There is no doubt that Ole’s man-management before this season was largely on point. A good case study was how he dealt with the Greenwood situation. He shielded Mason from every ounce of vitriol shot at him from the racist part of the media who simultaneously didn’t say a word about Foden despite him actually being a dad. Not once did he utter a single word of public criticism even though he must have been fuming inside and probably had a few words with Mason in private as well. Without that, you never know, Mason might not be one of the few players saving us from already being cut adrift of the top 4 this season.
Getting the dressing room into a happy place again almost overnight after Mourinho’s departure was pretty admirable too. No matter how dispiriting working under Mourinho was, it’s probably one of the hardest things in football management to get 25 players all singing from the same hymn sheet, regardless of how long he managed it.
However, he seems to have even lost that this season. Donny not playing last season was reasonable to an extent, because even Thierry Henry and Ronaldo took a year to settle into the Premier League. This season though, no matter how much McFred, or even the Matic-Pogba pivot has failed, Donny cannot get a game, and even a minute now in most games. He’s inexplicably playing less than last season, which is just ridiculously unfair treatment when you consider that he was blocked by Ole from moving to Everton. Then you look at what Romano said, that he believes Ole is trying to prove he can win without utilising Donny. Obviously, Romano’s word shouldn’t be taken as the gospel, but he is one of the most reliable journalists for transfer news. If true, which it might well be considering the points I made above, it’s a damming indictment of him as a manager at best, and a sackable offence at worst for pure arrogance.
Then you look at him saying that Rashford needed to focus on football completely unprovoked, and the increasing number of players publicly showing annoyance and stories saying that particular players are unhappy coming out. From these things alone, it’s not at all far-fetched to say that Bailly, Pogba, Lingard, Donny, Rashford and Ronaldo are unhappy in one way or another with him. When stories of the sort suddenly increase tenfold, and players like Pogba start almost calling him clueless in a backhanded manner and Ronaldo tries to storm off two games in a row, it usually spells the beginning of the end for the manager. I feel for him on a human level because he is clearly a United man just like me and all of us, but I can’t say I’ll be the slightest bit disappointed on a football level.