They finished top 4 about twice in the previous 15 years before Poch, otherwise were hanging around 5th or 6th at best. With him in charge they finished top 4 three times in 4 seasons, so yes, he made a difference.
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Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
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They finished top 4 about twice in the previous 15 years before Poch, otherwise were hanging around 5th or 6th at best. With him in charge they finished top 4 three times in 4 seasons, so yes, he made a difference.
Poch did built this Spurs team, improved their players, made them achieve their potential and made many of the top class. In fact that's his biggest strength as a coach that he showed with them. The likes of Kane or Alli weren't really top players bought for millions when he arrived, and the squad changed a lot from when he took over. Loads of players left in his first 2 seasons in particular and got replaced :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015–16_Tottenham_Hotspur_F.C._season
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014–15_Tottenham_Hotspur_F.C._season
You keep saying Poch has no track record in winning trophies or building as if Ole has a track record at all in building any teams at top level or achieving anything, oh wait, you count these leagues won at Norway as actual trophies compared to Poch failing to win the league or CL in the country with the strongest league in the world and teams that spent and have bigger budget than him. This point throws the entire logic out of the window. So we should start hiring managers wo win inferior leagues as normal from now on or it's allowed for Ole only? Will you have hold this same point if it was any other manager than Ole?
Yeah he got burnt out at 47. I think we said loads of times here Klopp fought for relegation in his last season with BVB and finished 7th at the end even though he won the league the previous 2 seasons, guess Liverpool made a mistake not trusting Rodgers and taking a gamble with a failing manager as Klopp.
Taking one season as a sample never stops amazes me. You literally his previous seasons and how he made them a regular 2nd or 3rd team, hailing Ole winning leagues at Norway then take the current season at the end of his cycle at Spurs to prove that sacking Ole will be wrong.
The reality is Poch has a strong track record at top flight with a team with little to no budget which makes people believe he might do it for us while Ole has absolutely no track record whatsoever to support the argument of him staying or succeeding in building teams. With Poch you know what you will get, he will build a decent team (even if you don't like that but that is what actually happened), improve young players and coach football in them. With Ole the only thing you have to make you believe he will do any of this is pure romanticism and blind optimism based on his state as an ex legend.
Bring any other manager with absolutely any other name other than Ole Gunnar Solskjær who won some leagues and cups in Norway or any inferior league and I doubt you will be holding this ridiculous argument about how Ole won more trophies than Poch.
What do you mean source? I was watching the show. You think I'm just making random stuff up?
I don't think the show is online
Well, you certainly have no way of backing your claims up or let others judge the reliabilty of your source.
Results wise not great, no problem admitting that, but missing Martial, Pogba, AWB and Shaw is obviously making the team significantly worse. How good is Liverpool without Mane, Salah, TAA and Robertson? At least give him the benefit of playing his best elevene for an extended time.
Bar Pogba, we should see his preferred first team in the PL matches coming up. xG has United third. The number of penalties given is also an indicator. Tactics was brilliant against Liverpool, and there were obvious improvements in the attacking play against Norwich. Let's see how they kick on. Besides, United is through the group stage in EL with a win at home to Partizan, and have been playing mostly cast-offs and kids in the first three games. That's good squad management.
If we see no improvements the coming weeks, I am with you. But playing a substandard team will not showcase how well the team is coached.
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So I'm pretty frustrated with what I perceive as very modest tactical ability on the part of our coaching staff and especially critical of the summer squad management. But this leak about practice makes me ask the following questions:
Which of our players are actually versed in modern and effective training methods? As far as I know, the majority of them are either kids or washed up losers that aren't fit to wear our badge anymore and may well never have had Sir Alex been in charge. Or a bit of both. So who the feck are they to talk antiquated and criticize these methods when nobodies has truly set them straight for many a season?
Yet again stinks of shit players trying to extend their stay in the club without the attitude to go with it. Fecking tw*ts.
The problem is, we never built on the previous managers styles, Moyes (I’m not sure what his style was), Van Gaal, and Mourinho had different styles, so when we appointed managers we needed to buy different type of players, obviously you can’t change the whole 11 but you have to have 4-5 for the foundation..
I think we need someone much better than Ole, I understand that Mourinho and Van Gaal were good managers, and for sure you can’t guarantee anything, but chances are you’d find someone better than Ole easily, Ole’s record with the club is the indicator..
like you said though, we’ll see what happens, who know if Ole will be here by the end of the season or not, and honestly all we say here are just opinions, it’s not like we’re getting paid millions and have the best connects/technology to make the best judgment, I’m sure many of us will be wrong at one thing or another.
We all want our team to play nice and hopefully one day will wing trophies again, one thing though I have to say, is we can’t drop our standards, that’ll be the death of the club.. Unfortunately many of our fans have dropped their standards because they love Ole (we all do, well for me I love him as a player) for the sake of supporting him/giving him a leeway since he’s a legend.
Agrees that there's some pure nonsense however IMO it's still better than being negative or blaming the players/the board.
I don't think it's entirely his fault. All managers want more options and strengthen their squad, it helps directly with ensuring their job anyway. Ole must be no exception.
Plus trying to buy the right ones is better than just buying some for the sake of replacements. We have so many deadwood already and still unable to clear them all.
Anyway did not buy any CM/DM is a terrible mistake IMO.
I think in the match vs Chelsea our initial intention was to attack however their superior midfield forced us to sit back and counter. The match with Palace, Wolves we did try to play fast attacking football as well if my memory serves me right. These matches happen to be the matches we had full or somewhat almost our first XI. That's why I said "try" and "whenever possible".
Yeah me too, hope more of the same to come. If not of course he should go.
A big name manager would have more pressure and need to protect his reputation more. Thus he'd more probably resort to quick fix, short term signings to save his ass first IMO. I'm pretty tired with big name managers after VG and Mourinho. All they left was a bigger mess for their successor.
If Ole gets sacked I hope we'd appoint someone like Nagelsmann. From what I heard he seems to be the right choice, however I don't know if he'd like to come here though.
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How can you claim he built that Spurs team if he has no say in the transfers? Another article:
https://talksport.com/football/580352/tottenham-news-mauricio-pochettino-transfers/
And i never claimed those league wins with Molde was amazing achievements, but you can only beat what is ahead of you and Molde winning the EL/CL would be the upset of the century considering the league gets picked clean of anyone who looks like a footballer. And despite it being something people like to hold against him, Ole being a former player under Ferguson and then coach for the reserves counts for something. Hes not some random bloke from the street, hes been involved with the club for over a decade
And i am not going to lie. Considering i have a soft spot for Ole (as most do) and hes been involved with the club for so long i am willing to give him more rope than someone with a similar CV. That being said, even if we had this imaginary other manager with a similar CV that was not Ole, that does still mean i would have wanted him sacked now. Because
- The squad was a complete shambles when he got here and that takes time to fix. And i am not only talking about players who are not good enough. I am talking about awful fitness levels (we were rock bottom in overall distance covered and number of sprints under Jose), bad attitudes and infighting in the squad and a host of other problems that you really should not be having if you want to be a top club. The squad is still a mess to some extent, but Ole imo has taken the correct steps in terms of getting rid of unwanted players and bringing in good ones. Fitness has been worked on a lot and is markedly improved and the squad seems happier and more connected then they have in a long time. Another key point is that the players are still backing Ole, despite our dreadful form since March. https://onefootball.com/en/news/mct...-with-solskjaer-en-27439790?variable=20191030. Remember Chelsea last year under Sarri? Did you see Xhaka this weekened? The fact that our lads is still in Oles corner despite our rotten form is super important. It means they trust him and is buying whatever he is selling.
- A football club is a large organization and while the manager is the most important man, he needs support from a lot of other people to keep a steady ship. We tried big name manager and we tried throwing money around on galactigos signings and it all turned into a shitshow in the end. Why do we have so many muscular injuries? Why are we fecking about so much with player contracts? Why cant our scouts find a single hidden gem in 6 years? Fun little anecdote: Erling Haaland who is now ripping up the Austrian league and the CL, played (and was developed to some extent) under Ole at Molde between 2016-2018. Ole saw that this kid was special, so he invited people from United to come look at him in early 2018. Whoever was there decided that "nah, this kids not it". Now we are reportedly in for him while every other top club in Europe also have their eyes on him and he is going to cost a fortune when we could have had him for peanuts. Same with Fernandinho who is now integral in a superb Liverpool side and we opted for fecking Fred instead. And i am not saying that since A did not work then B must work, but either way it was clear that something had to change. Has the penny finally dropped for Woody? Who knows, his recent interviews might suggest so, but it was pretty evident that Jose was not happy with how the club was run when he went into full self destruct mode in his 3rd season. And this is not specifically about Ole, but rather that we as a club have other problems that needs to be addressed besides the manager.
- What realistic benefits would sacking him now give us? We wont cease to exist as a club just because we finish outside of top 4 and while CL football brings big revenues and status, our fiscal reports are still well into the black and we are still a big club with pulling power without CL football. Granted that if we finish the season as poorly as we have started it, Ole should go in May, but having another spin on the managerial merry go-around now would be catastrophic imo. Not only would it be bad for the clubs image, but as i said earlier, it would make the pressure on the new guy utterly inhuman. Beloved club legend get sacked 3 months into his first full season when the team is clearly in a transitional phase? Only an utterly arrogant madman would try to fill a vacancy like that....so Jose i guess?
I have no problems with people saying OGS should be fired (even if I think they are wrong) - or that the results aren't good enough...as long as they have a logical reason for wanting him out. "I Think Allegri is better" - fine. "The results aren't good enough" - fine.
But there are too many here with claims that are
In my opinion - Pochettino has been very lucky with his clubs - he has taken over the right clubs at the right time, and actually improved them very little. Both Southampton and Spurs had very good sides when he took charge and were on their way up. And I agree - Tottenham has a very low net spend - but that has actually more to do with Spurs ability to sell players at insane prices, than Pochettino not spending Money.
For instance during the summer of 2016 - Spurs managed to sell Alex Pritchard, Ryan Mason, Nabil Bentaleb and Nacer Chadli for a combined £50 million.
The fact is - Pochettino did average at best when at Espanyol. He certainly didn't improve them one bit. One season he lifted them to 8th position - slightly higher than they usually ended, but that was a season where they beat a bunch of teams by 3-4-5 Points and only managed 49 Points in 38 matches. His win percentage was in the low 30s. So he didn't do poorly - it was just nothing better than they were before he took over...average.
Southampton had been promoted from the Championship in the season 2011/2012 under Nigel Adkins who had put together a fairly decent squad of players including Ricky Lambert, Schneiderlin, Yoshida, Jack Cork, Nathan Clyne, Gazzaniga, Adam Lallana, Jose Fonte, Jason Puncheon, Jay Rodriguez and a young Luke Shaw.
But they got off to a horrible start - with 4 Points from the first 10 matches. But after this, Nigel Adkins started turning the results around - and they lost only 2 of the next 12 League games (one away at Anfield) - and picked up 18 Points from 12 matches. So it was a shock to everyone that Adkins was fired in mid-january after a string of 1 win and 4 draw from their last 5 matches (2 of the Draws were against Arsenal at home and Chelsea away). So at the time they were above relegation
Under Pochettino things continued pretty much in the same form as before and they picked up 19 points from their last 16 games, which was enough to help them stay clear of relegation.
During the summer Pochettino made a couple of shrewd deals in Wanyama and Lovren - and one of the worst signings in the clubs history when he forked out £15 million for Dani Osvaldo - so it was mixed in the transfer market.
And suddenly Southampton had a very good side : Boruc / Gazzaniga in goal - Shaw at left back - Fonte and Lovren in central defence
and Clyne or Callum Chambers at right back.
Schneiderlin, Ward-Prowse, Adam Lallana, Wanyama, Jack Cork and Steven Davis in midfield
Jay Rodriguez and Ricky Lambert up front
And Southampton got off to a good start with 6 wins in 11 - they only won 9 games in their last 27 - but that was more than enough to lift Southampton to 8th position. Which was a very good season for Spurs, but looking at their team .. not breathtaking considering the talent they had in the squad with the majority of their players being regulars at better clubs within 2-3 years.
So once again - Pochettino did good - but not great. And Southampton - did they fall apart after Pochettino left ? Despite losing Shaw, Chambers, Lambert, Lovren and Lallana - they actually improved and finished 7 the season after. Koeman made several brilliant signings including Graziano Pelle, Sadio Mane, Dusan Tadic, Shane Long and got Alderweireld and Bertrand on-loan.
What did Pochettino take over at Spurs ? A mediocre side ? Certainly not - after several horrible season, Spurs had under Redknapp and Villas-Boas established themselves as a top 4-6 team. And Spurs finished 6th with 69 Points the season before Pochettino took over.
And once again Pochettino took over a decent side: In goal Lloris - in defence they had Walker, Rose, Vertonghen - in midfield Capoue, Dembele, Eriksen, Lennon, Lamela, Townsend and up front a certain Harry Kane had just broken into the side. There were obvious weaknesses but in Lloris, Rose, Eriksen, Vertonghen, Kane and Lamela - they still have half their current core.
2014/15
He signed a lot of players fairly cheap - and he needs credit for picking up Alli and Dier for about £10 million. But he also gave away a certain Gylfi Sigurdsson in exchance for Ben Davies and Michel Vorm which probably wasn't his smartest piece of business.
Spurs ended 5th with 64 Points - which was worse than the season before.
2015/16
This was the season when Pochettino actually made his best signings - he picked up Trippier, Alderweireld and Son for a total of £37 million. Spurs climbed to 3rd in the League with 70 Points - of course helped by the fact that every single top-team (apart from Leicester) had a poor season. But there was one reason for Spurs' position in the table - Harry Kane. He scored 25 goals - Alli scored 10 and no one else got more than 6 goals.
2016/17
During the summer of 2016 - Pochettino made a lot of poor signings - £30 million for Sissoko, £17 million for Janssen and £10 for NKoudou - and he got Wanyama for £11 million who was a good business. But by now his team fell into place. And Eriksen, Son, Kane and Alli tore almost every team apart - scoring 89 goals between them. And if we had looked at the results of this season and this season alone, I would agree that Pochettino was a brilliant manager. And if it hadnt been for a brilliant City-side, Spurs would have won the League.
2017/18
Now Spurs were gonna win the League - and they spent BIG. About £120 million was spent….poorly. For that kind of Money they got Lucas Moura (in january), Juan Foyth, Davinson Sanchez, Serge Aurier, Paolo Gazzaniga and Fernando Llorente. But the spending looked much nicer on paper as Spurs managed to get £70 million from the sales of Walker and Kevin Wimmer. So the net spend in fact wasn't too bad.
Foyth didn't play, Aurier was poor, Sanchez was a regular but was good rather than great, Llorente started 1 game, and Sissoko was poor.
Once again Kane bailed Spurs out with 30 goals. Spurs only had 4 players scoring goals - no other players than Eriksen, Kane, Alli and Son scored more than 2 goals. It was still a good season by Spurs where they picked up 77 Points - but they were 23 Points away from City which they were close to the season before.
2018/19
Spurs didn't sign any new players but for 2/3 of the season Spurs looked good. By february 10th - Spurs looked capable of winning the League but then it all fell apart. Alli had a poor season, Eriksen wasn't as good as before and even Kane looked human. They lost 7 out of the last 12 games and finished 4th with 71 Points. But reached the C.L final which was a great achievment - but lost.
Have Spurs improved under Pochettino - of course. But apart from that one superb season in 16/17 - they haven't improved a lot. And the big question is - what is the main reason for that ? Is it Pochettino - or is perhaps the explanation Harry Kane ? Pochettinos transfer record isn't great - after the summer of 2015 Spurs haven't made one signing that went on to become a key-player. Despite spending close to £200 million on transfers (I am not counting this summers signing as they are too early to judge). Sanchez, Foyth, Aurier, Llorente, Sissoko, Moura, Wanyama, Nkoudou and Jansen - those transfers are as bad as Uniteds over the last 4-5 seasons. And that has nothing to do with low spending - in 2016 and 2017, £200 million was still a hell of a lot of money - it's just that Pochettino didn't spend them too well.
Kane made Spurs a great team - not Pochettino
It takes time for the desired results to be produced and for the tactical plan to be fully realised. However with the really good coaches, especially in this age of coaches (and less managers) and progressive tactical setups, you can see their imprint from early on and it visibly grows with time. With Klopp from nearly day one his footprint on the team was showing. Same with Pep. Same with Sarri last season. Or Frank this season. Or Jose at Chelsea. It's the managers who tend to not have a great setup or do have a confused one where it's hard to spot. At least that's how it's been over the last decade.
How do I know how they are coached? Usually a brilliantly coached team appears a brilliantly coached team. You could tell that Pep was coaching Barcelona well because while watching them it was evident that you were watching a group of players who were bring coached excellently. We on the other hand appear a poorly managed team fairly often.
I mean he's been doing a pretty poor job. When that happens at a huge club, there tends to be fans calling for the manager to be sacked. When he shows signs of being a brilliant manager , many of those fans will feel he can be a brilliant manager.Ole getting leeway? Have you seen the state of this thread and the number of other threads calling for his head? It surpassed even the #PogbaIsAVirus trend
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He does get a bit of an easy ride. There's no doubt about that. He's rightfully not disliked because he isn't a prick like Mourinho. But becuase he's likeable and a beloved ex player, there are many who seemingly have given him a free hand. I've generally maintained that he should be given a few more months - maybe till Jan/Feb to see signs of a quality manager in him. But I don't agree with those who refuse to even him accountable for doing his job because our players are shit/owners are shit/earth is round when it should be.
Completely missed the point. We shouldn't be "expecting a bad result" because that would be ridiculous. If you're at a top club, you go into every football match looking to win and looking to put on a performance. What you care about is irrelevant. Don't watch the match if you don't care. But the players and manager by virtue of having the honor of representing one of the biggest clubs of the planet are expected to be up for it and put on a performance. Neither the players nor the manager get to bypass games like this. Especially against another big team in England.
As for Ole, I'll admit I have lost most of my faith in him over the last month or two. However, we have many key players returning now. And let's see whether over the next few months he can show everyone that there's a proper progressive and quality manager in him.
He's saying that after he fell with the board now, but of course you can look at his earlier years there and you will obviously say he had his say back then. He got rid of loads of players, some of them were big names as well as Edebayour. Regardless of him building the team or not, he did improve loads of players there and made the likes of Kane, Erikson and Alli etc become top class. Eriksen was a good talent and Kane and Alli were no name players, so he did improve the team and had a good track record with youth, things that will actually benefit us. On the other hand Ole doesn't have any track record on top level to discuss.
Yeah you can only beat in front of you but that's escaping the obvious point you can't give an excuse for that he spent the majority of his career in a no name league with one job on high level in which he relegated them to Championship then was about to relegate them to Norway, then had to return to Norway for more years before we ended up hiring him as a caretaker. 9-10 years of management with the majority of them in no name league. It just means one thing really, that you are a nothing manager on top level. There's no excuses around this. Bring any other manager from the same league and every Tom, Dick and Harry will label him a nothing manager on top level. Just because he's an ex legend doesn't make him any different.
And no, your experience as a previous player under a manager means feck all in the long run, otherwise Maradona wouldn't have ended as a god awful manager.
Excuses everywhere. The squad he got finished second the previous season, defeating every team in the league and having the second best record in big games after City. These same players everyone keep slaughtering to defend him were the reason he got the job to start with during the honeymoon period with 14 wins in 19 matches. Everyone during Mourinho time were persistent the squad was good enough to play far better football and even have closer gap of points with City than 19. After the results went to shite suddenly it became entirely the players fault. It's like wins are thanks to Ole, losses are thanks to players.
He was the one who fecked up the squad in summer by selling loads of useful and helpful players who helped us on multiple occasions and brought no one as a replacement. He had his summer to splash the cash and the team ended the summer with even more deficiencies than when we entered it. And if you believe in media quotes blindly as the Poch one here's him saying before Maguire transfer we will sign 1 or 2 more players only, one of them being Maguire, leaving 1 more which would have been definitely not enough to cover for all the deficiencies our idiotic mass selling caused :
https://metro.co.uk/2019/08/03/man-...er-still-hoping-two-signings-summer-10513793/
The fitness excuse has been running around since the dreadful run at the end of last season and everyone kept telling us the great upcoming preseason will solve it. Enter the preseaosn, and we already had multiple ayers injuried by September, so I don't get how can you or anyone still use this. It's his problem at this point as a manager. The preseason and training rejime people kept believing will fix it didn't, maybe it even aggravated it as we started those injuries in the second fecking month of the season, directly after the preseason. It is his responsibility as a manager.
I don't get the argument that we tried big names and failed so let's stick around with a terrible manager who was an ex legend as it's a different approach and who knows, so what? Each time we try an experiment with a manager and fail and we move on to a different approach and never repeat. So after trying big names and now a no name manager, when Ole inevitably gets sacked where we move from here? Should we hire no manager because we tried all approaches, PL experienced, possession based, defensive and an ex legend?
Football clubs are never run like that. You simply hire the best option and hope for the best. Never matter who fails previously because you don't know what will happen on hiring a manager.
The problem with Ole is there's nothing on the pitch so far to support this "building the team", "transitional period" and all this nonsense. Our style of play has been terrible for the majority of time, the squad was fecked in summer instead of being strengthened, and his complete lack of ideas when we go down and terrible in game management affect our second half of every game. People would have been more patient if we played better football, saw the squad improved after the last summer and youth got integrated in the team. Nothing of these happened. This "rebuilding project" I can only sense in the head of Ole in posters, but you look on the actual pitch and you see nothing on that.
Patience and time doesn't make miraculously a top manager. You can bring any relegation fodder manager from the bottom of the league and give him 10 years and I doubt he will become world class manager. Patience is fine when there are signs to suggest it will pay off, not based on pure and blind optimism streaming from the fact he's an ex legend, and no, I do believe you and many others opinion would have been different if that was another manager. When did "the buck stops with manager?" phrase everyone were telling us previously?
So far for Ole in posters every positive thing is thanks to Ole, and every negative thing is thanks to Woodward, players, board, and literally everyone else in the club should go first before him. Even this post is no different. You can't tell me that is not being blinded by his state as an ex legend. The reality is some just adore the idea of "United finally returning to glory under a previous legendary player after all those failing managers" and sure even if it sound romantic, it doesn't mean it's actually going to work at all. Didn't Milan try this route previously?
As for what his sacking would do, the season can still be salvaged if we hurry up and fixed one or 2 problems, but with Ole in charge we will probably keep hanging on around winning a match and losing another and finishing top 6 will be considered an achievement. And no finishing outside CL qualifying positions 2 seasons in a row shouldn't be acceptable for United under any circumstances but this is another case of dropping expectations to rock bottom to not be so harsh on Ole.
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I don't get how you can't get it despite me saying it several times already. The track record you mention can look like a problem in comparison to other top managers not in comparison to a manager spent 95% of career in inferior league. You can list as much problems about Poch as you like and these were still look like far better in comparison to Ole, who in 9-10 years as a manager couldn't land even a midtable job in Premier league till we ended up hiring him.
It's fine if you don't want Poch to be hired as a United manager and as I said he does have his problems but putting his name in the same sentence as Ole is ridiculous and I explained this multiple times already.
If both leave their teams now who will have the bigger chance to land a big job next?
They did have improved under him. Your problem is you are looking at them as if they were a top tier team. In the previous 15 years before him they finished top 4. For the majority of time they were hanging around 5th or 6th at best, and efnr finished bottom half of the league or close to it in several ocsdsions. They finished top 4 three times in 4 years under him, including comfortable second and third (twice) positions. Spurs weren't used to be a regular 2nd or 3rd best team in the league and reaching advanced CL stages. Who even thought of the possibility of Spurs playing a CL final one day?
Him not winning any cups is bad and I criticized him a lot for this but again, this point is a problem in compariosn to other top manager, not Ole with how his career went on so far. Try to use some common sense and you will see how this was ridiculous to start with.
Nice, and Poch made Kane world class, so? Or do you believe Kane miraculously appeared on the scene and became what he did without a coach? Go and check his career and loans and you will know how Poch improved him to become world class. Claiming Kane made Spurs or Poch is silly and makes it look like he was a top drawer talent who proved himself in every loan he went to when the reality is actually the total opposite. Poch is a big reason why Kane became what he became.
I’m with you on this. Let’s see if he can continue to set up a positive game plan without reverting to old habits. Another set back and the criticism will be back in full force.
Why would Spurs give Poch the power over transfers and then take that away from him years later? That makes no sense, but its not really important. There are other threads to discuss him in
Him not having a big job before us does not make him inherently unfit either, as we know, all managers start small before they move up. Him getting appointed was a bombshell and him getting the permanent role was an even bigger bombshell, but that was due to Woody getting caught up in the fan and media made hysteria after PSG. I saw more than one video of United fans saying "there would be riots" if he was not given the job. It was and still is a big gamble, but then and there and considering the positive wave we were riding after Joses meltdown its not that unheard of either. Stranger things have happened. In any case, top class managers with an wealth of experience on the top level are a pretty rare breed, and especially available ones. And it isnt just about experience, its about being the right fit. Hell, i've seen on this very board people suggest we hire that fat cnut Benitez. If that is not spitting on Fergies legacy i dont know what is and if you are that desperate for success you can rightly feck off and support someone else, because then you are the very embodiment of a glory hunter
Maradonna is a strange example to bring up. Almost every manager alive has played football at a high level at some time. Maradonna fried his brain on cocaine a long time ago so its not really strange that hes not a functioning manager
Its not excuses, its called having a nuanced view and trying to widen the discourse by taking more things into account than simply screaming bloody murder and demanding blood because things are not going your way. And its not "the same squad" exactly. We had Miki, Lukaku and Herrera then, especially the latter is a huge miss while Lukaku was actually giving a feck. Mata and Matic was also two years younger and had not completely lost their legs, which tends to happen with players north of 30. And Jose did say that finishing second with that squad was his "greatest achievement". Most wrote it off as Jose being Jose, but there must have been a kernel of truth in there. In any case, league finish alone does not tell the whole story. We finished at 81 points, which is hardly amazing considering City got 100. Arsenal and Chelsea were utterly pathetic that season (63 points for Arse, thats real bad). Klopp were still finding his feet at Liverpool and Spurs were Spurs. Also, you cant just jump in time from May 2018 to December 2018 and pretend like nothing happened. Things at the club was not exactly rosy when Jose was sacked.
Hehe, loads? Are you suggesting we should have kept Darmian, Sanchez, Valencia and Fellaini? Smalling was not the worst CB at the club, but considering we got a direct upgrade in Maguire, were overstocked on CB's and had Tuanzebe comming through i dont see how thats such a big loss. Hes also a bad fit for how Ole wants to play considering how inept he is at handling the ball. Lukaku was hopelessly out of shape, a lazy twat and turned out to be utterly unprofessional in the end. Going AWOL while traveling and not showing up for training because you are sulking is simply unacceptable. Herrera is a massive loss, but that was Woodys fault for running down his contract and when Ole got here he had already agreed to terms with PSG
All of he players in have been good. Maguire is quality, albeit expensive, but i would much rather spend 80 million a good CB, than 90 million on three shite ones like we have been doing in the past. AWB is fecking amazing and James looks like a right steal at 15 million. Of course ideally we should have gotten in more players, the very least another CM and attacker, but overall it was a decent window imo. The best in a long time in fact, but i will refrain to make any final judgments on that
Why is everything an excuse? If you call in sick for work because you broke your foot, would you appreciate if your boss told you to "stop making excuses?" Fitness has been a problem that needs to be addressed. We were bottom in term of distance covered and sprints under Jose and it was pretty clear that many of the players that were used to playing in a low block lacked the stamina to play high press and it is big reason why we ended last season in such a horrible fashion. If you have players like Lukaku that were gasping for air after breaking into a light jog, then it needs to be dealt with. Liverpool and City isn't in a class of their own simply because of quality (well maybe City), but they also work their arses off every game and that is where we should aspire to be at. Effort and fitness isn't some archaic stuff from the past, its more important than ever
My point was simply that a big name is no guarantee for success. Each appointment up to Jose was marginally better both in terms of results and his reputation, but it ultimately ended in disaster with him. And we are in a transitional period though, like it or not. Ideally that period should have started 6 years ago and be done with a long time ago, but that never happened for reasons we all know. Building/rebuilding the team takes more than one window and more than a couple of months, especially in our current state.
What is wrong with his in-game management? Its not perfect, sure, but overall he has selected the most competent first XI available and has been good at bringing on youth players from time to time. I know armchair-managers love to moan about this sub and that sub, but making subs just for the sake of it is not necessary and often can it unsettle a team more than not, even though you are bringing on a pair of fresh legs
Think no one would argue with the bolded part, but so far we are only two and a half months into his first real season, because lets be honest here, there was not really much he could do last year other than picking the squad and trying to motivate the players he inherited. Calling for his head after two and a half months is anything but patient if you ask me. We've had pundits like Scholes and Keane who have said he needs at least 4-5 windows to make this right. Personally i think thats too much, but i think he deserves at least a full season before we pass any final verdict. And that second bolded part is simply not true and i could flip it around and say that the "Ole out" brigade blames him for everything, while giving him zero credit for anything. Look into the player performance threads and most of them were getting heaps of praise from everyone after Liverpool and Norwich
A football match is a joint effort after all. After the ref blows the whistle and starts a match, its mostly in the hands of the players, and all a manager can do is prepare those players to the best of his ability.
I would ask for what evidence you have for that claim, but that would be silly because its literally impossible to prove. And "salvaged" or what constitutes an acceptable season is a matter of opinion. You think getting another manager now would guarantee us CL football next year, but i respectfully disagree. In fact, getting a new manager now could unsettle the players again and destabilize us even more. And believe it or not, this could actually get worse.
Finally i want to say that i firmly believe Ole is a better manager than our current point haul suggests and if he was as clueless and inept as you would paint him, the players would have turned on him a long time ago. Versus Palace, Soton and Wolves we well and truly deserved 9 points, but only ended up with two. Some of it due to bad luck, some bizarre referring (Palace mostly) and some of it due to stupid individual and collective errors like missing two pens, conceding from a fecking goal kick and letting a player score from a tight angle in the near corner.
Replay is in bold.
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Yh agreed, there's also been no noise since from Mino so assume some kind of agreement has been reached. Either bigger contract or allowing him to leave I guess.
Kane was playing every game under Sherwood at the end of 13/14 and scoring goals. At the start of Poch's reign in 14/15 he played less than 70 minutes (total) in the first 9 PL games. They got only 11 points in those games before he began starting.
Well i am not ignoring last season, i am fully aware that his honeymoon period landed him the job, but regarding the rebuild i dont see last season as particularly relevant and that goes for the good as well as the bad. And i am not claiming this squad is relegation material, but relative to our main rivals i would say its about the 4th or 5th strongest squad in the league. Liverpool and City are clearly well ahead, Spurs is better and perhaps Arsenal as well. During his honeymoon period we clearly over performed and have under performed for big periods since then. In any case, this is how we did overall last year: http://solskjaertabellen.com/en.html. 3rd so about par for the course
I dont think too many are missing Fellaini, and regarding Lukaku, while i have no trouble admitting he could have been useful you simply cant keep someone like that around in the squad since its incredibly disruptive and really undermines the club. And yes, ideally we should have replaced both of those two straight away, but consider this: Since Fergie we have spent nearly 900 million pounds and have very little to show for it. If the right targets were not available, i would much prefer us to wait until they are, instead of lose our marbles again and buy yet another mediocre player or bad fit that just pads our squad and inflates our wage bill
And regarding our injury problems. We have physios, medical staff and fitness coaches who handles that. If their methods are "outdated" or whatever its their job and responsibility to keep up to date. Most managers AFAIK dont have any medical degrees
LvG got two full seasons here. One thing was the boring football and the fact that Leichester won the league under his watch, but ultimately his downfall imo was his insistence on sticking with players that was a bad fit for his philosophy while shunning players that largely did well. Jose would still be managing us i think if he had not snapped and self sabotaged. If there are zero signs of progress in May, then Ole should probably be sacked. The problem with our two former managers, mostly because of their reputation and own ego imo, was that they were trying to bring instant success and it reflected in their transfers. Buying players like Di Maria, Falcao, Schweinsteiger, Matic and Sanchez was short sighted and ultimately disastrous
Regarding style i would say we are trying to play like we did from December-April, vs Chelsea and Norwich this year. The problem with this is how incredibly reliant we are on Pogba and either of Rashford and/or Martial being sharp and in form. Having both Pogba and Martial injured and Rashford hitting a really rough patch of form at the same time hurt us badly. And this constant talk about "style" is pretty vague. Jose and Fergie for example did not have a very defined style, we still managed to play some decent football at times under them. In any case, a managers style is hard to implement without the right players. Barca in 2010 for example would not be able to play like they did without Xavi, Messi and Iniesta and Chelsea 05-07 would not be the same without Terry, Lampard and Pogba
And i get that people were moaning about LvG and Jose as well. Its what people do and some it seems are never happy. And i dont think its annoying that people want Ole out. I have absolutely no problem with say this discussion where you lay out your thought in a well reasoned and thought out manner. What irks me is people being openly disrespectful and spewing venom while mostly arguing with half truths and ridiculous straw men
And those games i mentioned we did deserve to win. Granted we were not amazing vs Wolves, but had full control the whole game bar a 5 minute period where they happened to score a worldie. Vs Soton and Palace we were camped in their half the whole game and had something like 20+ shots, but failed to capitalize.
And to be perfectly honest, i was fully expecting us to hover around top 6 this season and i find that acceptable granted that we show progress.
I doubt many were thinking previous season or the season before it that our squad was worse than Arsenal or Spurs ? Spurs's squad was usually criticized for their lack of depth and Arsenal for their defense and midfield. The only reason they look better than us now is well, the last market and the mass selling we did imo.
The right option thing doesn't seem to make sense with us getting linked with Mandzukic again for Jan transfers who will a pure stop gap till we got that "right option" so could have simply got him in summer instead of wasting half season with only 1 recognizable striker. As for Fellaini, whether people missed him or not it doesn't make him useless. He was very useful for us on multiple occasions. People didn't like him for his style, which was nonsense for me.
LVG wasn't hired for instant success though. He got the job on the basis he's going to rebuild the squad after Moyes season. He sold loads of players and used loads of youngsters, but his signings have been poor, particularly the second season, but the point is if we were planning to rebuild then why didn't we stick with him ? Poor football aside, he was experienced in building teams, bringing in youth and improve them. We sacked him because he wasn't getting the results. That's why I don't get the rebuild job. Currently Ole is tasked with that job, but nothing prevents the board from abruptly cutting it if they didn't like the results.
Anyway, we should go watch the current match I guess.
It's a good time for us to agree to disagree. Let's hope things will keep improving and we'll make a good run of results hopefully. No one will hate to see him succeeding or turning the table, you know.Our new plan is sit back and just hope we can counter. We need a fecking attacking style. This is horseshit. We're an absolute chore to watch.
Never learns. How many times have we seen us desperately try to hang onto 1-0 and concede as we stop playing football in 2nd half? Terrible.
You have Liverpool and Arsenal 2nd XIs facing off in a 10 goal game. How are they able to play attacking football yet our almost first XI can't.
I remained silent on criticizing or praising Ole after Norwich as I wanted to see if we’ve actually improved. This match is proof we’re still exactly the same.
He's so defensive.
Has fat Frank in his pocket
Excellent in game management tonight.
Can we end the myth he’s no good at tactics now please?
In boozer waiting for a pint and would just like to say
red army
red army
Fair play to him for his defensive set up, this and Liverpool match we looked great on defending, bar one feck up in both games.
We definitely need to sack him now. Imagine where our current form + the new manager bounce would have us end of the season
Great managerial performance. Set us up well and when our backs were against the ropes, made great substitutions and we ended up with the win.
Long may it continue Ole!!
Long may it continue Ole!!
A wins a win. Go to bed with a smile on my face. Boring but feck it.
Two more wins from the next 3 (PL games) and I think even his most hardened haters surely have to support him until the January window
Before this run of games everyone was slagging him off, saying we'd get nothing. Doesn't matter how we did it. We did it. Lots of you were saying Ole couldn't get the results. Now he has, what you saying?
Get some first team players back and look: not as shit as we are when playing with mostly second string youth.
Who knew???
Who knew???
We beat Chelsea away - and we still have fans whining. For a manager who is "incompetent" - it's strange that he can outsmart so many good teams.
His starting midfield is McTominay (who is alright), Fred and Lingard. The latter two are both atrocious.
This team and these attacking players are not capable of playing attractive, attacking and winning football. With Pogba and Martial and a few additions, perhaps, but not with dross like Lingard.
We’re a solid team with a great set of defenders and a mid-table front six. Ultimately, we play like one.
They’re halfwits.
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