Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion

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I’m not Ole’s biggest fan but we won 4-0 and people are still arguing. The manager did really well yesterday. The young players looked sharp and he used Matic and Mata effectively.

We are probably going to lose to Liverpool but losing to City 3-1 and Liverpool is hardly the end of the world looking at our squad... A few good midfield signings in January and we will improve too.

We are 5th despite having a younger / lighter squad than Chelsea, Arsenal & Tottenham. Our best player has been out all season too. Our position and cup record this season suggests we aren’t exactly bottom of the barrel.

But Ole should have 100% win record with this squad. At least you would think so when you read so called fans whining every day.
 
1. Some deadwood gone
2. Players in (especially AWB and James) are very young
3. Age profile is better now than it was under Jose. We consistently put out very young starting XI's
4. Big individual improvements in certain players, especially Fred who genuinely looked like an amateur footballer under Jose now looks like a decent PL midfielder
5. Good use of the kids, especially Greenwood who this season will have gained loads of experience and confidence, yet has been used sparingly like you should do with teenagers

Even though we are inconsistent as feck and there have been some truly horrific performances this year, we are in a better state now than when Ole took over. People also need to realize this team is far from the finished article, there is still loads of dross and aging players who needs to go. Baily, Shaw Jones, Rojo, Young, Mata, Lindgard, Matic, Chong. Ideally none of these should be part of the squad in 1-2 years. Then you have Pogba and that constant fecking circus who should imo just leave as well and probably will if someone is willing to pay for him. This is my (subjective) view of the squad:

Good enough now and for the future: Rashford, Martial, Maguire, AWB,
Useful squad players/Will be good enough: Greenwood, Pereira, James, Fred, McTomminay, Williams, Henderson (hes a better keeper than DDG), Lindelof
Remains to be seen: Tuanzebe, Fosu-Mensah, Gomes, Dalot
Should be sold/released: DDG, Baily, Shaw Jones, Rojo, Young, Mata, Lindgard, Matic, Chong, Pogba

And this isn't some weak attempt to exonerate Ole, i would have thought exactly the same had Poch been in the chair. Even if Ole is sacked in May the next manager has a lot of work to do in terms of constructing a competitive squad
So if we get our shiny new manager to construct this new squad and it ain't working after 20/30 games, we gonna sack him as well?
 
So if we get our shiny new manager to construct this new squad and it ain't working after 20/30 games, we gonna sack him as well?
I mean....kinda? That is football. It moves quick and you have to do good quick. Of course you have to give the manager a real chance. United are sitting 5th which I can accept this season mainly because the squad is barebones as it is and we've been missing our only creative player most of the season. January is gonna be rough, but lets see what it's like after that.
 
But Ole should have 100% win record with this squad. At least you would think so when you read so called fans whining every day.

Yes 100% is what we say.
Or maybe win enough to be genuinely competing for a Champions League place? Even with Chelsea, Arsenal & Spurs all having awful seasons too we are still not there.

If it’s ‘whining’ to want the club to be the best it can be, then sure we’re wining.
 
So if we get our shiny new manager to construct this new squad and it ain't working after 20/30 games, we gonna sack him as well?

I mean, not in that particular time frame per say, but in a general sense, yes! It’s what literally every other club in the world not burdened by the sentimentality of having a unique once in a century manager in their rear view, does. All the time!

Every club of a similar status to us has had a couple of high profile managers fail, if not several times over, and their response has almost never been “feck it, let’s just appoint a novice ex-player and give him as much uncritical time as he needs and see what happens?”... because that would be mental! And before people bring up Pep or Zidane, neither of them would’ve lasted an entire year of disappointing results. They stayed on because they got results. Not because they were given Carte Blanche to build a team over 5 years!

We shouldn’t just appoint any old flavour of the month, of course, but if a genuinely good progressive coach is available, we should unquestionably snap him up. And we should actively be looking for such a person right now.
 
Yes 100% is what we say.
Or maybe win enough to be genuinely competing for a Champions League place? Even with Chelsea, Arsenal & Spurs all having awful seasons too we are still not there.

If it’s ‘whining’ to want the club to be the best it can be, then sure we’re wining.

Our squad is far away from Top 4 quality. People need to be more realistic. Of course i want to see my team better but with this squad noone is gone make this squad world class.
 
Our squad is far away from Top 4 quality. People need to be more realistic. Of course i want to see my team better but with this squad noone is gone make this squad world class.

It’s not ‘far away’ from Top 4 quality at all- which is what all Ole apologists say. It’s not a perfect squad or a particularly balanced one now but with a quality decent manager we could finish 3/4th. With a mediocre one 5/6th & a terrible one 7th downwards.
 
Our squad is far away from Top 4 quality. People need to be more realistic. Of course i want to see my team better but with this squad noone is gone make this squad world class.

We finished above Liverpool 2 years ago! I know that was about 25% a different squad, but the turn around in both teams fortunes should put an end to this ridiculous idea that we - or indeed any team - needs fecking aeons to be competitive again. It’s a cop out! Look at Leicester FFS.

People need to stop making these embarrassing excuses for why one of the richest clubs in the world needs the entire span of an HBO series to start seeing improvement.
 
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We finished above Liverpool 2 years ago! I know that was about 25% a different squad, but the turn around in both teams fortunes should put an end to this ridiculous idea that we - or indeed any team - needs fecking aeons to be competitive again. It’s a cop out! Look at Leicester FFS.

In that time Liverpool bought VVD, Salah, Keita, Allisson, Fabinho etc. We don’t need aeons, we need players.
 
Brendan is a good coach but Leicester's squad is genuinely excellent. You need to watch them more, quality players in midfield and Evans who has three PL titles. They could legit establish themselves as a top club.
Plus Leicester have players that have won PL. in our strongest starting only De Gea knows that feeling.
 
Yes let’s not hire decent managers (who by the way won us trophies & got top 4) & stick with a terrible one because apparently the decent ones didn’t work (despite winning us things)

Utterly crazy logic. The club is absolutely fcked with even the fans thinking this nonsense

Go back to RAWK. And stay there please
 
Brendan is a good coach but Leicester's squad is genuinely excellent. You need to watch them more, quality players in midfield and Evans who has three PL titles. They could legit establish themselves as a top club.

They finished 3 places below us last season, Brendan has been there for less time than Ole, and we could’ve easily bought most of their players.

What about any of that makes anyone think the logical conclusion is to give Ole a pass for another 2-3 seasons!?

Everyone’s gone mad
 
Go back to RAWK. And stay there please

How pathetic. Can’t actually disagree with the point made so say that..if anything the Ole in lot should go ‘back to RAWK’ as you are as culpable as Ed for putting up with a bang average manager for our great club while Liverpool are pissing away with the league (who by the way went through quite a few managers before getting to Klopp)
 
The majority of the excuses and reasons for sticking down our current road for years will never make sense, because its impossible to come up with anything remotely logical.
 
They finished 3 places below us last season, Brendan has been there for less time than Ole, and we could’ve easily bought most of their players.

What about any of that makes anyone think the logical path is to give Ole a pass for another 2-3 seasons!?

Everyone’s gone mad
They can find a reason for every club doing better than us. Dont try to convince them, they are beyond that.
 
City were far from full strength and so were we. All it showed was how much better they can cope when they don't field their best 11 than we can. Their best 11 is better than our best 11 too of course but at least we can be competitive against them with our best side as we've proved a few times recently.

Having no Maguire, No midfield and Martial being on the bench because he was ill was only every going to result in a hiding. We just don't have the players to cope.
 
I mean, not in that particular time frame per say, but in a general sense, yes! It’s what literally every other club in the world not burdened by the sentimentality of having a unique once in a century manager in their rear view, does. All the time!

Every club of a similar status to us has had a couple of high profile managers fail, if not several times over, and their response has almost never been “feck it, let’s just appoint a novice ex-player and give him as much uncritical time as he needs and see what happens?”... because that would be mental! And before people bring up Pep or Zidane, neither of them would’ve lasted an entire year of disappointing results. They stayed on because they got results. Not because they were given Carte Blanche to build a team over 5 years!

We shouldn’t just appoint any old flavour of the month, of course, but if a genuinely good progressive coach is available, we should unquestionably snap him up. And we should actively be looking for such a person right now.

They stayed on because they had Messi, Suarez, Ronaldo, Bale, oil money etc. Why do you think you'll never see them managing an Arsenal, Spurs, Dortmund or AC Milan? Ole isn't getting uncritical time. We've got rid of Valencia, Fellaini, Herrera, Sanchez, Lukaku, Darmian, Smalling and been without Bailly, Pogba, Dalot, Shaw and Martial for periods of time. We've still got Lingard, Matic, Jones, Mata, Young etc.

Despite all that we're still above Spurs and Arsenal who have arguably better squads than us. If we were sitting in mid table, I'd expect him to be gone. But at the moment we're 5th for feck's sake. Don't you think that deserves some credit?
 
It's crazy how Ed, the Glazers and Ole have convinced the Ole In crowd that it takes 2 - 3 seasons to carry out a rebuild and get us competing. I mean sure if we were a club like Tottenham it can take that long but when you're currently one of the richest and most decorated clubs ever the rebuild shouldn't be this slow.
 
How pathetic. Can’t actually disagree with the point made so say that..if anything the Ole in lot should go ‘back to RAWK’ as you are as culpable as Ed for putting up with a bang average manager for our great club while Liverpool are pissing away with the league (who by the way went through quite a few managers before getting to Klopp)

Its getting boring, all you do is sayingn that our manager is average, over and over again.

Yet, everybody who has some football knowledge know our squad is far from good enough to be where we want it to be. Doesnt matter if our manager this season would be Klipp or Moyes, we wouldnt be winning the league anyway.

Our current manager has done some great work with the players we will use in the future, like Rash, Martial, Greenwood, Fred and Williams has all been very good. Thats a great core for next season. Put in a couple of good signings and we're actually a good side and the plan works.

People who has a shred of knowledge knows that rebuilding takes some time, and the only way to get results is to stick with it and give it time.

Ole has actually done a very good job in his first season, considering what the plan is.

You might disagree with the plan, thats fair, but calling it average is just idioti, because the players we want and the club wants are getting much better
 
Yes let’s not hire decent managers (who by the way won us trophies & got top 4) & stick with a terrible one because apparently the decent ones didn’t work (despite winning us things)

Utterly crazy logic. The club is absolutely fcked with even the fans thinking this nonsense
I love how you conveniently leave out the part where those decent managers destroyed our wage structure and nearly sent the entire dressing room into depression. 2nd highest wage bill in the country for a bunch of mercenaries. Ole spent most of his time here cleaning up their messes. I disagree with the other poster telling you to go to RAWK... you should follow your decent manager to Spurs. It's amazing how blinkered you can be, because even if you had a point, you struggle to express it properly without making it personal.
 
It's crazy how Ed, the Glazers and Ole have convinced the Ole In crowd that it takes 2 - 3 seasons to carry out a rebuild and get us competing. I mean sure if we were a club like Tottenham it can take that long but when you're currently one of the richest and most decorated clubs ever the rebuild shouldn't be this slow.
So how much do you think we need to spend to get a squad ready to challenge for trophies?
 
I love how you conveniently leave out the part where those decent managers destroyed our wage structure and nearly sent the entire dressing room into depression. 2nd highest wage bill in the country for a bunch of mercenaries. Ole spent most of his time here cleaning up their messes. I disagree with the other poster telling you to go to RAWK... you should follow your decent manager to Spurs. It's amazing how blinkered you can be, because even if you had a point, you struggle to express it properly without making it personal.

I’m the blinkered one ok..Ole can do no wrong in your eyes. It’s pointless debating with you. There are far far far better managers out there but we’ve accepted a very average one who’s only tactical nous is counter attack. Fine if you’re happy with that but don’t expect others to be- some of us have higher expectations & standards for our club
 
I’m the blinkered one ok..Ole can do no wrong in your eyes. It’s pointless debating with you. There are far far far better managers out there but we’ve accepted a very average one who’s only tactical nous is counter attack. Fine if you’re happy with that but don’t expect others to be- some of us have higher expectations & standards for our club
Thats the thing, you arent debating, you are putting forth your own opinion and then getting upset when others don't agree or see things differently. I dont think Ole is the best option if other managers are available and interested, but it doesn't make sense to sack him now, he deserves at least till the end of the season. He is doing well with the kids and they respect him, and perhaps that is exactly what we need to steady the ship after Jose. I've said it before, he is laying the foundations for the next manager to not inherit another unbalanced, overpaid, unmotivated mess.
 
They stayed on because they had Messi, Suarez, Ronaldo, Bale, oil money etc. Why do you think you'll never see them managing an Arsenal, Spurs, Dortmund or AC Milan? Ole isn't getting uncritical time. We've got rid of Valencia, Fellaini, Herrera, Sanchez, Lukaku, Darmian, Smalling and been without Bailly, Pogba, Dalot, Shaw and Martial for periods of time. We've still got Lingard, Matic, Jones, Mata, Young etc.

Despite all that we're still above Spurs and Arsenal who have arguably better squads than us. If we were sitting in mid table, I'd expect him to be gone. But at the moment we're 5th for feck's sake. Don't you think that deserves some credit?

It does deserve credit and we should stick with Ole and let him build and guide a developing team for a couple of seasons and see what they can do then when they have developed consistency.

At the moment he cant win, if we lose against a crap team Ole is crap. If we hammer a crap team the opposition is crap. If we win against a top team it ia because we can inly play on the break and if we lose against a top team we are not where man utd have a divine right to be.

Well grow up kids, you cant undo six years of swapping and changing and squad deterioration overnight a degree of patience is required. I know two or three years sounds like a lifetime to you children but it is what is required. I have seen man utd relegated, I have seen fans campaigning for fergie until we won the FA cup helped by Mark Robbins. Ole isn’t SAF but then again SAF may just have been AF if some if the fans had had their way back then! Give Ole a chance, no one knows what the future holds but in my book he is doing the right things with what he has and of course he is learning on the job, just like any manager or player does joining a unique giant like man utd.
 
Sometimes just keep quiet.

Any manager we had post SAF would have been crucified had they said that. But since it’s Ole, it’s fine. What do we really expect from the manager who makes stupid Moyesque comments like this every single week?
 
It's crazy how Ed, the Glazers and Ole have convinced the Ole In crowd that it takes 2 - 3 seasons to carry out a rebuild and get us competing. I mean sure if we were a club like Tottenham it can take that long but when you're currently one of the richest and most decorated clubs ever the rebuild shouldn't be this slow.



Have you been living under a rock?



We've been pretty much in a rebuild phase since fergie left and you have seen have shambolic that has been at times and has left the squad at its worse state come end of last season.


No one has convinced anyone of it, we have witnessed it in real time. Majority of players hasnt worked and pretty much 3 managers before hasnt worked with where we need to be, and 2 of them where 2 of the best and most experienced about.


You cant be claiming it's a fast process?

Unless you think the club has 500mil just sitting there to spend right now because we are United and we are decorated.
 
They stayed on because they had Messi, Suarez, Ronaldo, Bale, oil money etc. Why do you think you'll never see them managing an Arsenal, Spurs, Dortmund or AC Milan?

Wait... shouldn’t you be arguing that they were really good managers who proved how successful appointing novice ex-players can be?... not that they were actually entirely reliant on having a bunch of World Class talent that meant they couldn’t fail, which only proves how ridiculous it is that we’ve taken that risk without a similar such safety mat!?

This, along with “Leicester having a good manager whose got a team with no World Class players to leapfrog us in under a year is actually reason why we shouldn’t expect too much from Ole” is only furthering my belief that there’s a whole bunch of people here arguing any old nonsense from any old angle so long as it arrives at a predetermined point.

Either that or it’s some kind of 4D chess disinformation tactic aimed at confusing me by arguing my own points back at me with such blasé confidence that I’m tricked into thinking they’re actually the opposite of what they seem!


But at the moment we're 5th for feck's sake. Don't you think that deserves some credit?

Read that back to yourself. Out loud.
 
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It's crazy how Ed, the Glazers and Ole have convinced the Ole In crowd that it takes 2 - 3 seasons to carry out a rebuild and get us competing. I mean sure if we were a club like Tottenham it can take that long but when you're currently one of the richest and most decorated clubs ever the rebuild shouldn't be this slow.

Ed and the Glazers haven’t convinced me it takes 2-2 seasons to carry out a re build, I have my own mind and it is basic common sense.

It is crazy that people like you think that you can undo six seasons of swapping and changing and buy and integrate a number of new players and sell the old ones in anything less!! This is the real world not FIFA on your game console
 
I still live in the hope that he will be relieved of his duties sooner rather than later.
 
So if we get our shiny new manager to construct this new squad and it ain't working after 20/30 games, we gonna sack him as well?

Well, my point was that this squad of players is not as good as people seem to think. Ole might or might not be a Man Utd manager, but the majority of players in this squad sure as feck are not Man Utd players either, especially if you compare it to the great sides under Fergie.

Seriously, compare this team to some of the PL winning squads under Fergie and very few would make the squad and even fewer if any would make the first XI
 
Ed and the Glazers haven’t convinced me it takes 2-2 seasons to carry out a re build, I have my own mind and it is basic common sense.

It is crazy that people like you think that you can undo six seasons of swapping and changing and buy and integrate a number of new players and sell the old ones in anything less!! This is the real world not FIFA on your game console
:lol: Not like we had some terrible team though? You don't have to undo 6 years ffs but it seems you were convinced by Ole that we do, even though he himself said that after the amazing pre season he has planned where we will become the fittest and strongest team in the entire universe, we will be flying :lol: Anyway, I didn't expect anything from Ole and how can anyone, he thinks City fielding a strong team against us is a compliment to us :lol: Feck me the sooner he leaves the better it is for everyone.
 
Wait... shouldn’t you be arguing that they were really good managers who proved how successful appointing novice ex-players can be?... not that they were actually entirely reliant on having a bunch of World Class talent that meant they couldn’t fail, which only proves how ridiculous it is that we’ve taken that risk without a similar such safety mat!?

This, along with “Leicester having a good manager whose got a team with no World Class players to leapfrog us in under a year is actually reason why we shouldn’t expect too much from Ole” is only furthering my belief that there’s a whole bunch of people here arguing any old nonsense from any old angle so long as it arrives at a predetermined point.

Either that or it’s some kind of 4D chess disinformation tactic aimed at confusing me by arguing my own points back at me with such blasé confidence that I’m tricked into thinking they’re actually the opposite of what they seem!




Read that back to yourself. Out loud.

We are fecking 5th man! And with our lowest point total in 30 years. Don't you think that deserves some credit?
 
Ed and the Glazers haven’t convinced me it takes 2-2 seasons to carry out a re build, I have my own mind and it is basic common sense.

It is crazy that people like you think that you can undo six seasons of swapping and changing and buy and integrate a number of new players and sell the old ones in anything less!! This is the real world not FIFA on your game console

I think if your argument hangs on “But Alex Ferguson...”, you have already lost.

The man was a genius and he had already done genius in the game before he even arrived in Manchester. The fact that the club once gave time to a genius coming into a struggling giant cannot be the basis for anyone’s argument. Prefacing it with “I know he is not SAF...” destroys the whole argument. There are many, many examples of managers arriving at teams and characteristics and imprints being visible from the first few games. Ole hasn’t done that, and there has been no change over a 12 month period.

Things are getting worse because he is starting to say the wrong things now too and repeat tired and uninspired cliches in pressers.

There is far more evidence to suggest that he isn’t a top manager, and his win percentage is now becoming crucial after so many games. It’s not good enough. We are twelve months in and have a good group of players, much better than Sheffield United, Wolves and Palace. Why are we closer to them than we are to Leicester?

We don’t have evidence of tactical nous, we don’t have evidence of a manager who knows how to win, we don’t have any historical patterns or achievements to point to and we don’t have a defined style of play on the pitch. What exactly are you hanging your hat on?

Wasting so many years of top talents makes me so sad, and I don’t want to waste another 2-3 on a manager who was chosen for all the wrong reasons.
 
This is my (subjective) view of the squad:

Good enough now and for the future: Rashford, Martial, Maguire, AWB,
Useful squad players/Will be good enough: Greenwood, Pereira, James, Fred, McTomminay, Williams, Henderson (hes a better keeper than DDG), Lindelof
Remains to be seen: Tuanzebe, Fosu-Mensah, Gomes, Dalot
Should be sold/released: DDG, Baily, Shaw Jones, Rojo, Young, Mata, Lindgard, Matic, Chong, Pogba

I agree our squad is not great and any discussion of Ole's worth needs to factor the lack of talent in that assessment.

Still I think it unrealistic to act as if we can just ax all but 4 players. The problem here is that you act like we might get 5 or 6 players in a transfer window to fix that. Based on the last few transfer windows I believe that is a pipe dream. Now you can rate players how you like but as we might (if we are lucky) get one player this winter (anyone think more?) and maybe 3 or 4 this summer with much dependent on a top 4 finish I would keep DeGea and Pogba in the squad until we have no choice as they are talented regardless of personal opinion. In addition Pereira is not a guy I wish to keep around.

As such I would modify you list to look like this...

Good enough now and for the future: Rashford, Martial, Maguire, AWB, Pogba, DeGea
Useful squad players/Will be good enough: Greenwood, James, Fred, McTomminay, Williams, Henderson, Romero, Lindelof
Remains to be seen: Tuanzebe, Fosu-Mensah, Gomes, Dalot, Pereira
Should be sold/released: Baily, Shaw, Jones, Rojo, Young, Mata, Lindgard, Matic, Chong

This gives us 6 solid starters with quite a few other positions ably covered. So this month grab Bruno and then this summer we get a striker/RW, CM and a CB and then anything else we need based on who stepped up or needs getting rid of.
 
It's crazy how Ed, the Glazers and Ole have convinced the Ole In crowd that it takes 2 - 3 seasons to carry out a rebuild and get us competing. I mean sure if we were a club like Tottenham it can take that long but when you're currently one of the richest and most decorated clubs ever the rebuild shouldn't be this slow.

It is that slow when Mourinho / LVG spent over half a billion and this year we have Martial (injured), Fred and Lindelof to show for it.
 
Any manager we had post SAF would have been crucified had they said that. But since it’s Ole, it’s fine. What do we really expect from the manager who makes stupid Moyesque comments like this every single week?
What was the previous Moyesque comment he made?
 
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