Ah points tallys. The recent Liverpool and City sides are better than SAFs too I suppose.
Anyone watching us last season would know the points tally was sheer fluke compared to the performances.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | Beşiktaş J.K.
- Thread starter Samid
- Start date
Anyone watching us last season would know the points tally was sheer fluke compared to the performances.
Only manager to get consecutive top 4. We could argue whole day what is more important but atleast in the league he was better than those two. But more importantly, even his bad record at transfers looks great when looking at money utterly wasted by ETH. This is worse when you think that many of the players were personally known to ETH - like Antony.
Absolutely, he was shite.
Anyone watching us finish on 66 points with Ole and thinking it was a good season is in absolute denial, especially if they think those kind of performances would have continued to give a top four finish. Fortunately a Bruno bounce saved that though.
Ultimately Ole managed an average as feck no trophy 66 point season, a decent season with 70+ and then a massive downfall.
All in all it was wank when judged over it’s entirety, just as was LVG and ETH.
But hey man, you do you and keep reminiscing over those Ole years. I for one would take last years injury hit shite and that great FA Cup win over that bang average first full Ole season but I won’t be reminiscing over that nor ETH’s first season where he clearly outperformed Ole’s best, cause they were all a bit shite like.
Last edited:
I miss the days of being a regular top 4 side myself, far better than what Ten Hag has descended us into. 66 points is only 3 wins off what we won the the league with in 97 after all.
Aye, and ETH matched that 97 tally after all didn’t he?
If you think that first Ole season is getting regular top 4 football you’re so deluded. In his second season absolutely but he ended that shite and certainly wasn’t getting top 4 in 2022 when he would’ve needed 71 points but was projecting for 54 after 17 points in 12 games.
Stop creating some weird fantasy where Ole stays in 2022 and gets top 4 again man.
Mourinho’s the only manager since SAF that made me feel like we were a proper side again for a couple of years, the rest couldn’t string two decent ones together. Even in Mou’s ”worst” he won 2 trophies & only lost 5 all season.
Still with the points tallies nonsense.
Still pretending Ole was going to get us regular top 4 football despite predicting yourself a finish of 6th in September 2021 even before this run of results.
United 1 - 1 Everton
Leicester 4 - 2 United
United 0 - 5 Liverpool
Spurs 0 - 3 United
United 0 - 2 City
Watford 4 - 1 United
So you clearly knew back in 2021 Ole wasn’t getting you top 4 that year at least.
And do you honestly believe our 2019/2020 or even 2020/21 performances would have been good enough for top 4 going forwards? Almost every man & his dog thought Liverpool and Champions league winners Chelsea were actually much better sides than us having freak seasons. (Including you)
Nothing about those years suggested regular 70+ point seasons. All of them were scattered with periods of really shit performances & results.
They also came pre Newcastle buy out which meant another team now capable of 70+ point finishes.
Last edited:
Disagree apart from obviously he did get back to back top four (I just think alone that doesn't compete with trophies) but I realise also no point rehashing this argument, my opinions on Ole remain but I do hope he does well at Besiktas + then comes back to the PL (just not with United)
I haven't 'pretended' anything, what on earth are you talking about
?Yes. I said before that season it was a mistake going for Ronaldo and not buying a DM like Rice, so I expect that was behind the prediction you've gone to try gotcha me with. Nice try but do better research. Thanks for reminding me of my good judgement though.
Again, your points totals are irrelevant. The underlying figures had us top 4 two seasons running, not the 6th and 15th like Ten Hag.
https://understat.com/league/EPL/2020
Better than Mou? Ha ha
Mou had two seasons:
81 points - lost 7
69 points - lost 5
Ole.
74 - lost 6
66 - lost 8
I haven't 'pretended' anything, what on earth are you talking about
Yes. I said before that season it was a mistake going for Ronaldo and not buying a DM like Rice, so I expect that was behind the prediction you've gone to try gotcha me with. Nice try but do better research. Thanks for reminding me of my good judgement though.
Again, your points totals are irrelevant. The underlying figures had us top 4 two seasons running, not the 6th and 15th like Ten Hag.
https://understat.com/league/EPL/2020
So you are admitting that this idea of regular top 4 football under Ole was gone by 2021 then?
And you are admitting that we even his best se, were 4th best, before the Newcastle takeover ?
You say “you miss regular top 4” for something that lasted two seasons and then was gone. I wouldn’t call that regular as much as I would call ETH a regular English trophy winner.
The season prior to Ole getting sacked, with the arrival of Ronaldo, is universally the most feelgood entry in a pre season the club has had since SAF. Its the only time a title challenge had been in conversation. It started well as well, and then it disintegrated.
No I'm saying I predicted we wouldn't get top 4 in 2021/22 due to the squad not being good enough. Definitely wasn't impossible though given we were only a point behind the mighty West Ham in 4th after 16 games.
With £600m to spend in the next 3 years I'm confident we'd be pretty close to top 4 now instead of burning it like Ten Hag did.
Are you denying what I said? Why? It's obvious that attack was better? It's not an attack on Ole, just stating the obvious.
Seriously?
You think the guy who oversaw the following without vetoing was gonna spend it well?
AWB, Maguire, van Beek, Sancho, Varane, Telles, Ronaldo for a combined 338 million would’ve spent it well?
Ole took Mourinho’s squad, oversaw a massive spend and left it worse, ETH then just carried on this trend.
Whilst almost all of our buys under Ole have rightfully left, I personally think Yoro, Ugarte, Maz, De Ligt will do well for the club going forward.
Neither bought well though imo for their first two years and I give ETH little credit for our buys this Summer. Likely Zirkzee was his main call there and looks another flop.
Last edited:
Feck me, this forum just goes in circles.
Wonder why you missed Bruno.
Not having Van de Beek and Ronaldo were on him either.
Maguire has been fine when compared with the on pitch output of nearly every other signing since, Dan James we made a profit on, Amad is one of our best players now.
Sancho, Varane and Telles I agree.
Last edited:
I mentioned the expensive signings that never justified their price tag, Bruno did.
Of course you wanna absolve him of those despite having no real idea.
I don't think it necessarily was better on paper. Ole made it look better than it actually was.
Look at the players who turned to shit after Ole left:
- Rashford, despite still being young, never really recovered. For the last 3.5 years he's been good for 1 season (if even that).
- Martial also never bounced back. Loaned out and then sold.
- Bruno is still a very good player who produces good numbers, but for some reason he starting scoring less as well.
Honestly, player for player I don't think Ole's team was much better. There are at least 4 players currently available that would walk straight into Ole's XI. And then there are something like 5 players that were currently/very recently available to both teams. Martial and Fred are the only exceptions and they don't exactly scream "greatness".
Ole > Eth.
Watching United was at least a whole lot more fun.
Watching United was at least a whole lot more fun.
I don't really care. They were just both odd signings that didnt make much sense compared to others he'd made.
Martial managed just 24 PL. games and scored 4 in Ole’s second full season. In the one he got sacked, he managed 8 games. He was done long before Ole left.
Martial was probably always a lost cause to be fair, but I think it's interesting that his only good season happened when Ole was in charge.
I think his first season under Lvg was great myself. Mourinho was the wrong manager for him though and whilst Ole temporarily cheered him up, he quickly reverted to type.
I never got why people kept demanding we move away from counter attacking football. It was then that it all came undone.
Great if you consider his age and the fact that it was his first season in the PL. Otherwise I'd say he was just slightly above decent for being the main man at United.
66 points was enough for top 4 only in few seasons since Fergie retired (15/16, 19/20). 19/20 it was Liverpool above everyone, City behind them and then no much quality from the rest. We were lucky Leicester went completely downhill and Chelsea had Lampard. Arsenal 8th or something, no rich Newcastle, Villa etc. 20/21 was solid season but don't think it was ever sustainable and it showed in 21/22.
Ole is club legend and obviously great guy but we're really desperate if we're getting nostalgic about ex-Molde manager that is currently coach of Besiktas in Turkey. It's like on Twitter with those weird Ole/Pogba/Martial/Rashford fanboys. Rasford will score for Villa soon and we won't hear the end of it.
Ole is club legend and obviously great guy but we're really desperate if we're getting nostalgic about ex-Molde manager that is currently coach of Besiktas in Turkey. It's like on Twitter with those weird Ole/Pogba/Martial/Rashford fanboys. Rasford will score for Villa soon and we won't hear the end of it.
There is an obsession in football with copying what is succesful which leads to multiple teams trying to emulate City and their turgid 700 sideways passes football. If you have elite players it can work but it often just leads to dull football with no attacking edge and if you don't have the right personnel defensively can also result in some hilarious comedy moments when playing out from the back.
Ole was being pushed to change to a possession based style of play from all sides going into that final season, the fans wanted it, the media were pushing for it and it has been suggested some of the coaches wanted it also. The playing personnel we had were never suited to this and the shift in tactics saw us move away from the players strengths and really exposed their weaknesses. Ole was not a strong enough tactician to adjust to what was happening in games and that resulted in a loss of confidence in him from the supporters and the dressing room.
Ancelotti is a good example of someone who eschews modern tactical thinking to play a more individualistic brand of football yet manages to be successful with it because he has total buy in from his players and is able to make the in game changes and substitutions to get results against any opponent.
Problem is every team is a counter attacking team, its the most efficient way of scoring a goal.
You need to be able to break down teams who sit back in order to beat “lesser opposition” to win enough games to win a league.
I think its the easiest thing to do, but in games where youre probably going to have most of the ball you're not going to be able to use it much.
And I dont think it was the fact that we wanted to move away from it, but how poorly we attempted to make that transition that was the problem. Many years after trying to move away from it we're still most dangerous on a counter attack. Because all we need for that is some fast ball carriers like Amad and Garnacho and in the past Rashford. Just put them on the pitch and you can carry a threat with counter attacks.
But we've found it hard to find the players who will break down a determined, organized defence, or dominate the ball in almost every game, or press relentlessly and do our attacking from turnovers high up the pitch, or be like Arsenal and score loads from set pieces. That takes a bunch of players working together and we've yet to find a combination that will effectively play in any of those ways.
Even Ancelotti was exiled for a few years while the trendy managers dominated the top jobs. He was lucky that Madrid plucked him from obscurity really, but Ancelotti and Madrid is a great match as they’ve both resisted the urge to follow Pep and his disciples.
Ole always got criticised for ‘playing in moments’ and not dominating the ball in the opponents half, but he got results. The sort of results we’d kill for right now.
Because most teams either played a low block against us, which we couldn't unpick, then countered us, or pressed us into surrendering possession nearly our box.
That's why we moved away from counter attacking football.
But we had the team for it, we just needed to tweak a few things. Sancho and Ronaldo coming in made sense to unlock those tight defences, but we then decided to defend on the halfway line with harry Maguire. It was a total contradiction.
Ole made a comment in relation to Rashford's off-field work for keeping FareShare. Ole said he wanted Rashford to concentrate more on his football, which did not come out well in the media, understandable enough - as if football is more important than feeding children. When Ole backtracked by saying United were proud of Rashford's efforts for poor kids, it was not about pleasing Rashford, but rather to protect the reputation of the club. To argue that football is more important than feeding kids, is not a hill you want to die on.
None of us were in that dressing room, but we hear bits here and there. Lingard after he left, described the dressing as catastrophic. Ole himself said that even though it seemed like a good idea to bring Ronaldo back, it still turned out to be a mistake. Just recently, Mike Phelan, described in a podcast how Ronaldo used to roll his eyes whenever Maguire entered the room. Ronaldo wanted to be the captain, and Maguire's struggles started when Ronaldo arrived. Just a couple of months earlier, everyone pointed out how much Maguire was missed in the EL final, and how we probably would have won with him in the team. You had Cavani feeling forced to give away his shirt and also struggled to get game time, after just having extended his contract. In sum, I don't think it is so far fetched to suggest that Ronaldo's arrival contributed well to Ole's failure.
I am not advocating for him to come back to United either. Just that we collectively were too harsh on him pretending as if all he did was smile and create positive vibes.
I just meant in terms of getting top 4. I also feel that Mourinho was better than Ole and my ranking of post-SAF managers would be: Mourinho>Ole>LVG>ETH>Moyes.
I do think it counts against him he wasn't hands on, that for me was a silly move from Woodward to allow, but it's also important to recognise that making players happy is an important part of management. That's why Ancelotti is so good of the current crop, in that he has the tactical nous to play different ways but is also loved by all his players.
But when supposedly more tactically accomplished managers do poorer than him, maybe we should revisit the assumption on his tactical capabilities. Even if he was not hands on, he could be setting the overall tactical framework and delegating training.