Ole Gunnar Solskjaer | W15 D2 L4

Is Ole a good appointment?


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That’s a bizarre fecking post.

Poch gets credit for Spurs second half performance (when they didn’t score) but you won’t give Ole any credit for the first half performance (when we did score) that forced Pocchetino to change his opening formation/tactics.

Have a word with yourself.
Word man word.
 
First they laugh at you (Ole is just a clown coach, just there to smile and spread positive vibes)

Then they ignore you (easiest opponents ever, everybody could win those games. It’s nuthin)

Then they fight you (post Spurs; serious attempts at justifying previous stages, angry rants ensue)

Then you win.
 
Maybe I don’t want to say that. But we all know that he was great when he was a player. So we listen when he tells us something--Anthony Martial on Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

For me, this is one of the biggest plusses about Ole being our manager. His exploits as a player, at our club, means the whole squad will buy into what he has to say. They know not everyone scores 126 goals for Man Utd and wins six titles, including the Treble.

Not many managers could walk into Old Trafford and get the respect that instantly gets you. Just keeping my fingers crossed that our good form continues cos I want Solksjaer made permanent manager ASAP.
 




First De Gea and now Martial publicly back him for the job. Pogba has also been singing his praises ever since he took over.

Ole would surely deserve the job off the strength of helping us keep our best players in my opinion
 
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First De Gea and now Martial publicly back him for the job. Pogba has also been singing his praises ever since he took over.

Ole would surely deserve the job off the strength of helping us keep our best players in my opinion


This is certainly good news. I thought initially when Ole joined that the likes of Pogba and Martial night not respect him enough to stay on even if he got top 4 and the permanent job. But it seems that he can command respect among players.

I suppose the environment helps -- while he is not a "global" legend like Zidane, he is still our club legend and everyone who joins us must have been schooled about him, and probably the club staff and board treat him with respect, which along with his man-management has rubbed off on the players.
 
I know it’s only 6 games, but I don’t know what else we’d want from a new Manager. He’s got us playing the way (most) of us want and the more time he has with the group, hopefully it’ll only get better. Morale is at what must be 5year high results are speaking for themselves.

With new players needed in a few positions, I’d hate to think we’d now go and waste huge amounts of money paying compensation to another club when Ole seemingly is giving us everything we want. Molde would obviously be due compensation but no where near the levels required for a certain London club.
 
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Write this down.

Man United don't sign legends. Man United make legends. Players and manager included.
 
There's a lot of jealousy out there from ex-pros.

Ince failed as a manager at every opportunity and obviously blames everybody else for this.
Ince has always been a bit of a bellend, good player but a bit thick in my humble opinion.
 
As likable as Ole is I bet this is eating away at Jose. The fact that Jose talked about how bad we are, how far behind and how difficult the job is and now people are saying how easy it is which is obviously a great reflection on Ole. To hear the players, especially the creative one's with the biggest expectations point to something as simple as pattern of play, freedom etc; is particularly damning and makes you wonder what the hell Jose was doing, what where his goals and also just how rough it must have been playing under him.

I like that quote about him driving home how lucky players are to play for United vs. Jose's portrayal of us as a second rate club incapable of competing for the highest honors. I say all this as someone who's always had a soft spot for Jose and like him.
 
Pochettino is still my preferred choice, but I would be more than happy if the board gave Ole the job. He's shown that he has an interest in coaching young players up, he has the kind of profile in the club that will allow him to stand firm with any players that take the piss, and seems to be very tactically aware so far.

This is all on the proviso that we set the footballing structure up that if the whole thing goes tits up in three years, we can comfortably move on from him without it affecting the long term trajectory of the squad too much (as in, as long as the club is signing players and retaining the ones that help us maintain a certain style of play rather than giving the manager free reign).
 
Carragher is one great pundit. Says it like it is, a lot better than Neville.
What to say about Ince, he's one of those managers who doesn't hack it but thinks big if himself and that he's on the verge of becoming a Barcelona or Madrid manager. He should watch his food too if seems.
It's actually carefully constructed by Sky. Carra often says positives about Man Utd and Nev about Liverpool. Gets way more views than if they were doing it the other way around.
 
Ole is a highly underrated manager. Just look what he achieved with Molde. They beat Celtic, Ajax and Fenerbache in Europa League where they won their group. Molde as a city only have 28 000 inhabitants.. quite impressive
And at the knock out stage they even beat Sevilla at home (but lost on aggregate). Sevilla won the EL that year. Molde actually played well in Europa this season as well, and looked like the better team in the play-offs against Zenit, although they at the end lost 3-4 on aggregate. Based on budget, all these teams should easily beat Molde any day of the week.

He had a difficult spell at Cardiff, and he only occasionally succeeded in making the players perform a far too ambitious playing style, and words like "inept" and "naive" were frequently used by the Cardiff fans. How can you possible make Cardiff dominate games with possession in the PL. He really was the wrong appointment for a club fighting relegation.

This could be a worry, perhaps, when you are up against teams like PSG (or Tottenham away, for the sake of it), but the way he has set up Molde to play in Europe (especially away), has made me believe the underdog´s game is something he has added to his repertoire. Solskjær is past the point of being the rookie some seem to believe he is.

Then time will show if the Scandinavian way of leadership (you could say) is a good match for United. But the world is changing, and players may not respond to a "tough guy" the way they did only 10 year ago.

And if I were a world class defender (like you need), why would I not be tempted to sign for United with the atmosphere surrounding the club right now? For attracting players, I think Solskjær could be a pluss for the club.
 
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First De Gea and now Martial publicly back him for the job. Pogba has also been singing his praises ever since he took over.

Ole would surely deserve the job off the strength of helping us keep our best players in my opinion


It's great seeing all these positives coming out of the club lately. DDG Pogba and Martial all speaking highly of Ole and life in general at the club. Such a turnaround from how it was just a month or so ago.

Ole must be loving it.
 
Pochettino still has the better resume, but Ole outmanaged him mano and mano. The burden or the argument for me is now on why we shouldn't keep Ole and not why we should.

But it's still early days. If we hit a bad run of form this conversation will take a different turn. But if we're in the think of the top four hunt in March, gone deep in the FA Cup and taken a few scalps in the CL it would be pretty hard to argue against a long-term appointment for Ole.

Spurs can keep Pochettino and their perennial top four status while we go back to being a leading contender for the PL trophy.
 
Pochettino still has the better resume, but Ole outmanaged him mano and mano. The burden or the argument for me is now on why we shouldn't keep Ole and not why we should.

But it's still early days. If we hit a bad run of form this conversation will take a different turn. But if we're in the think of the top four hunt in March, gone deep in the FA Cup and taken a few scalps in the CL it would be pretty hard to argue against a long-term appointment for Ole.

Spurs can keep Pochettino and their perennial top four status while we go back to being a leading contender for the PL trophy.

Taken a few scalps in the CL? Are you seriously expecting Solskjaer to beat PSG? Did you forget the state we were in pre-Solskjaer?
 
Ole seem to have the backing of the players, which is a very very positive thing.
Solskjær were backed by his players to the very end even at Cardiff. For all possible worries, him losing the dressing room is not one of them.
For me, the whole manager scenario is very simple... If pochettinho becomes available then we take him. If ole continues to do a good job this year, then outside of Poch then it's gotta be something fecking special to take that place. The talk of Gareth Southgate is frightening and hilarious, although who knows with our board.. . Do you really think the fans would accept him like ole? That would be the most depressing appointment that I could actually see happening.

Zidane ...only if ole flops.
Simeone .. Only if ole flops
Rose .. Only if old flops.

Basically, ole can do as well as you like and I'd probably take poch. But if he isn't gonna be available and ole keeps performing like he is, then I wouldnt want to swap him for anyone else that's available.

This should be OGS job if Poch doesn't want it.
Actually, I think it´s down to one thing only: The results. If Solskjær in end of May has the same standing among the fans and the players as he has now (seemingly), I think the board has no choice but to give him the job. Suddenly, United look like the most harmonic club in the world; I think there is no chance that the board would risk an uproar if everybody is happy. Imagine the scenario where you get in a new manager and the spiral starts going downwards. I would be scared as hell even to take the job.
 
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Pochettino still has the better resume, but Ole outmanaged him mano and mano.
Somewhat debatable. Ole did 'outmanage' him in the plans for the first half, but Poch then changed things up a bit and took complete control in the second half. At that stage Ole didn't really change anything (tactically or substitutions) that allowed us to regain any control.

That's what I'm going to be watching for the rest of the season. Ole impressed with his pre-game plans and tactics against Spurs, but I want to see whether he's capable of really changing things up mid-game if they aren't working.
 
Before he came in, I thought there was a tiny tiny chance he can convince me to be the man for the permanent role - Poch all the way I thought.

Now it's only been 6 games but there are facets to his managerial skill-set that would make him a great appointment.

I defended Mourinho for too long towards the end and it takes someone like Ole to show the stark difference. His interviews are a often page out of SAF's book.

In SAF's first ever presser he was asked if United can be relegated given the dire state. He said "don't be ridiculous". In a documentary he mentioned saying that because even if he might have believed it to be a possibility he couldn't let that feed into the media or players. Ole has done similar - the first manager since SAF to walk in and say "we should be expecting to win every game" (after the Spurs match I think this was). I can't believe LVG nor Mourinho had the balls to walk out and state this authoritatively and emphatically as Ole has.

His style of play is obviously aligned to our club traditions but the Spurs game proved he can be tactical. He clearly recognizes a need to make everyone feel important and part of the bigger picture.

Early days yet but if he gets Top 4 and matches PSG toe to toe, I would be happy for him to be given a 3 year contract with a DoF to work under.
 




First De Gea and now Martial publicly back him for the job. Pogba has also been singing his praises ever since he took over.

Ole would surely deserve the job off the strength of helping us keep our best players in my opinion

“Maybe I don’t want to say that. But we all know that he was great when he was a player. So we listen when he tells us something.”

"If I speak, I'll be in trouble."
 
Somewhat debatable. Ole did 'outmanage' him in the plans for the first half, but Poch then changed things up a bit and took complete control in the second half. At that stage Ole didn't really change anything (tactically or substitutions) that allowed us to regain any control.

That's what I'm going to be watching for the rest of the season. Ole impressed with his pre-game plans and tactics against Spurs, but I want to see whether he's capable of really changing things up mid-game if they aren't working.
I think the lack of action in second half is down to his offensive thinking. He was maybe hoping that Tottenham would run out of steam, and then start regaining from keeping the same formation offensively. Solskjær is a risk taker. The best illustration of that is when he substituted 3 players at half time at Molde. Unfortunately, one had to jump off injured, so they played with 10 men most of the second half. I think he never did that again, but he is talking about taking risks, and he is living up to his philosophy also as a manager. I think you could be up for a surprise or two when it comes to team selections and formations.
 
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I'd rather we coached our players to develop the skills to naturally know when pass and move is on and decide to play it rather than be robots. I'm pretty sure we weren't so routined under Sir Alex and we did okay.

Where have all you people picked up 'patterns of play' from anyway? We had it under LvG where some read his book then bored us all parroting his terminology, is this still an LvG thing?

Apparently it isn't just a LVG thing.
 
Somewhat debatable. Ole did 'outmanage' him in the plans for the first half, but Poch then changed things up a bit and took complete control in the second half. At that stage Ole didn't really change anything (tactically or substitutions) that allowed us to regain any control.

That's what I'm going to be watching for the rest of the season. Ole impressed with his pre-game plans and tactics against Spurs, but I want to see whether he's capable of really changing things up mid-game if they aren't working.

Spurs didn't outplay us the whole of the second half. They switched formation at half time and had two changes in quick succession immediately after the break. But Ole also switched our setup to 4231 to match them, and we still looked the more dangerous side up until about the 60 minute mark. After that, Spurs took total control of the game and started having chance after chance.

Arguably, Ole had the better of Poch for two thirds of the game. The final third, a combination of factors contributed to us losing control of the game. The players begin to tire, hence they started dropping deeper, they also started taking the "easy" way out of hoofing the ball up when pressured. There was also a lack of options on the bench to shake things up.

There have been many criticisms of lukaku here, with some criticising him for not dropping back more to help the mf and defence. But I think ole brought him on precisely to hold the front line further up to prevent us from dropping too deep. Prior to his substitution, I recall seeing the front three all dropping back too deep in our half, which actually allows Spurs to pin is back. I would argue that Lukaku was simply following instructions to stay up and provide an avenue for the team to relief some pressure. However, a combination of factors as I mentioned above resulted in us hoofing the ball and losing possession and inviting pressure on ourself despite the substitution.

I feel that this game exhibited both what ole is capable of tactically, and also the limit that he can achieve with this team. The simple truth is our defence isn't strong enough. Esp Jones who struggled the whole game. There is also the lack of options to bring in when the fullbacks are not performing well. The fitness of the team is also a problem, as they showed that they can't keep up the intensity and adhere to the tactics for the whole game. Ole will have to adjust his game management to cope with this.
 
It's hard to argue against the views from the managerial and tactical genius that is Paul Ince.
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Somewhat debatable. Ole did 'outmanage' him in the plans for the first half, but Poch then changed things up a bit and took complete control in the second half. At that stage Ole didn't really change anything (tactically or substitutions) that allowed us to regain any control.

That's what I'm going to be watching for the rest of the season. Ole impressed with his pre-game plans and tactics against Spurs, but I want to see whether he's capable of really changing things up mid-game if they aren't working.
No it's not debatable at all. How many years have Poch built his team? Bingo.
 
Paul Ince:

"The shackles are off, but that doesn't mean that Ole is the right man for the job. I could have gone in and done the same thing, so could Steve Bruce.


"Anyone could have gone in and done what he has done, it wasn't a hard thing to do to give those players freedom and improve the mood."

Its amazing how fecking clueless some of these guys are.
 
Paul Ince:



Its amazing how fecking clueless some of these guys are.

On the debate after Jose got sacked, he actually had Mark Hughes as the front runner for the job.
 
Ole said that most likely there will be no transfers in this January window.

Does this mean Woodward is already set for Poch and is saving up money for him?

Bad, bad news for Ole if that's the case.
 
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