Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
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To be honest if I could see what Ole wants to do on the pitch i wouldn't mind finishing 6th but I just can't see anything more than hit it to our speedy forwards and see what happens. Our players don't look like they have a clue what to do with the ball either when attacking or defending. I agree the squad has been left threadbare (whose fault it is is for another thread) but Ole keeps sticking with his 4-2-3-1 formation when he doesn't have the personal to do so which to me shows he isn't tactically good enough to manage a high echelon club. This is where the argument of what a better coach than Ole can achieve. A good coach can work with what he's got, a great coach can elevate them even more but I'm afraid an average coach isn't going anywhere. Other than a few halfs of football in the last year I haven't seen anything to make me think Ole is nothing more than average and that includes every single one of his coaching staff.So what, 3rd?
I understand the problems run much deeper than the manager but I'm certainly not a believer in no one can get more out of this squad than Ole. That just isn't logical.
Seems one of those wums or a glory hunter? Or in reality not actually a fan of Manchester United.
W‘Ole at the wheel has a 27% win record at United, he took Cardiff down with a 30% win rate. There are still ’top reds’ backing him.
It’s beyond pathetic now.
Ole should stay. Keep the faith, people. Look at Ferguson - I remember the days when watching United under him was a dire experience. We need to be patient.
Think it’s becoming obvious players don’t want to sign for this guy. We ain’t getting no one.
I get it, you don't like Ole -the manager and therefore are mocking his simple explanation of his preferred style of play. Otherwise deep down i think you do know what Ole is looking for. Imo, you don't have to overcomplicate things, yeah from time to time it's interesting hearing some nerdy stuff about 'the use of a false no.9', but if you can work out a winning formula, it's enough. Conte during his Chelsea days found a working system and persisted with it, resulting in winning game after game. Mourinho in his final season at United changed systems and players all the time, didn't do him any good. So i negate your concept that there's 'no single way of playing' successfully.
Last season when he could fall back on Pogba i think it's not far from saying that we did dominate some opponents by pace and power. Having Wan Bissaka and James within our ranks only emphasizes that fundamental ideal.
This season United aren't playing as a cohesive unit which obviously results in not seeing dominance by pace and power on the pitch. I believe in a more or less fixed starting eleven, but the injuries didn't allow that to come to fruition and one shouldn't forget the young age of -especially most of the attacking players. Nevertheless some criticsm must be heard, overall we should've taken more points.
I would be more careful in downplaying the Liverpool result. In the league Liverpool won 19/20 games so far and they must've underestimated more than one team. Why can't get Ole credit for really troubling Pool? I don't get it.
I disagree with you bringing Ferguson into the mix. You're comparing one year of Ole's reign to more than two decades. Of course you have to change and adapt during decades. Besides it's not all Ole. there's a huge staff around. If you criticize, all of them have to shoulder some of the blame.
Yeah, everything ain't sunshine and rosy atm. I'm far from happy so far, still you have to weigh in some positive things. From my point of view the aquired players have all made their contributions, some players have upped their level, the overall mood doesn't seem to be too moody and i think the club as a whole is united and trying to better things.
Ole can't complain if he were to get sacked tomorrow, but for me it's not a by all means decision. Maybe i've altered my view a bit after reading day in day out mostly negative stuff. I try to give things a positive spin and with a hopefully soon to be fully fit Paul Pogba we can go on a winning run, IMO.
If you or another member quotes me, i'll respond, but it takes me about 24h (sleep and work).
Personally I can see what he wants to do for the most part. The kind of football he’s after is unsurprisingly influenced by Fergie, except Fergie had better players and the tools to unlock teams who sat back, which has been where we have struggled this season. There’s nothing old-fashioned about playing this way, and there’s no reason why it can’t be successful under the right circumstances. Whether Ole has the ability to get it right remains to be seen.
And whether that’s the best thing for this team I don’t know, I don’t watch them on the training ground so I can’t judge. Maybe they are capable of other approaches, maybe not. We don’t have many (if any) players who I would class as a good passer of the ball, creative, nor players who are technically gifted when operating in tight spaces. Mata is the closest thing we had, but is clearly long past it. This is a major weakness.
Even our best players have habitually blown hot and cold since before Ole arrived, the rest are mostly made up of either inexperienced youngsters or those simply not good enough. No leaders amongst them. Inconsistency is where this gets you, which is exactly what we’ve been.
I’m not saying Ole is faultless, far from it. I just don’t see the point in changing managers to have the same predicament again.
19 followers.
You don't need to be an expert to know this. But we are not going to be beaten by Norwich.
As I've said before if you could see a style of play developing then you could accept some inconsistencies in performance. However we are served up absolute dross most weeks with no plan whatsoever to beat a low block. The team just go through the motions most weeks. I refuse to believe even a semi competent manager couldn't have had us a few more wins. The board are a joke as well. The club is a mess and it's only going to get worse
W‘Ole at the wheel has a 27% win record at United, he took Cardiff down with a 30% win rate. There are still ’top reds’ backing him.
It’s beyond pathetic now
Can't you see that he installing a culture at the club and the united ethos!?
Of course the Board is a mess and really to blame for this mess. How can they even think of appointing someone like Ole Gunnar as the manager of Manchester United? But they did appoint Moyes too I guess. Why not Fat Sam? At least he will get the set pieces right.
That account is obviously fake, and besides, it would be astonishing if they'd sack him now as that would require owning up to terrible mismanagement, on the back of years of terrible mismanagement, and scrapping that whole "we are finally understanding how to do this" bit. Plus, they'd have to actually spend money and build a team, not in 3-4 years, but now. No top manager is going to come in and wait 3 years for the club to show ambition.
If they sack him it will be because they have no alternative, against their will.
If they sack him it will be because they have no alternative, against their will.
It really is. We're sitting in 5th and days in between games yet there are still nutters that feel the need to pull up fake stats to take a shot at him.
Extremely overlooked post, here. Funny how nobody has acknowledged these words from Ole himself.
But regarding the final part. It might not be his decision. And in that case he will be completely exposed as covering for the board, a yes man who won't rock the boat to preserve his job.
W‘Ole at the wheel has a 27% win record at United, he took Cardiff down with a 30% win rate. There are still ’top reds’ backing him.
27 per cent - is it really that low?
As a permanent manager, yea. Overall it’s a bit less 50% I think which is still low.27 per cent - is it really that low?
It doesn't really say a lot. If there's a player we want, available at a price we're willing to pay we'll buy him. Not much more to it than that. But lets not forget they spent all summer haggling over around £10m for Maguire, there's no blank cheques here anymore. Highly unlikely we sign anyone I think.
Do you really think he's got proper backing? I know he says he does, but my hunch is that's just a game of appearances. I don't rate him as a manager at all, but I don't think he wouldn't buy players to improve the squad (and first XI) if he'd have ambitious backing. Last two summers tell the tale that the owners are winding down on the transfer front after years of terrible spending by the apparent money genius Woodward, leaving us with the highest wage bill in the league and not even close to challenging for the title.
To be seriously competitive again - leaving aside the manager situation - we'd need at least 3-4 top top players. These days that's maybe 300 million or more (or outstanding scouting and subsequent negotiation skills). Now we can also do it over a longer period, but that may dampen the development of the team in general and the individual prospects who would immediately benefit from having better players around, taking responsibility.
Just to avoid the season from being extremely taxing psychologically for the players and the club as a whole, we quite obviously need to buy a midfielder asap. I think we will see someone coming in, as it's just not tenable to pretend this isn't a disaster. That's the bare minimum.
But when Ole speaks of backing, it reminds me of when he said we're a fantastically well run club. He's toeing the line.
I don't see any tactical changes whether he plays a big team or the smaller teams. It's always 4-2-3-1. It works some games but not others. He has no plan B C or D. I would rather a solid 4-4-1-1 or a 4-1-3-2 formation.
If you watch City or Liverpool you can see that every single player on the pitch knows their job and responsibilities, United or running around like headless chickens.
I still think any decent manager would have this team comfortably in the top four.
If you watch City or Liverpool you can see that every single player on the pitch knows their job and responsibilities, United or running around like headless chickens.
I still think any decent manager would have this team comfortably in the top four.
Yes , if he was a verified journalist he would have one of those blue ticks beside his twitter account name , almost certainly a fake account.
Personally I think we need to invest in this window,the midfield injury situation is a joke and we clearly haven't got the squad to cope until the summer
This looks like a total wind up. If you go to the telegraph Twitter or their sports page there is nothing anywhere about this story....and this guys posted another tweet saying Fergies advised the board to hire Pochettino......BS
Ole is an amateur boxer even today certainly not scared of his aura and if you can like it or not sick of it
Absolutely, I don’t think it will happen though.
Question is : who recommended Ole in the first place?
I doubt Ed knows who ole was
I doubt Ed knows who ole was
You overlooking the impact the identity and track record of the manager has on attracting top talent to the club. Deferring club ambitions on account of a rebuild under an inept manager sounds foolish to me, what type of player is Ole - with his mixed record and uninspiring football compounded with no high level football achievements- going to attract in this fabled rebuild? Does he have the skills in the market to identify top level talent and does he have the coaching abilities to maintain and improve their performance levels? All these are questions the club should be asking itself before deciding to spend more money because it could be a case of sending good money after bad.
Hoenstly the fabled rebuild is just Ole pushing the time frame of expectation. Several senior players like DeGea before agreeing to re-sign approached management for assurances that we would compete for trophies in the short term. They got it. Ole coming months later with a different tune on how it will take 2 to 3 years is pure damage control from a man who doesn't know what he's doing. Not even surprised players like Young are ready to bail from this ship of delusion
Ducker tweeting the same sentiments as that random accout from last night now.
We're definitely near the end. When your manager, who is usually overly positive, says a game is the worst they've ever played then you know you're in big trouble.
When can Poch come in though? What will we do for 4-5months? Another caretaker?
We're definitely near the end. When your manager, who is usually overly positive, says a game is the worst they've ever played then you know you're in big trouble.
When can Poch come in though? What will we do for 4-5months? Another caretaker?
We’ll sign the kind of players we need to. Football works on a little thing called money don’t you know.
Yeah and we made a bit fecking balls up by signing players who were solely motivated by the big money offers on hand.
W‘Ole at the wheel has a 27% win record at United, he took Cardiff down with a 30% win rate. There are still ’top reds’ backing him.
27 per cent - is it really that low?
We don't need to make up facts to illustrate what a poor manager he's been for us. We see evidence of it on the field every week. His record is bad but this 27% is just nonsense made up on social media and people should be more discerning about where they get their news.
His overall win record is 49% and his record since taking over as permanent manager is 40.5%. Nowhere near this spurious 27% number, but still bad.
And this is exactly what we have been doing for the past six or so years - throw money at the problem and hope yet here we are having a net spend of over half a billion, saddled with the largest wage bill in the league and still light years behind City.
Excerpts from an article on football statistics:
New manager bounce is very much a fact and usually doesn't mean that the manager was a genius for the first ten games and then became dross:
"There’s another factor at a relative high: the ‘bounce’, or the improvement in a team’s results following a new appointment. We measured the average points per game recorded by a team in the first 10 matches under a new manager and compared it with the last 10 under the previous manager. In the latest five-year block, nearly 85% of new appointments resulted in a bounce."
And then that bounce doesn't last unless the manager is good enough:
"Bounce is one thing. Maintaining that bounce, or ‘persistence’, is quite another. In 54 of the 74 changes in the 20-year period, the first 10 matches under a new manager saw a bounce in team performance. But in only 21 of these 54 instances was this bounce sustained or improved over the next 20 games. Thus, there are many managers who either experience a non-persistent bounce or no bounce at all but only a few can sustain a bounce."
A great example of quality versus plain bouncy luck:
"stellar example of this bounce and persistence is Antonio Conte at Chelsea in 2016-17, his first season there. Under him, Chelsea added an average of 1.1 points in his first 10 games (compared to the 10 games pre-Conte), and he built on this by adding another 0.25 points in the next 20 games and won the league. Conversely, there’s Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who added an average of 1 point in his first 10 games with Manchester United but shed 0.6 point in the next 20. Top clubs don’t have time for that."
Read the last line of the above paragraph for added spice.
Takeaways:
1. We are way below the threshold performance level which leads to a manager getting sacked in the PL.
2. Ole's bounce stats should be read separately from the full time post-bounce stats, while judging his performance.
Proof ?
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