word you want to hear but for the next 3 or 4 years you will need it. The board are toxic, they care just about money and that will not change soon. The only hope we have immediately is we hire a director of football but we have been promised that for over a year now. After that, it is to back the team and ole and hope things will change. If you don't then that is fair too.
If we go down to League one in the next 2 years, i still wouldnt blame Ole. It is all part of a process. He needs 3 years until we see the results of his work today. Stop blaming the managers guys, our players are Championship standard.
Wait, how does the identity need months to appear ? Ole has been managing us for 6 months + preseason + first month of last season, and since that PSG game and the end of honeymoon we have been going from bad to worse. I'm not saying a full identity should be achieved now, but at least there should be obvious signs of style being implanted on the pitch and needs few more tweaks or certain players to succeed. Do you see that with us ? I myself really don't. I see nothing worthy of discussing tactically wise on the pitch for United, especially against well packed defense.
He's not going now of course, and he'll get more chances this season to turn it on whatever we actually want him gone or staying anyway, so it's not like our opinions here are going to change his fate. I would like him to succeed, and I actually was from those who wanted appointed during the honeymoon period, but now deep down every time I think about, this experiment isn't going to work as we hoped. He doesn't seem to have a clue what to do once things go south or out of his hands. He's staying for this season, but it'll be a near miracle if he's here next season.
Will Ole getting the sack by the end of the season make us great again ? Well nope as long as Woodward is our CEO as I said. However, do you trust Ole to rebuild the squad if Woodward gets sacked and replaced DOF ? Well for me currently nope, I don't either. Woodward should be staying away from the transfers and the managerial appointment. He has fecked up the club for 7 years now, however, even if we revamped the entire footballing structure, I honestly don't trust Ole anymore for the rebuild job and we'll be better off searching for a new manager as well imo. It's an opinion you may disagree with, and it's fine. It differs from person to another according to their degree of belief in the current manager's abilities.
As for transfers, opinions, but the Lukaku replacement thing was pretty weird. Lukaku was negotiating with Inter for the majority of summer, and his move came as no surprise, but the only striker we seemed to think of was Mandzukic ? We had enough time to search and sign a striker, any striker, for most of the summer. Woodward definitely deserves the blame for this and I slaughtered him for it a lot, however we don't know if Ole was happy with that or not, or even if he signed Mandzukic he would have been a starter or replacement for Lukaku on the bench ? Ole was totally fine playing Rashford ahead of Lukaku last season when the former's form dropped to hell, so we don't know what he was planning to do with Mandzukic as replacement for Lukaku either.
I'll accept all this if it turns out we had a £400m budget and Ole decided not to spend it. Then it would be on him that we have left ourselves so threadbare. But if we only had the money to bring in another average forward, then what's the point in that?
If we do indeed finish 10th then of course it points to the fact that Ole isn't a great manager. But who really sees him as anything other than a trusted guy, sent in to undo the damage done by successive managers' half finished plans? Let him be here to oversee the clearout, and hope that he shows continued nous in the transfer market. To bring in players that want to give us everything, and build from there. A modest demand, to be sure. But from where we were, it will be a step up and a refreshing change. Even if we drop ever further down the league positionally.
Were an obvious candidate to come up as a replacement, then things would change. Until then, let's not drive ourselves mad over analysing every little thing when we know(or should at least) that the squad he has to work with is really, really average.
Who could have thought that? (Irony)
Just means you’re an old internet warrior, just like me. Nothing wrong with embracing new technology. The main difference is that you often are a good and frequent poster, compared to me who are miserable and don’t post my “negative” thoughts so often. :-)
So that means you’re the “wrong”people. He he. Good to know. Right or wrong, we’re all humans.
No. The most important thing if you want to make the right analysis is to understand the game and have a basic tactical knowledge. Visiting games (sober) is a plus and gives a much better overall view but watching the game on a big screen with HD or Ultra HD quality is almost as good. Today’s technique makes the television experience almost as good as the real thing. More a matter of taste then anything else.
My stance is simple. Solskjær takes us in the right direction but he’s better DoF then a manager. One maybe two more seasons then we a need a elite manager. Nothing wrong with taking a step up in the hierarchy.
Approach Julian Nagelsmann or maybe Graham Potter, two modern and forward thinking managers. They represent the future,
You sound quite clued up on it, which teams in the PL other than City and Liverpool (who quite clearly have the best attacking players) do you see as being great tactically against 'packed defences'?
this guy gets so many passes for being a United legend. poor, poor, manager.
Spurs? Last time I checked they were behind United on the table.
It´s just 4 matches, and United have lacked some margins. Chelsea and Tottenham are behind, Arsenal 2 points ahead. In that sense, no crisis. But some players need to step up their game. Rashford has been terrible in the build up play, and Pogba is too sloppy in possession to play as a DM. It´s just pure luck that his ball losses has not resulted in more goals against. Fred is needed, really. I don´t want Matic on the field, so Fred and McTominay have to do the job. Lingard out and Pogba as nr. 10. He just can´t play DM.
My biggest regret from the transer window, was United not being able to sign Rabiot.
My biggest regret from the transer window, was United not being able to sign Rabiot.
If we bring fat Sam, before a ball is kicked people will say long ball. That is what people think is his style. Sam is no more long ball than what Ole is. We play a long ball over the top to our strikers to run and is called counter attacking football.
When fat Sam plays counter attacking football by playing the same style it is called long ball. Honestly there is nothing he has shown so far to say he has got any clue or any style. Yes anyone can get rid of players. Take anyone from there Redcafe and ask them to get rid of some players and they will do it. But it is ridiculous to get rid of so many of them while not replacing them. Come January and if we do not get any replacements in the next window, we will have Mike Phelan and Carrick playing in midfield with Ole up front and probably doing a better job still than Rashford.
As for transfers, why do we have to tilt at windmills? This is the same from Moyes too. There are plenty of football players around the world who may come to United and who are better than the players we have now. Any decent player in Europe playing for any of the better clubs will have a midfield player that is better than McTominay and Lingard or Mata or Matic. Or Fred. The same with the CBs. Plenty who are better than Lindelof for sure. Plenty of strikers who are better than Rashford.
When fat Sam plays counter attacking football by playing the same style it is called long ball. Honestly there is nothing he has shown so far to say he has got any clue or any style. Yes anyone can get rid of players. Take anyone from there Redcafe and ask them to get rid of some players and they will do it. But it is ridiculous to get rid of so many of them while not replacing them. Come January and if we do not get any replacements in the next window, we will have Mike Phelan and Carrick playing in midfield with Ole up front and probably doing a better job still than Rashford.
As for transfers, why do we have to tilt at windmills? This is the same from Moyes too. There are plenty of football players around the world who may come to United and who are better than the players we have now. Any decent player in Europe playing for any of the better clubs will have a midfield player that is better than McTominay and Lingard or Mata or Matic. Or Fred. The same with the CBs. Plenty who are better than Lindelof for sure. Plenty of strikers who are better than Rashford.
Please tell me what guarantee do we have that he would be a success? We had better coaches (on the paper) then him in Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho and we know how it went. Names is not important anymore in football. It is how you learn your team to play. Ole should get chance beacuse he has improved us despite being "worse" then all of the postFergie managers.
Never thought of "long ball" as counter attacking fotball. A long ball up on the pitch on happiness and piety. That´s my association.
Even if Ole isn’t a success here, at least we will be in good stead going forward.
Already got rid of Sanchez, Lukaku, Fellaini, Smalling, Darmian. And yes Herrera is a loss but he never played more than 35 games a season for us. He also wanted absurd wages, which he didn’t deserve. He was good but not amazing. Ole also brought in James, Maguire, AWB, while bedding in the likes of Greenwood and Chong, with Gomes and Garner to follow.
That is top work and he is getting rid of some of the rot. He can’t do it all in one window. He would probably make a good DoF. I just don’t think he is good enough to get us back to the top as manager. Which is no criticism, because not many managers would be able to get us there.
Already got rid of Sanchez, Lukaku, Fellaini, Smalling, Darmian. And yes Herrera is a loss but he never played more than 35 games a season for us. He also wanted absurd wages, which he didn’t deserve. He was good but not amazing. Ole also brought in James, Maguire, AWB, while bedding in the likes of Greenwood and Chong, with Gomes and Garner to follow.
That is top work and he is getting rid of some of the rot. He can’t do it all in one window. He would probably make a good DoF. I just don’t think he is good enough to get us back to the top as manager. Which is no criticism, because not many managers would be able to get us there.
Leicester are in third. So by your logic they are much better than us. If you can agree to that, I will agree to positions defining the quality of teams this early in the season.
As for the saves, I think you nay need to rewatch the match. We had plenty of possession, especially when they went down to 10, but we hardly did anything with that possession. The point that you agree we could not deliver in the final third time and again actually proves the point we are not a well coached team. We seem bereft of playing intricate football except for a couple of moments of individual brilliance. Many times it fails because it seems the players are trying those moves for the first time itself.
This is the whole point. We are being coached to counter attack at pace. But when there is no space behind our players don't know how to break down that defense. We are really poor and keep fumbling around in front of a packed defense. Unless that is sorted, it will keep repeating and it won't matter how many deadwood we ship off.
Frankly why everyone are so obsessed with which place we'll finish this season FGS? You're worried that no big player wanna come next summer? Look at all the "big names" we've signed and D. James and you'd realise that we don't need those overpaid fancy big names anymore, what we need are the right players with some desire, some hunger to play for us.
Forget the glorious SAF time, accept the fact that we're rebuilding from scratch and also cleaning the mess we have after those years with the "big name" strategy. There is NO freaking quick fix for all this mess.
Look at Liverpool for example, Klopp finished 7th in his first season (2015-2016) but each year they saw some improvements added and most importantly the direction was correct with a clear strategy, no panic or fancy big name buy.
This is Ole's first true transfer market (he bought no one in Jan) and his first true season:
- All his three signings look very promising and they do WANT to play for us.
- We're or at least trying to play direct attacking football
- The deadwoods are being cleared out (actually only Rojo left).
So we gonna sack him now and bring in another "big name" ? Yeah that'll make a lot of sense.
Forget the glorious SAF time, accept the fact that we're rebuilding from scratch and also cleaning the mess we have after those years with the "big name" strategy. There is NO freaking quick fix for all this mess.
Look at Liverpool for example, Klopp finished 7th in his first season (2015-2016) but each year they saw some improvements added and most importantly the direction was correct with a clear strategy, no panic or fancy big name buy.
This is Ole's first true transfer market (he bought no one in Jan) and his first true season:
- All his three signings look very promising and they do WANT to play for us.
- We're or at least trying to play direct attacking football
- The deadwoods are being cleared out (actually only Rojo left).
So we gonna sack him now and bring in another "big name" ? Yeah that'll make a lot of sense.
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I just really worry about Ole whenever he goes behind in a game,doesn't look like he has the tactical nous to turn around a losing situation into a winning one.
I have to be honest I really don't know anyone off the top of my head that he could bring in to help with that.
I have to be honest I really don't know anyone off the top of my head that he could bring in to help with that.
Yeah. Everything is very much result oriented. So if we win, people do the reverse engineering and claim how everything is good.
Even though results are not what is expected, we played well and created chances to win game. We played well but very few mistakes that we did were punished.
I don't know whether Solskjaer is good enough to take us to next level but he has right ideas. We lack couple of players (cm/DM and RW) but I have bit of confidence that we will start picking up points sooner. Imo we are doing better than last season as a team, just need to convert the chances into goals.
I'm as disappointed about the results as the next guy on here.
But if we compare the results with the same fixtures last season, then we have won 2 points more than we did last season so that has to be
a positive yes? I think as long as we win more points than we did last season we have progress.
Also I believe that there are lots of positives to take with us from the first games. Defense looks better, more attacking football. Daniel James! Pogba looks more invested and genuinely disappointed in him self when
he makes errors. More refreshing than last season when it looked like he was thinking about what to twitter next when he lost the ball.
I think we may be on to something here...
Premier league 2018-19
Manchester United – Chelsea 1-1
Wolverhampton – Manchester United 2-1
Manchester United – Crystal Palace 0-0
Southampton – Manchester United 2-2
But if we compare the results with the same fixtures last season, then we have won 2 points more than we did last season so that has to be
a positive yes? I think as long as we win more points than we did last season we have progress.
Also I believe that there are lots of positives to take with us from the first games. Defense looks better, more attacking football. Daniel James! Pogba looks more invested and genuinely disappointed in him self when
he makes errors. More refreshing than last season when it looked like he was thinking about what to twitter next when he lost the ball.
I think we may be on to something here...
Premier league 2018-19
Manchester United – Chelsea 1-1
Wolverhampton – Manchester United 2-1
Manchester United – Crystal Palace 0-0
Southampton – Manchester United 2-2
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