If that was the case then it's really worrying and Ole should have been man enough to walk. I find it hard to believe that a club that reported £300m cash in the bank would have such small budget and effectively kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
- Thread starter Samid
- Start date
- Status
I think the style of play is obvious, yet unrefined. Watch the first 20 minutes Rochdale match, You'll see pretty much how we want to play, except for the lack of overlaps with wingbacks. Trust me, I too was furious after almost every match, but after calming down and watching again with analytical eyes, I can see things I didn't see when I was watching emotionally.
As for coaching to improve players, that takes time to manifest. It's not going to be an immediate change, so I'll wait a bit before casting judgement on that aspect.
Its idiocy of the highest order, the commercial arm rides on the success of the football side. You can't negotiate £75m/season kit deals for an eighth placed team unless if they are planning to sell in the short to medium term. In the mid 2000s Ferguson had an Assistant Manager who was an international class manager in his own right such that his CV led to Real Madrid poaching him from us. Now..
He’s not nearly good enough for us but you get the feeling we are more in desperate need of a midfield than attack atm.
Rashfords problem of no shots in good areas is because he never gets the ball. Any striker we bring in will suffer the same fate. I wouldn’t mind taking a gamble on Haaland as a physical presence up top. He’s got pace and potential unlike Madzukic, probs worth the gamble unless we are planning to miss out midfield all together and hit it long.
That is an option with a player like madzukic drfiting out wide on goal kicks etc to win the header and keep Pogba close to him to hoover up the second ball. Awful to watch but more effective than what we are doing id assume.
Rashfords problem of no shots in good areas is because he never gets the ball. Any striker we bring in will suffer the same fate. I wouldn’t mind taking a gamble on Haaland as a physical presence up top. He’s got pace and potential unlike Madzukic, probs worth the gamble unless we are planning to miss out midfield all together and hit it long.
That is an option with a player like madzukic drfiting out wide on goal kicks etc to win the header and keep Pogba close to him to hoover up the second ball. Awful to watch but more effective than what we are doing id assume.
Another Deluded fan.... There squad was absolute rubbish. So bad they probably had a left back who was worse than Ashley Young. Imagine that..
However one manager decides to make a player of that quality captain the other switches him for James Milner.
According to the fans who desperately keep defending our failing managers, we have the worst squad in the league and Ole is even overachieving, we should be grateful to him
According to the fans who desperately keep defending our failing managers, we have the worst squad in the league and Ole is even overachieving, we should be grateful to him
I know... like the managers it's an ongoing cycle
.. but it's a funny point now that players actually leave here and improve their careers.. It use to be the other way round.According to the fans who desperately keep defending our failing managers, we have the worst squad in the league and Ole is even overachieving, we should be grateful to him
Take a long hard look at our squad and then compare it to the top 8 sides in the league.
Sure thing we realy need a RW as well but I don't see we'll go for more than one player in Jan (maybe even zero) so for me a DM is top priority.
Totally agreed.
With the obvious exception of Liverpool and City, I think the main difference between us and the rest is not in squad quality but that we have clearly the worst manager.
Depends if you think Johnny Evans, Kasper Schmiechel, Leno, Skorates, Xhaka, Pedro, Emerson, Aurier and players of that ilk are actually any good.
It's easy to be a glass half empty type of guy when it comes to players. At the end of the day from 3rd down the 6th it's a flip of a coin who is better. It falls on who's the better team and right now as a "team" we are the worst!!
Alright, let's do a comparison instead of calling names.
Which DM do we have that's better than Emre Can? Or Henderson? Or at least Lucas Leiva?
Besides Pogba, which CM do we have better than Henderson or Milner?
Besides Pogba again, which AM is better than Coutinho, or Firmino, or Lallana?
Do we currently have a better striker than Sturridge?
Remember, this is talking about the players back then, not how they turned out right now. Of course Klopp could find some goals with a very decent attack of those players! The point being there are quite a few areas where we actually have no quality at all. Imagine not having a DM or decent AM and trying to play a 4-2-3-1 (something I've slated Ole for before).
Honestly, as I said, I've slated Ole before and will probably continue to do so, so hearing things like 'another deluded fan' is annoying when I'm just trying to talk reality. Do I always have to post Oleout in every post to not be a deluded fan? I'm not 100% on Ole, but make no mistake, our squad is absolutely unbalanced.
Nothing is going to change at the club until Woodward goes and ideally the Glazers too. May as well leave Ole in charge. He might end up doing us a favour long term by doing an awful job. Taking one for the team it is called.
If we keep scraping 4th or winning the Europa it only prolongs the Glazer era. We need the club to start suffering now to force them out.
Absolutely no point in sacking Ole, even though I don't think he's good enough either, while Woodward is still in charge.
If we keep scraping 4th or winning the Europa it only prolongs the Glazer era. We need the club to start suffering now to force them out.
Absolutely no point in sacking Ole, even though I don't think he's good enough either, while Woodward is still in charge.
Funny how you completely ignored their defence which comprised of Mignolet, Clyne, Skrtel, Lovren and Moreno
Gotta cherry-pick to push that agenda right?
Funny how you completely ignored their defence which comprised of Mignolet, Clyne, Skrtel, Lovren and Moreno
Gotta cherry-pick to push that agenda right?
Our goalkeeper, defence, and wingbacks are better than theirs. But that wasn't really my point.
My point was that we are unbalanced. We don't have a workable DM, so we're playing a box to box mid and our only good attacking mid in a 2. We don't have any other good attacking mid, so that area is usually a black hole.
I gave an example previously of swapping De Bruyne and Casemiro would make Madrid worse, because they would be unbalanced. This is what I was alluding to.
Now I've seriously criticized Ole for using a 4-2-3-1, so don't get me wrong about this being purely a defence of Ole. It's more a criticism of our squad. Especially when the original point was about Klopp being able to score goals with his initial squad.
Last edited:
Half of the players you mentioned like Henderson or Lallana were shite before Klopp, nobody would have wanted them in our team.
You made a long post about how Klopp had a better squad and more 'complete' team which is simply not true. His squad was chock full of shit, expensive, overpaid players. I can only pick two quality players out of that squad i.e. Firmino and Coutinho. You mention Sturridge, but I suggest you to look at his injury record. He gives Jones a run for his money. Fact is, even without absolutely zero buys he reached 2 finals. Their football was getting progressively better with every passing month. That is the reason he was afforded time and money to build his team.
You talk about 'glaring holes' in the squad, but Klopp went on and actually fixed those holes when he had a window open to do business. Whereas Ole on other hand, not only he got rid of bunch of useful players. He ignored the RW which has been a gaping hole for god knows how many years, he ignored the black hole which is our midfield (and that is with 2 midfielders leaving). Then he goes on to spend 70% of his transfer budget on a CB when the club already had 6 of them. It's bad squad management and nothing more. Polar opposite to what Klopp did at Liverpool.
Who are the "useful players" Ole got rid of?
Don't worry, we agree on the squad not being quality, it was absolutely dire. I think you understood my point about the holes, so I'll address that.
I in fact agree with a lot of this as well. I didn't like Ole spending so much on a CB and chasing him the entire summer while ignoring our need for a DM. I like that he got rid of a few players for us, at least temporarily, but that they were not replaced was poor. As you said, it does seem like bad squad management.
However, the post I initially responded to was talking about how Klopp was able to score goals, and I simply said it's important to take into account the context of their respective squads. That doesn't alleviate Ole from responsibility for how the squad looks at all.
I'm getting the feeling that you might think I'm 'Ole in' or whatever and are trying to argue against it, but really all I'm saying is that maybe with a squad with less glaring holes, we will be able to see Ole's playstyle better, especially how attacking it really is. Right now I feel he is too handicapped by the holes in the squad, even though he himself may have contributed to them.
Last edited:
True, I might be talking with hindsight. I reckon it would still be close though, with players like Lingard vs Lallana, or Matic vs Can/ Henderson. But I do take your point on board.
As I have explained in numerous other posts - I am not saying Poch has done a poor job. He has done a good job, I just don't understand why People dream of having him as our manager.
It's not like he has taken a bunch of nobodys to where they are today. Half the Spurs-team were there when he took charge - and the 2 Seasons before Pochettino they picked up 69 and 72 Points. Apart from the 16/17 season - they haven't done much better...so the nothing team you talk about is not correct.
And I agree - if OGS has a season where he gets 86 Points - it will be a success. The other 4 Seasons Poch has - nah...not that great.
Funny how you completely ignored their defence which comprised of Mignolet, Clyne, Skrtel, Lovren and Moreno
Gotta cherry-pick to push that agenda right?
Also Henderson, Leiva and Can were all flops.
Well, he, too, has gone up against Pep and Klopp. Hard to keep up with them.
Anyway the five seasons before he was appointed:
They averaged 66 points compared to the 74 they average now.
He's made them into a genuinely top team topped off with a CL final.
i have to agree....the main reason being the failure to replace the two forwards that left, leaving us without the goal scorers to compete.
Say Pep, Poch, Big Sam, Mourinho, or any other manager has no style of play and you’ll get a clear answer about what their team’s style of play is. Say Ole has no style of play and you get the above snakes oil sales pitch.
I'm getting the impression you're not very interested in my posts.
Fair enough man, we'll leave it at that.
I think out of our upcoming 5 league games we'll end up with 0 points. This team has it's flaws, yes but at the same time they are horrendously badly coached. There's no fighting spirit or will to win there. They're all a bunch of unmotivated clowns.
Again, it's pay-walled. Can you copy and paste the article?
Thanks in advance if possible. x
Fellaini and Herrera become useful when they have not been replaced by anyone who is better than them. In this case no replacements were brought in.
I see no difference between Moyes going after Fabregas and Ole going after Dybala. None of them were going to come.
If we agree that Moyes was out of his depth after managing Everton for such a long time surely we can agree that Ole is out of his depth having never ever managed any decent size club.
You can't copy and paste an article behind a paywall. A summary of a pay-walled article can be posted.
1) I agree
2) No they didn't. The actual number was 68.4 - compared to 73.6 afterwards. So the difference is 5,2 Points - and that includes Harry Redknapp taking over a crap team in 2008 which ended with 46 Points. And none of the managers before him had Harry kane scoring 25+ goals every season
3) he has made them into a top-4 team yes. But they really weren't that far away when he took over - and he inherited Harry Kane, Lloris, Walker, Lamela, Vertonghen, Eriksen, Dembele - so its not like he took over a horribly poor side.
I am not questioning that Pochettino is a good manager - I am questioning this notion that he is the best manager we can possibly get. People don't want OGS fine - I don't agree but I have no problems understanding that. But Pochettino has done nothing to indicate he is a top-top manager. He is nowhere near Klopp or Guardiola.
Not saying that all, but I'm guessing many seldom watched Liverpool when Klopp joined and only have stats to go on. I stand by Ole and I want him to be given a proper chance but I'll admit it doesn't look good. I still believe Ole was side-blinded by the board this transfer window. He was persistent in press-conferences that any outgoings would be replaced, which they were not. I simply can't believe that Ole felt the squad was good enough as it is now. But I'm just guessing.
I never expected Ole to outshine veterans like Mourinho and Van Gaal in the tactical department but I did expect him to bring some joy back to our players and with that ignite some Oomph! in them. That hasn't happened and they look as flat and un-motivated as under Mourinho.
I'll say it again, I'll back Ole until he gets another window or two but I do have my doubts about his ability as a manager.
Re Herrera he got a big offer from Psg and moved on. I believe he committed himself to Psg when Jose was still in.charge.
Re Fellaini, this is classic revisionism. When he was here, he used to get all sort of abuse (now being hurled at Young).
Now he s gone and some people are "missing him".
More names please..
What a time to be alive. Level on points with Sheffield United and Burnely. Behind West Ham, Leicester, Bournemouth and Palace. And apparently, it takes time to be better than these teams. True relegation candidate standards.
There should be no excuse for him if we lose to Arsenal, but we all know he'll keep the job anyway. Glazers are only interested in milking the gullible fans so a harmless PR puppet like Ole is ideal for them.
Ole was the only player to join the fans in protesting them and has advocated ownership issues in Norway. He is not a puppet and you're a disrespectful cnut to call him one
Fair enough and I agree, to some extent. Problem is Ole is about 2 or 3 levels below Poch. And, whilst I never wanted Poch before, I'd rather him than Ole.
Dybala has some 3 party image rights.. no wonder he hasnt moved .. did you see Evras rant
Liverpool got hammered 6 goals by Stoke.. Do you still remember that... football is cyclical.. my friend .. Lets make sure Glazers/Ed do not eat the club alive.. Every team has a plan.. structure in place .. and they are spending money wisely... we have been spending money and buying over the hill stars .. on massive salary... If Jose couldn't fix this team with the current owners .. I doubt anybody will... Unless we start getting serious hits on the balance sheet.. we will always be shit ...
So all we can do is get behind the manager ..
- Status