I thought Lukaku was the big difference to us not locking up the defense in the first half. He was jogging around, waving his arms for hoofs and just not participating in any constructive running apart from when he saw a chance for him getting the ball. I really hope he is back on the bench next game.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer | W15 D2 L4
- Thread starter Tom Van Persie
- Start date
I'd say it is a fair assessment.
Let's look at the positive. It was a grounding experience for him. Perhaps after the Arsenal game he got carried away thinking any front 3 combination could suffice if we just adopted an attacking approach. Mata and Lukaku need specific conditions to succeed. That was long established through the mistakes of the past manager.
Not harsh at all. I genuinely don’t think Mata has any place in our team anymore, rather we stick with Ole or hire Poch. We want our squad players to be able to seamlessly fit into our starting eleven without losing too much quality or balance. Take players like Park, Fletcher and Hernandez under SAF. All of them could come in and not effect our quick style or if play. Mata has quality but just doesn’t cut the mustard in what’s expected of a squad player at at this club.
His only really poor decision of the night.
Not harsh. Mata has no place in the team and fans have come to realisation that he disrupts the balance of the team. There's room for only one playmaker which is Pogba. Everyone else is either defensive minded or goal threat in attack. Mata doesnt fit into either categories.
Yeah if you want Ole to stay then best to remove the requirement of coming 4th because it's highly unlikely we achieve that. He basically isn't allowed to drop any point. Each draw or loss is 2 steps back where each win is only a step forward.
The team selection was largely fine and individual mistakes (and general complacency) were the biggest reasons for going down last night.
The people getting jumped up about the team selection are feckwits. He needs to get a measure of this squad and play them to get a good idea of how good they/we ultimately are. If we can’t give the likes of Pereira, or Fred, a shot against Burnley at home (without dropping points) then we bloody well need to know that.
Ole will have learned a lot from last night. Lukaku and Pereira will be regretting their performances, certainly.
The people getting jumped up about the team selection are feckwits. He needs to get a measure of this squad and play them to get a good idea of how good they/we ultimately are. If we can’t give the likes of Pereira, or Fred, a shot against Burnley at home (without dropping points) then we bloody well need to know that.
Ole will have learned a lot from last night. Lukaku and Pereira will be regretting their performances, certainly.
He had no option but to rotate the squad, he made good substitutions and motivated the team to mount a great comeback. Not a good night for United, but the unity and togetherness for the comeback was fantastic.
I noticed the complacency at home to Brighton, and now at home to Burnley. This is classic from big teams and it's important to stay motivated to win every game.
I noticed the complacency at home to Brighton, and now at home to Burnley. This is classic from big teams and it's important to stay motivated to win every game.
Maybe rotate but some of the choices took our attack backwards to a darker time.
Why put Lukaku in the centre and push Rashford out wide? We know how that goes. Why not at least switch them?
Or, put Sanchez in from the start, maybe on either wing with Rashford central?
Also, Mata is known to slow down attacks.
The man is a managerial god
Not really seeing the criticism for Ole here. We created a bunch of chances and the Burnley defenders turned into prime Vidic and Heaton was moving like Oliver Khan. That's the state of our team now, we don't have those certified world class players that can pull a rabbit out of the hat in these games. Even then we would have probably won that game were it not for another mistake by Periera at the back (he makes those a lot), that's what happens in this league. Teams get a sniff and punish you, then up their levels to try to get something out of the game.
Not saying it's easy but after last few weeks, don't see as unlikely either.
We're two points from fourth and we have Chelsea at home, (though Arsenal away.)
Chelsea have us away (as above), City at home, Spurs at home, Liverpool away.
Arsenal have City away, Spurs away (us at home).
Think it'll be tight and if any of the three beats the others, it'll probably decide it. But it's good to be in with a shout and we definitely are now.
Look at the timing of that post. In any case the central point was Ole shouldn't necessarily be disqualified from consideration if he comes close but misses top 4. The stuff about top 4 being unlikely is peripheral. He could finish 6th and still pass the test. It's not his fault we sacked Jose late. Ftr I still prefer the Poch option atm
Yeah, he was shit wasn't he? I loved that about Fergie, the way he liked to include shit players in his team's. That was a nice trait. John O Shea totally deserves the smiley faces.Agree, we had John O'Shea playing for us and yet SAF still managed to get wins
I'm sorry. I've had a long day. I liked John O'Shea.
To hell with United discussion on here at this point. We weren't that bad yesterday outside of finishing our chances. 8 wins and a draw from 9 games should have us on clud nine after the shit we have seen in the preceding years. Ole has to rest players, we have no choice otherwise. Do posters even realise that we lost games under SAF while looking way worse than last night? What we learned last night was that there are certain players that need to leave and be replaced. Under Jose I'd have felt bad becuase he wouldn't do shit but I'm confident that if Ole, or someone like Poch, gets the job then they will do what is needed over the next couple of years. For now we'll have to accept that our squad players are a huge drop off from the first team but we need to bear it so as not to burn our important players out. Anyway I'm 99% certain that if Martial had been fit we'd have been fine but it ain't Ole's fault he wasn't. It took Liverpool 2-3 years to build to where they are right now and Pep with oil money a year to get City there. We are less than 2 months in and have made top 4 a reality instead of a failing dream. We've arguably been amongst the best 5 performing teams in Europe since Ole took over FFS. Give it time.
Give the man £200 million and tell him to do his best. He’s been here 5 minutes and he’s already shifted Darmian, Fellaini and probably Valencia. I’ve seen enough to see he knows what he’s doing.
I think people are just mad because Chelsea lost and we could have been leveled with top 4 by now if not for unsuitable (and arrogant) line-up
Ole over Poch any day.
If you can't see it, that's your inadequacy.
If you can't see it, that's your inadequacy.
The thing that I liked about this game was we kept upping the tempo and moving the ball quickly as the situation got more and more desperate, instead of resorting to lumping it.
It got to the point where it felt like we had 50% chance of a goal in the next couple of minutes, and that partly is why the ref blowing up early was so infuriating - it genuinely felt like we only need a bit more time. Proper Fergie feeling about those last 10 minutes.
Granted, a lot went wrong in the game and Ole probably got the rotation wrong, but that isn't the only reason we lost. The players made mistakes and we were a tad unlucky too I thought.
It got to the point where it felt like we had 50% chance of a goal in the next couple of minutes, and that partly is why the ref blowing up early was so infuriating - it genuinely felt like we only need a bit more time. Proper Fergie feeling about those last 10 minutes.
Granted, a lot went wrong in the game and Ole probably got the rotation wrong, but that isn't the only reason we lost. The players made mistakes and we were a tad unlucky too I thought.
To be quite honest, they wouldn't have won the CL if they didn't defend the way they did.
Darmian is still here?
not harsh.
Mata also tries to do one touch tiki taka (or whatever ) in which he is obviously not good at and loses possession. Then his reading of his teammates is concern. He plays wrong short passes.
you can compare him with Luke Shaw on left. That boy has been effectively linking with pogba, matic, martial, rashford resulting in to some good opportunities. On the other hand what mata does on the right, he only knows. no other his team mates seem to bother though. Its like watching Ballet on left as opposed to mata's stand up comedy on right.
Agree. Initial 2 Year contract or something like a rolling contract. Something that doesn't necessarily change the current dynamic between expectations, good will, authority etc. A big contract can possibly do that. Olé doesn't need a 6 year contract to demand respect, and players doesn't need to know or care about when his time is up either. Not sure how they'll work this one out but, I hope they manage to do it correctly if he is appointed.
This is very important to focus on. I actually noticed Young a couple of times had to stop himself from hoofing the ball upfield from a deeper position later in the game. You could see what he was looking for initially, then he realised there was no Lukaku and Ole was at the helm and he recycled it for a better opportunity. Doing this instead of hoofing, you get more chances in shorter amount of time because we can sustain pressure and keep possession. If you hoof the ball it is an illusion that it goes faster upfield because its likely to come right back or just lose possession. Our problem was we didn't manage to do it quickly enough. If we did, we would have had as many chances but they would have been of a much higher quality and less speculative. The fact we are doing this is making me very happy, even if it didn't work out that particular time. We need to perfect that mentality and tactic to be the best in our own way.
Look at this round of EPL and see how all the top 6 clubs performed. At least we salvaged a draw unlike City and Chelsea. Like us, they both played their FA Cup fixtures on the weekend, rotated for the midweek and suffered heavily (Chelsea in particular). Even Liverpool couldn't win with enough amount of rest. Given they are all performing badly, are they all managed naively? We can keep on judging Ole on match-by-match basis, but we should compare it with the actual competition instead of each fan's own Football Manager experience.
Well seems Ole has found the most beneign scenario possible for dropping points in an easy game, which lets admit had to happen at some point. The last minute comeback of two goals to secure a draw, and poor/ terrible results of rivals. The whole thing seems be scripted perfectly for him
Well seems Ole has found the most beneign scenario possible for dropping points in an easy game, which lets admit had to happen at some point. The last minute comeback of two goals to secure a draw, and poor/ terrible results of rivals. The whole thing seems be scripted perfectly for him
Yep. I hope we go on an unbeaten run similar to Jose's first season with more wins than the draws. But practically speaking, if we win 10 more games, I think we can scrape Top 4. It is a fact that we are actually better than these abysmal Chelsea and underwhelming Arsenal sides, but their headstarts thanks to Jose have killed us.
Considering there are only 14 games of the season left, if we win 10 of those we'll comfortably finish in the top 3 let alone top 4.
Our fixtures from February up until the the 16th of March. Holy feck it's a tough run of games.
If we can stay withing 4-6 points of top 4 by the end of that run, we should be able to make it top 4.
This. It seems fatigue is a foreign concept to some posters here. Of course our strongest XI would include Martial, Lingaard and Herrera, but the squad he put out should have been more than strong enough to put Burnley to bed.
Yes, we would have won the game, if the defense didn't conceded against the run of play and strikers took their chances. Slowing down the tempo is typical of these players though, the mentality is not quite there with these lot.
Respectfully disagree. We are in cut throat competition for top 4. When there are 3 points to grab, you grab with both hands without much experiment.
Imagine at the end we miss out on top 4 by 2 points. This experiment could come back to haunt us.
Also, what could have been relatively easy game, pogba at the end pushed himself really hard to salvage a point. in that process he injured his groin. Hope he is okay. But not then a bigger collateral damage.
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In my view, your way leads to injuries and a sure failure and collapse as soon as we get the first injury. It also makes for a lot of unhappy players who effect both training and the mood of the ones you'd want to play.
Excellent post. I particularly enjoyed the way you explained the reasoning behind playing Pereira
But playing the same players over and over is hardly a recipe for success... It's taking a very short-term view and setting yourselves up for very big problems later in the season.
Beautiful and so right!
He was nailed on to leave under previous management...God Bless you Ole you beauty you!
I fully understand your views. But note that at this time of our season we don't have luxury of losing points to a team we should be defeating at home. Also, main problem is not just rotation but choosing right player for right position. I think Ole made a mistake there too.
Not many games are remaining and we are competing for one place against two good teams. There will be time we will surely drop points against top team. These two dropped points could have come handy. Anyway, it's happened already, no point crying over. Lets focus on next match.
Love that there's a site dedicated to it