Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion

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Dinghy said:
What football did SAF play away against the best sides?
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In what season? 99 we drew 3-3 with Barca home and away, drew 2-2 home and away to Bayern, beat Juventus 3-2 in Italy.

Only underdog performance from SAF was vs Barca in 2007 and the finals which we lost and he regretted and tried changing our style after.

Think you forget under SAF we were often the best side in the world.
 
Alabaster Codify7 said:
Look, three away wins in a row is a big improvement so fair play.

However, let's all admit that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer plays underdog football - the sort of football most fans chastised Jose Mourinho for playing. I personally don't have a huge problem with it, because above all else the goal is to win football games. I'd prefer to be entertained but so be it.

But OGS plays underdog football and he is not an attacking manager. That myth needs to die and all fans should have no issue in agreeing with that statement.
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It'll never die, I've been hearing it since last season the attacking football and flair will start appearing in next few months as he buys more players. It hasn't happened yet. The fact he has such a good way with words plus his past will always make people reluctant to call out his football and his style for what it is, a poor man Mourinhos' impersonation. Let's see how long it lasts, 3 away wins in a week is a massive improvement. But its become such a huge deal, only because of months and months of putrid away performances/results put by his team in the first place... Inevitably some will get carried away by positive results/performances this week but you can't wash away the past with just 3 games/matches. There's an awful long way to go yet and we have to still recover 7 points game from 4th place.

Dinghy said:
Poch is tactically clueless away against the best sides in the league. It's actually very simple.
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Liverpool haven't lost a game at home for 2.5 years while City have lost just twice in that same time period. The best sides in the league are way too strong at home, but he's beaten likes of Arsenal/Us/Chelsea/ away in the past few seasons. Oh and also, a small matter of knocking out City at their own patches in a CL QF.

Just baffles me when posters have the temerity to compare Ole with Poch, one has big clubs interested in his signature while the other will inevitably go back to Norway once this experiment has ended.
 
roonster09 said:
Because it's a win, not a draw. We still cherish O'Shea's winner at Anfield when we played shit whole game, same with Tevez's winner too in 2007-08.
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Fair enough. I'm not saying we'd cherish a draw (most people did however credit the recent draw quote a bit though) but if Ole had us go to Anfield and score 5 goals, regardless of the result, it'd go down as one of his better performances.
 
Mainoldo said:
Solskjaer a better manager than Poch?
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Unlike Pochettino, he seems to know what he's doing when up against the bigger sides away from home. Poch is a good manager, just find it a bit funny that a lot of you have a go at Solskjaers tactics even after winning at Stamford Bridge for the second time in a row.
 
romufc said:
Again.. have you watched the goals? I am sure if we Chelsea fielded a back 5 with no experience and purely youth, we would have scored more.

Go watch the Arsenal goals and tell me which goal was finest attacking play?
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Like the time we ripped apart Rochdale?
 
amolbhatia50k said:
Neither manager refused to instil a focus on quality on the ball, possession retention, strong midfield play etc until one year after their appointment, which is the point. Ole is the only supposedly quality manager who is so maleable and adaptable, that his team doesn't have strong identity and it's looked ad a positive and something he's only deferring out of necessity rather than actually being unable to get it done.

Also, Pep isn't always the same. His Barcelona team was proper tiki taka. His City one focus much more on fast attacks down the wing and overloads out wide. Liverpool started with gegenpressing and now are mostly a possession based team. However both managers have put in strong basics in their team when it comes to retaining the ball, movement, intensity, cohesion, possession etc. and from thereon tweaks are simpler. It's different to not having a plan or not having strong basics at all.
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Actually both Liverpool and city looked quite clueless with possession and building up play during the first full season under Pep and Klopp. Liverpool kept blowing leads and City couldn’t break down low blocks. I very much see strong basics of ball retention, movement, intensity and possession in Ole’s team. It’s just the team is full of very inexperienced players and the squad is threadbare so they end up blowing promising situations and are unable to consistently turn them into chances.

This idea that we don’t have a plan at all - I don’t get where this is coming from. Unless you’re not watching the games at all, we keep possession much better than under Mourinho - even compared to the season we finished 2nd. We have a recognizable pattern of building up play and a proper pressing method where we press the middle and force the opposition into wide areas.
 
Alabaster Codify7 said:
Look, three away wins in a row is a big improvement so fair play.

However, let's all admit that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer plays underdog football - the sort of football most fans chastised Jose Mourinho for playing. I personally don't have a huge problem with it, because above all else the goal is to win football games. I'd prefer to be entertained but so be it.

But OGS plays underdog football and he is not an attacking manager. That myth needs to die and all fans should have no issue in agreeing with that statement.
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I've said in earlier posts that Solskjaer should stick to his guns. Stick to being a counter attacking manager, stop decieving the public by using this attacking football metric as it's falsified. We are more useful out of possession in moments of transition then we are when in phases of play. Given Ole's 10 year managerial career this is the best standard of football he can muster in my honest opinion. I don't understand how fans think us buying an entire new starting 11 will suddenly up the coaching directives. Look at the quality Madrid have had at their disposal in the last 5 years, they for me have never been considered a coherent attacking team, never had an identity / ethos that cultivates the players to play a specific way or to a specific system. I see a similar angle with Ole where there's much impetus on individual players to come up with their own brilliance for us to win games. It's this very reason we struggle against teams that swallow up pressure and will try and nick a lead when the chance presents itself.

Solskjaer should do everything he can to enhance the probability of the team having frequent opportunities to run at the opposition spaces because it's clearly suited to his attributes. No use us trying to echo the likes of Klopp and Guardiola with possession based play, it doesn't suit us at all. We don't look anything like a traditional United team so fans especially and the media need to stop pushing this pre historic agenda.
 
Alabaster Codify7 said:
Look, three away wins in a row is a big improvement so fair play.

However, let's all admit that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer plays underdog football - the sort of football most fans chastised Jose Mourinho for playing. I personally don't have a huge problem with it, because above all else the goal is to win football games. I'd prefer to be entertained but so be it.

But OGS plays underdog football and he is not an attacking manager. That myth needs to die and all fans should have no issue in agreeing with that statement.
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I'm not a great fan of Ole and don't think he's the one to make us champions but to give him his dues I do think he's now making the best with what he's got. It's hard to be an attacking manager with what we have. People say that's his (Eds) fault for leaving us short but that's neither here nor there. It is what it is.

We don't have any creative midfield players which means the only way to attack is by countering with the speed merchants we have. It's not pretty but it's the reality. Once we get a couple of creative midfielders and a proper number 9 in of course we'll (probably) see a big difference in our attacking play.

Only a couple of short weeks ago people were saying that no manager could get this team to gel. Now we can see that's not true. There's finally something there to work with. Now it's all down to Ole. If he can keep the results going then of course he should be allowed the January window but unfortunately his future depends on Ed splashing the cash because what we have may be gelling but it might not be good enough to keep Ole in the job.
 
Kush said:
Liverpool haven't lost a game at home for 2.5 years while City have lost just twice in that same time period. The best sides in the league are way too strong at home, but he's beaten likes of Arsenal/Us/Chelsea/ away in the past few seasons. Oh and also, a small matter of knocking out City at their own patches in a CL QF.

Just baffles me when posters have the temerity to compare Ole with Poch, one has big clubs interested in his signature while the other will inevitably go back to Norway once this experiment has ended.
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Good thing you've listed them all. Impressive for five and a half seasons of football.
 
Di Maria's angel said:
Fair enough. I'm not saying we'd cherish a draw (most people did however credit the recent draw quote a bit though) but if Ole had us go to Anfield and score 5 goals, regardless of the result, it'd go down as one of his better performances.
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Not if we were to concede 5 and lose on penalties... Especially if Liverpool had fielded a team as weak as the one yesterday. It's obvious they didn't prioritise that game at all.
 
Dinghy said:
Solskjaer's got more away wins against top 6 sides in 10 months than Poch has had for over 5 years, with a worse side as well.

You're right, that's exactly the same...
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That's a good stat. Hopefully he does as a good a job a Pochettino overall though. It's not the same but it's more important to manage well than win a few away games.
 
Rish Sawhney said:
Actually both Liverpool and city looked quite clueless with possession and building up play during the first full season under Pep and Klopp. Liverpool kept blowing leads and City couldn’t break down low blocks. I very much see strong basics of ball retention, movement, intensity and possession in Ole’s team.
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Not sure which teams you were watching. With both City and Liverpool you could see the emphasis the managers were putting in these areas very clearly. Again, you're making the error of focusing on results - like all the people who went on and on about Pep's awful first season and Klopp not winning the Europa like Mourinho did - when in both cases their teams in the foundations of how they played football, were being structured to play a certain very exciting way. That you were unable to see that is odd.

But you've somehow spotted in Ole. Alright then.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
That's a good stat. Hopefully he does as a good a job a Pochettino overall though. It's not the same but it's more important to manage well than win a few away games.
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What does he need to do, to do that, considering Poch has never won anything. Top 4 finish and League cup win?
 
starman said:
What does he need to do, to do that, considering Poch has never won anything. Top 4 finish and League cup win?
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Champions league final, and 2/3 top 3 finishes. Add a couple of FA cup semi finals in there too.
 
Dinghy said:
Unlike Pochettino, he seems to know what he's doing when up against the bigger sides away from home. Poch is a good manager, just find it a bit funny that a lot of you have a go at Solskjaers tactics even after winning at Stamford Bridge for the second time in a row.
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Okay. Well Villa managers had good records against Chelsea to. Was just checking you out wasn’t claiming Solskjaer was actually a better manager than Poch.
 
starman said:
What does he need to do, to do that, considering Poch has never won anything. Top 4 finish and League cup win?
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Play good football, improve the first team, continuous top 5 and a championship league final. If he can do that he’s in with a shot.
 
Progress is the only metric we should be using. Last 4 games is progress. We keep assessing. I can see only positives at the moment.
 
starman said:
What does he need to do, to do that, considering Poch has never won anything. Top 4 finish and League cup win?
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Lvg did better than that. And he didn't manage his team as well as Pochettino. Use better metrics.
 
Di Maria's angel said:
Like the time we ripped apart Rochdale?
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Yes. because I have said our attacking play is brilliant?

Get a grip of yourself, just because you saw a score of 5-5, without watching goals or how goals came about making comments and now trying to be clever when I haven't mentioned our attacking play being brilliant.

Look at the state of you.

1. You mention about Liverpool and Arseanl 2nd string being better than our first in attack

2. Then you mention about our style when I hadn't mentioned anything about that

3. Now bringing Rochdale

Do you realise most our fans know we are struggling in attack? or is it something new to you?

Why don't you look at the positive? our first team kept Liverpool to scoring 1 goal against us at home.

What are you even getting at?
 
momo83 said:
In what season? 99 we drew 3-3 with Barca home and away, drew 2-2 home and away to Bayern, beat Juventus 3-2 in Italy.

Only underdog performance from SAF was vs Barca in 2007 and the finals which we lost and he regretted and tried changing our style after.

Think you forget under SAF we were often the best side in the world.
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And still we were more often than not set up to play on the counter or play"underdog" football as you call it in most games at Anfield, Stamford Bridge and Highbury. A lot of the time without getting a win as well.
 
starman said:
The bar is higher than at United. Jose was more successful at United than Poch and he got sacked as well
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Yes because he did a worse job. When you spend 400 million you're expected to do better. It's not only that our standards are higher but we have bigger pockets and statute, and hence the same peformance (from the manager) would lead to more output.
 
bond19821982 said:
He is as clueless as you can get. Give him this liverpool team and you would still not see any improvement. He has absolutely no idea how to make them play as a unit or collectively.
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Yeah he was absolutely clueless last night, sounds like his tactics according to you are about as useless as your knowledge on the subject lad
 
Dinghy said:
And still we were more often than not set up to play on the counter or play"underdog" football as you call it in most games at Anfield, Stamford Bridge and Highbury. A lot of the time without getting a win as well.
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Most games? Not a chance. Domestically it was just Arsene's peak Gunners who pinned us properly back. And Pep's Barcelona. Otherwise barring the end of SAFs tenure, we did not play underdog football against every top English team.
 
Anyhoo hopefully our peformances come together now and we start seeing a really well coached football team on a consistent basis.
 
Mainoldo said:
Play good football, improve the first team, continuous top 5 and a championship league final. If he can do that he’s in with a shot.
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Spurs were already a good footballing team and a consistent top 5/6 team well before Poch arrived. The football played under Redknapp was much better, imo. The CL final was a freak happening and they bottled the PL to Leicester when the rest of the big teams were crap
 
izec said:
It is by far the worst we have been for a long long time, Moyes was nothing compared to this. The chances are slim for it to get better, and if so, a midtable finish with shit football is the best we can hope for. it will be probably be as bad or maybe even worse. And we all know what happens in the last 2 scenarios, relegation fight. Some folks need to let that sink in. 90% of the games since the PSG game are pointing to that, a few decent games here and there with the majority of terrible performances throughout, flat and desperate showings, relegation fodder stuff. This team and manager will not survive it once down there, we are not used to it. We need to climb out as quickly as possible
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The absolute state of this post two weeks later, 3 away wins on the spin, two very very good performances, will be the semi final of a cup and beat Bournemouth on Saturday potentially up to 5th in the league.

Tuanzebe, Williams, Garner, Greenwood all being given debuts/runs in the side, hopefully Gomes to come as well. McTominay improving no end under Ole, Rashford now has 7 in 11 with 4 assists, players coming back now.

Not to mention his signings, James, Maguire, AWB looking like superb long term United players, slowly binning off all the shite and clowns who should not be anywhere near the club.

Yet because we are not top within his first 6/12 months its the "worst it has been for a long long time".

Clueless
 
starman said:
So lots of nearly moments. Never amounting to anything.
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Obviously if Ole were to win trophies with United and significant ones he would surpass where Poch is now. Fact is he is behind where Poch is now, Ole doesn't even have nearly moments so getting nearly moments would be an improvement
 
amolbhatia50k said:
Yes because he did a worse job. When you spend 400 million you're expected to do better. It's not only that our standards are higher but we have bigger pockets and statute, and hence the same peformance (from the manager) would lead to more output.
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People assume just because he has less resources he will do better, but he has one of the best resources in world football, Harry Kane. He did not pluck him out of obscurity. Sherwood gave him his debut.
He's has a generational talent & 200m striker at his disposal.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
Most games? Not a chance. Domestically it was just Arsene's peak Gunners who pinned us properly back. And Pep's Barcelona. Otherwise barring the end of SAFs tenure, we did not play underdog football against every top English team.
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When was the last time we dominated a game at Anfield or Stamford Bridge? That sure hasn't happened a lot...
 
Win at Bournemouth and you can talk about a good fortnight for Solskjaer for the first time in a long time.
 
starman said:
Spurs were already a good footballing team and a consistent top 5/6 team well before Poch arrived. The football played under Redknapp was much better, imo. The CL final was a freak happening and they bottled the PL to Leicester when the rest of the big teams were crap
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So what the hell was we relegation fodder? Spurs have been a joke for years. Poch changed that.
 
Dinghy said:
When was the last time we dominated a game at Anfield or Stamford Bridge? That sure hasn't happened a lot...
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The 2-1 win when Gerrard got sent off. First half the best i have seen from us at Anfield
 
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