It's his first season at this level. I think he just needs a bit of a rest and you'll see him tearing defenders like he was at the start of the season. He's had a nice few assists as well.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
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He was not beating defenders then either, he is good when he is played in but he struggles with dribbling one on one with defenders, even when he was playing well. At most he would draw a foul, he lacks the technical skills I'm afraid
The scary thing for me Bilbo is who is gonna want to come here and play under this? Our Premier League win-rate this season is 39%, and we don't play particularly attractive football.
LvG himself was something of an attraction, as was Mourinho, add those two to an idea of a strong Manchester United and players are interested.
Seeing what they have this season though, and with a manager doing as poor statistically as he has, would any player really pick United and playing under Ole this Summer if they can go to Pep at City, Klopp at Liverpool, hell even Mourinho at Spurs? I don't think so, I think we'll be scraping the barrel.
Fair points. I've been pretty vocal on here about my support of Ole, and I think maybe sometimes might read as a defence of Woodward and the Glazers too. That definitely isn't the case. I'm confident that the signs point to Woodward learning a lot of lessons and having abetter approach though, but in no way do I have confidence that he can get the right deals done in the market. I would hope that we could bring in £100-130m in fees for 2 players that haven't contributed this season in Pogba and Smalling, and that would give us a nice head start if we reinvest that and top it up with £150m.
On Fernandes I cant disagree with you. It depends on the extent that Sporting are being difficult to deal with, otherwise I think we'd be talking about his debut on Wednesday. Perhaps we are still seeing the cost of a reputation that says United will pay up if you play us the right way.
It's £15m + £3m, so up to £18m. Considering he is from Championship and has had a fee agreed with Leeds for £8m just 6 months before we signed him if I remember correctly (and he had a better first half of the season stats wise), I think we did overpay for him.
I went a bit OTT saying Maguire is the worst. We have some absolute gems like Jones who should not be playing football professionally anymore but instead he is hanging around our first team cause "we protect our assets". Anyway, for the amount of money we paid I think he is a crap player.
You're some man for the negativity. Englands best CB was honoured to join. Apparently Fernandes is desperate to come. Maddison is a United fan isn't he? You think Grealish wouldn't want to join United?
I think someone with a bit of cop on would be able to see the potential in this side once we get the midfield sorted out. Not all footballers are idiots.
Not necessarily. Players wont care what our win-rate was. They will care what competitions we are playing in next season, and lack of CL will cost us something but United will never struggle to land quality players. I think a lot of players will look at Liverpool and City and wonder how they are going to get in those teams, whereas we have a different project to offer. We would only want players that are going to buy into that project anyway, and historically we have rarely if ever gone out and bought the star players at marquee clubs.
I dont know if Ole is the right man tactically wise. So i do not think he will get us the Prem or CL. That said i think he is the right man to start the overhaul. he loves United and knows what type of players we need. If that means 2-3 years without a title, so be it. I personally trust him, with the transfers he has made so far and think that if given time and financial backing he is going to build a proper squad. In the meantime we should keep an eye on the managers and look who is going to be available and when.
I think top players consider the manager strongly when deciding on moving clubs.
If that was the case we have nothing to fear from Chelsea and Arsenal, and I suspect many players would think long and hard about playing under Jose considering his past form with players.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is the most successful manager in the premier league at playing Liverpool this season.
Chelsea we do because they are currently CL fave and have an over 50% win rate this year.
Is the flash of money and big name manager really the pull that worked for us lately? We had that and it turned us in to a bloated team with mercenary players who got paid way too much money or players who simply don't fit, or just wanted big things right away without working for it. People said Rooney wanted big money but at least he earned it, we started handing out such contracts to new comers who never proved their worth to us.
We're a great club, the attraction will be there but we need people who will work for the club in order to improve it, not expect things on a silver platter.
Brilliant!
James isn't bad at that price, but he wasn't what we needed. We needed an out and out right winger. What we got is a left winger having more often than not to play on the right, which is not using his talent properly.
Get in! He deserves a contract extension for sure.
He's a pace merchant. Not an insult but he's not skilled to take on players and dribble past them. He uses his pace in spaces to get past defenders but that's about it. We see these kind of wingers a lot.
Well we finished 2nd, won some "meh" trophies so it certainly seems better than our current route.
I only wish we either backed Jose to the hilt in Summer 2018 else better still, replaced him and backed the new guy to the hilt, because there we were onto something at least for the first time since SAF left. Going for the likes of Sancho after finishing second, I just think it's much easier than in Summer 2020 trying to convince him Ole's United is the best future for him, in that scenario, he 100% picks Chelsea over us I'm sure.
I can only base off what I see now, as @SteveW says, I can't see the future and our current rebuild looks way worse than Jose's version of it which also ultimately wasn't good enough.
My worry now isn't just that we'll be forced to offer more money to clubs and higher wages to get the players we want, it's that the players we have to try and bring in will be bang average punts a la Longstaff.
It's a worry but I do realise it must be nice for you and Bilbo to be completely confident that all is well.
He still struggles one on one with defenders which is not a good thing
Unfortunately the lad relies on somebody hacking him down and winning freekicks, which would be good if we were actually a threat from freekicks. Somebody who can beat his man would be more dangerous, as a freekick they just get everybody back to defend.
This is a very good highlight concerning the realistic situation and circumstances that Solskjaer has created not adopted.
I've got no problems with fans supporting Ole but what gets on my nerves is making excuses for him. Why are fans doing so when Ole himself has admitted he is underachieving and behind whatever provisions he envisaged.
Moyes is still unbeaten against them and got the chance to do better. If he gets a win should we bring him back then?
Who wouldn't be difficult if you come and offer them a fee that they rejected from Spurs in the summer coupled with currently unattainable add-ons? I am certain that if offer them something like 50m guaranteed they will take it but Woodward and Judge are intent on offering them something way below their demands because they just want to generate clicks and views on social media and they will dangle the reported Maddison signing to appease the fans.
As for Ole, I made my mind up that I wanted him out when we lost to Newcastle but of late, even with our dicy form I am now willing to evaluate at the end of the season. The thing though is I don't think that his his ceiling is high but if he can maintain the 5th place or catch Chelsea then I'd be more willing to give him another year because the squad issue is legitimate so there is an argument for him doing better if he gets 3 or 4 quality additions.
This is the reality of he situation, in correspondence to the poster you replied to Raiola exclusively said that no funny clause was offered in a contract so that leads me to believe Haaland genuinely had no interest in coming here. I keep hearing Solskjaer's name in assurance of future success but what players will merit this transition why would the Haaland's, Sancho's and other established players come when you consider the state of our team and management.
I do believe massively however that due to Solskjaer's inept managerial ability it makes the perception about everything to do with United alot worse.
Clueless, 80m for maguire, james is looking sub par. Only AWB looks decent. He should be sacked asap before he continues to go in deeper troubles.
I don't know where this obsession of win rate has come from. Its never something I've heard anybody refer to so often in prior seasons. This is a difficult league this year. Nobody is putting up an impressive win rate apart from the ones who are smashing records.
Well, each to their own. I think James was a decent addition for that kind of sum. If we had made more of those kind of signings over the past 6 years of decent youngsters i think we would had been in much better shape. Loads of good players come from Championship at some point in their career so i dont think that relevant.
On Fernandes none of us know the truth, but my best guess of sifting through all of the bullsh*t is that sporting approached us because they needed cash, and although he perhaps wasn't number 1 on our list there was a sense a good value deal could be done. Sporting have then moved the goalposts based on their assumption that we were now committed to the transfer. I don't get the view that the club are trying to generate publicity - ultimately it will be viewed by many as a failure if we don't land him so the end does not justify the means. Its better for us that all of our transfer dealings are kept private.
James is ok for that sum. He's a decent signing at(currently) not big of a salary. Worst case scenario we will get what we paid for him or keep him as rotational option.
Agree. He is a bargain, but we should have somebody starting who can actually do the job required. Daniel should be that pacy option off the bench to scare defences when they start to tire.
Just curious, when do Ole supporters think we will have the squad to win the league. How many players do we need and how long should it take us?
Agreed. Think we will get there in the end.
It's my obsession, it's because it's the simplest way to judge how a manager is doing at a top club. Saying we're 5th means jack when we're level with Wolves and a single point ahead of Sheffield United for example. Points are important but win-rate shows the standard a manager is able to maintain, and ours is this season is horrific. We have managed to win a measly 9 games out of 23.
You say "Nobody is putting up an impressive win rate apart from the ones who are smashing records", well:
• City 65%
• Leicester 61%
• Chelsea 52%
The 3 clubs above all are maintaining a standard, even rookie Lampard wins more than half of his games.
Whenever a top club drops under 50%, the manager is sacked sooner rather than later.
What I will add @Bilbo is that if we for example are after Sancho in the Summer, or any other top talent, you'd be extremely naive to not understand that a Manchester United with Pochettino at the helm is a miles more attractive proposition than Manchester United with Ole if the season carries on with a 39% win-rate.
That's the reason I've become ambivalent since Watford away went by without firing the manager, now our form is acceptable enough to keep him on till the Summer. Come the Summer though, if that win-rate doesn't spike massively and gather a feel good feeling around the club, our rebuild with Ole at the helm will take much longer, be much more difficult and have less chance of success than with say Pochettino in charge because our top targets will have other potential suitors.
Jose wasn't sacked for finishing second, was he? If he built a team capable of second place finishes he'd still be here. He went and left a huge mess behind him.
Maybe sky high wages aren't the carrot we should always use? Liverpool didn't pay any of their signigns over the top, and back in the day neither did we do that, with odd exception here and there like with van Persie. Now players get huge wages just for signing, they use to had to earn it. Perhaps it's the time to get back to it.
We recently had no use of players who got huge wages before they proved they're it for us and it's costly to get rid of them.
That's my entire point Keki, Lıverpool have been able to sell the Klopp factor. Klopp improves pretty much every player he coaches, was the same at Dortmund, and his football must be a joy to play for.
What are we selling? How can we convince a top target to join us rather than say Spurs, or Chelsea?
If it's not wages, then what is it? Ole Gunnar? Our brand of football? Our great project that so far yields a win-rate of 39%? From the outside our project looks absolute pants.
So, yeah I agree with you, and that's why I'd replace Ole in the Summer with someone like Poch, UNLESS that win-rates spikes massively in the next 4 months and a feel good feeling is created around the club that could be attractive to our top targets. Poch might not be the best around, but top players will want to play for him for certain because he's got a reputation for improving players, he's plays nice football, his PL win-rate is massive.
You surely are not naive enough to not understand that Poch + United + 250k vs. Lampard + Chelsea + 250k is much more evenly balanced that Ole + United (in this state) + 250k?
Its too simple. Doesn't take into account any other factors at all.
Ultimately though it comes down to the individual - I suspect not one single person on this forum has had their minds changed by anybody's posts. Its just the same arguments beings had and people of the same mind saying 'top post' or others calling it garbage. There is no winner here. I still maintain what I've written in other posts. If we are prepared to accept that this was always going to be a difficult, but necessary, season then it makes it all immeasurably more enjoyable. You are ambivalent (as I was under Jose) but all season I've looked forward to the next match and I'm really enjoying watching our next potentially great team come together.
Not sure why you saw fit to be sarcy but great job (y)
Lolz! Conveniently ignoring that Ole has made us an upper mid table side. Bravo journo, bravo.
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