Some of them are a bit unlucky - Ole at Watford had two injury time goals and we had a red card + our big loss with ETH at Anfield every shot on target went in and they doubled their xG. That said it has to change.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | Managerial Watch
- Thread starter Samid
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The season we were relegated, 1973/4, our biggest defeats were 0-3 at home to Arsenal and 0-3 away at QPR.
At the time we had Matic, Mata, Pogba and De Gea.
https://www.worldfootball.net/team_performance/manchester-united/eng-premier-league-2019-2020/
Looking at the minutes played it was likely only De Gea or Pogba - the other two wouldn't have played enough. Pogba was vice-captain under Mourinho before he had it stripped from him so can't see him turning it down if asked, and he did captain us at a point under Ole when Maguire was absent so realistically I think it was only De Gea who was asked before Maguire.
Some on here borderline hated the man when he was manager.
Pogba knew he wanted to leave so would've been advised to turn down the captaincy and not create a false promise to fans. Can't give a player the captaincy who plans on leaving in the summer.
I think it was Pogba tbh. Once or twice is fine, but if he knew he wanted out which he clearly did, then he would've been advised to turn it down rather than create a false promise for fans. Ties in with him saying players wanted to leave. He was obviously forced to stay way longer than he hoped.
I reckon it was Pogba and he said no as he was planning on leaving. We’d started atrociously in the league that year and were playing EL football.
Edit. @bosnian_red we’re singing from the same hymn sheet
Good point.
It’s no shock that extremely defensive and / or cautious managers (LvG, Mourinho, Moyes) have a low amount of high-scoring defeats.
LvG was tedious but yeah, we had a measure of control with him - even against the top sides at the time from what i recall.
Also there was a match against City under Ole (at OT i think) where City went 2-0 up and it felt like they just weren't interested in hammering us but they were cruising in second gear the entire match. I could be remembering that wrong though.
Those 2 Liverpool losses still sting: 7-0 and 0-5. What on earth.
I can't imagine De Gea turning down the armband. It must have been Pogba.
Best players you've signed?
1. Bruno
2. Harry Magurie
1. Bruno
2. Harry Magurie
LVG was very fortunate to be in charge at a time when the sort of teams that might give us a bad beating were all very weak. That's how bang average teams like Leicester and Spurs were competing to win the league. And, as you point out, Leicester did give us a hiding when he was in charge.
Mourinho is what he is. Extremely negative, shit on a stick football. You won't even concede a load of goals but that isn't worth all the other shite you need to put up with him at the reigns.
Maguire was good for us in his first season to be fair. Says more about our pathetic transfer business that he's second best in his eyes though.Best players you've signed?
1. Bruno
2. Harry Magurie
I still can't get how this has happened against the scousers over the last few years.
7-0 Anfield
4-0 Anfield
0-5 OT
2-4 OT
Fecking shocking !!!
Spot on in lot of things that we saw. Players threw him under the bus. Simple. Like they did before. And like they did after.
Players are problem. Have been and will be. Club needs to take control of the club and not players run it.
Players are problem. Have been and will be. Club needs to take control of the club and not players run it.
Says it all doesn't it. There's players in the current squad that have overseen for too many scorelines like this. Somehow they're still here and starting games for us manager after manager, window after window.
Poor managerial choices and poor signings are a huge contribution to the fecking mess that we're in.
One of his final games I think, just after we lost 5-0 to Liverpool (which could have easily been 9-0 or 10-0 if they hadn't pull their foot off the gas in the second half). Had City needed 10 goals in that game, they would have scored them.
I remember from a recent conversation you might react poorly to this but I think with LVG it was more that we were so risk adverse, rather than being a weak team. We had a weak team from a personnel perspective comparatively but we were playing as a team at least. It was very difficult to score against us at the expense of any kind of attacking threat.
Mou I hated but his time here I think he been warped a bit by history. In their best seasons in the PL when both finished 2nd, Ole’s United scored 73 and conceded 44 and Mou’s United scored 68 and conceded 28. We weren’t that much better offensively with Ole and goals were more spread out with Mou given Ole has +15 from the time Leeds tried to attack us non stop and the freak Soton game.
None have been good enough mind you but I guess it’s not surprising the coaches who have pedigree are the ones who have all won trophies here.
It's weird to say this because of the scoreline and especially now you consider those horrendous scorelines against Liverpool. But if the match you're talking about is the one I remember I actually remember feeling almost more humiliated at that match, it was almost as if City barely even acknowledged us as a football team, just some players that were not worth putting in the effort to play a football match with, just toyed with us and strolled around the park like it was nothing. As somebody said above they could have easily scored 10 goals or more in that game if they wanted to, but instead they seemed to just say what's the point we'll conserve the energy for an actual football team. I genuinely felt embarassment on another level at that one, even if the scoreline was more conservative than some of our other losses.
I'm pretty pro Ole if I'm honest. I at least liked that his team had guts and wouldn't shrivel up and die after a setback. We went on fairly long runs of unbeaten form and would score goals. He did well on the whole with the exception that he simply couldn't get us over the line. Like all Managers, when it goes wrong, the results get bad and that's mainly what people remember. He at least had a gameplan and you knew what you were getting. His signings were average but an improvement on the woeful record of Jose. I also feel bad given he had to deal with covid and its fallout. Not to mention being lumbered with Ronaldo that ultimately destroyed the team.
I'd love to see the same fight in our team that we had under Ole. It's been a long time since I've felt confident we could turn a game around if I'm honest. It's frustrating too because I was very pro ETH, but feel like the last 4/5 months have been badly managed, from the transfers, to the pre season, the handling of some players and now the start of the season.
A lot of people might call United the dream job but with Ole you know he means it. He's a fan and that had its positives, but also clear negatives like not being able to watch bad defeats back (something I also can't do, but the manager of United probably should.)
A lot of interesting bits in there about behind the scenes stuff but a couple that caught my eye:
Lukaku I guess?
This seems a little disingenuous given we signed others like Pellistri and Amad, and Brighton loaned him out anyway. The 3 player cap thing also sounds so very Woodward.
A lot of interesting bits in there about behind the scenes stuff but a couple that caught my eye:
Lukaku I guess?
This seems a little disingenuous given we signed others like Pellistri and Amad, and Brighton loaned him out anyway. The 3 player cap thing also sounds so very Woodward.
I think Tony Bloom owns the Belgian club to which they loaned Caicedo, so they have a lot more control over the fate of the player and how he is developed. City have the same philosophy at their feeder clubs that all of them emphasize the same collective ideas. United on the other hand are left to the whims of the clubs to whom they loan players. The Amad and Pellestri purchases were likely down to them not being able to pry Sancho off of Dortmund and then realizing that they either use the money or lose it.
Bloom is a shareholder in a different Belgian club by the looks of it (sidebar but I see that Royal Antwerp are now a champions league team, shame we don't have that link still going ourselves). I'm sure that was the reason for those buys, but still not a good reason when Caicedo was about £4.5m. It was just a misjudgement on talent in the year where our big money signing was van de Beek.
It’s still a shame he didn’t work out. I think he did a better job than many give him credit for.
Kinda hope that he would accept another manager position soon, would like to see him back at least somewhere at a decent club in Europe.
He did a good job to a point definitely, the morons in charge should never have given him the gig permanently. Hindsight is great though.
Think he will. His spell at Cardiff was I think just accepting whatever came his way, United he accepted for obvious reasons. Think his next team will be thoroughly thought out before he makes a move, he has already declined several offers.
Aargh thanks guys - my memory is pretty foggy these days but that match in particular, along with the 5 & 7 against Pool, sticks out in my mind. But honestly, I don’t recall much other than feeling completely numb as L1nk says, due to the sheer gulf in class and quality that match. It was like they conserved their energy for an actual tougher test, and they were at OT ffs.
Yeah that 2-0 defeat against City was almost as bad (performance wise) as the Liverpool game.
Tuchel said yesterday that one of the issues he feels surrounding United is the media scrutiny and amplification of any small issues and the thousand club legends that have an opinion on it which i guess is just something you have to deal with. Seems like the media obviously picked the morning before tonight's game to reveal the interview but its annoying.
I'm glad Ole corrected the assumption that he picked Maguire as captain virtually from the off and at least offered it to a few other players. They come across as a pretty spineless group of senior players.
Tuchel said yesterday that one of the issues he feels surrounding United is the media scrutiny and amplification of any small issues and the thousand club legends that have an opinion on it which i guess is just something you have to deal with. Seems like the media obviously picked the morning before tonight's game to reveal the interview but its annoying.
I'm glad Ole corrected the assumption that he picked Maguire as captain virtually from the off and at least offered it to a few other players. They come across as a pretty spineless group of senior players.
Why are people still going on about the away record? If there are no fans in the stadium, it's not an away game.
Taking a dump away from home sucks. You didn't consider that now, did you?!!
Seems recent to me with some of the references on the article.
But even if it isn't, it would be a naive oversight of Ole to do the interview and not have any input on when it is released.
I may be mistaken, but i recall Andy Mitten saying on the Talk of the Devils podcast that he had been talking with Ole a few months ago. I think he mentioned them doing it over the phone when driving, which is what is said in the first line of the interview.
He may though have done the interview in parts.
I think he could’ve worked out if the setup was right. As we’ve seen, the conditions at this club create an uphill battle for any manager coming in.
I don't think Ole has any control over how and when it was released nor would the Athletic agree to that sort of stipulation, he is not Messi and does not have any real clout to be making demands. Over and above all of that though, I cannot see why anyone is bothered as it is a very mild interview with no scandalous revelations and a distinct lack of bitterness or blaming of others. He does not criticize the club or the manager and the issue with players not training to force a move is not new information and they are no longer at United so how this article is anything to get worked up about is beyond me. I think the entire team shitting the bed against Brighton was and is a far bigger issue.
Of course he shouldn't have gotten the permanent gig; it was just another idiotic decision by the club hierarchy. He done a great job as caretaker and that should have been that, as things had gone rather flat by the time he got the permanent gig, barring the PSG win.
At the time, all the talk was of a modern progressive manager coming in along with a DoF. The Board saw an opportunity to take an easy way out, and appointed Ole. Had we have actually gotten a proper DoF and a modern progressive manager at that point, I'm pretty confident we would be in a much better place now. For starters, we wouldn't have spunked 100 odd million on Maguire and AWB, and the likes of McT would be long gone.
Ole's tenure was a complete waste of time. He failed to do anything to progress the club, but I suppose, SECOND place. There were some enjoyable times under him, but that's more a measure of how fecking terrible we've been over the past decade.
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Becuase we werent the only ones playing without fans. Every team did the same and didnt have the record.
Ole should have been sacked in the summer of 2021. 2nd place finish, cup final, thank you and lets move on.
Now I think about it, that UEFA cup final is probably the last time Martial played well. He was unreal in that game and really should have scored.
Tbh, I didn't rate him as a manager. But, it would have been harsh sacking him after 2nd place and a EL Final. That summer, I actually started to think he could do some good here when he signed Sancho and Varane.