I did this thread a few years back (pre-Ole) and thought it would be interesting to see everyone's thoughts again, given the absolute car crash of this season.
Rated, best to worst:
1. Mourinho's first season (2016-17)
Don't get me wrong, I heavily disliked him by the end (still do) but that season felt like maybe... just maybe... we were gonna spring back somehow. First of all - Zlatan, a real leader in the team again. Signing back Pogba was exciting and the first half of the season he was excellent. Mourinho hadn't yet gone insane, and to his credit defended his players regularly (especially Pogba) rather than throwing them under the bus. Our chance conversion was terrible, but it felt like we were trying to play attacking football again - something I think which gets forgotten about given that Jose was in charge and he usually deals in park the bus football.
To cap it all off - silverware, tin pot trophies but one which we'd never won before and the other won in exciting style with Zlatan running the show.
The only downside was Jose's weird misuse of Mkhitaryan, possibly justified but a sign of the eventual breakdown to come.
Overall though it felt like we were set up for second season Jose (remember that guy?) to spring into action.
2. Ole's first full season, Bruno signing, lockdown (2019-20)
Feels weird picking a season where Liverpool won the league and we played a third of it under lockdown, and started the season terribly, but we also managed to get to two semi finals, did the league double over City & Chelsea and made our best signing since RVP who lit up the league from day one and inspired a 14 game unbeaten streak in the league. Greenwood properly burst onto the scene with 17 goals, Rashford and Martial each got over 20.
I feel strangely nostalgic about the lockdown games as well, with every game on TV and basically being one of the few things to cheers us up during the pandemic.
3. LVG's first season (2014-15)
Part of the reason for this ranking highly is because like Jose's first it felt like maybe we were getting our shit together, bringing in a manager with a strong pedigree and a strong personality who was going to sort out our dressing room and get our shit together again tactically. He was a refreshing change to the dour Moyes and made some signings which were exciting eg. Di Maria, Herrera, Shaw.
It benefits also from being the first season post-Moyes, so looks better by comparison.
4. Ole's second full season (2020-21)
If we'd have won the Europa League this probably would have came top for me. Yes the signs were there that maybe individual brilliance was masking a lot of our tactical inadequacies but with a 2nd place finish and (almost unbelievably, looking back from the vantage point of this season) finishing above Liverpool & Chelsea. Cavani came in and surprised a lot of people, we battered Leeds 6-2 and there was the 9-0 thrashing of Southampton. Bruno also had an excellent first full season, and Maguire was actually decent.
The rest are all pretty fecking terrible and hard to rank, but here goes:
5. Jose's meltdown, Ole interim (2018-19) - saved by the insane run we went on with Ole as caretaker, peaking with the PSG win. Soured by a terrible end to the season, missing out on top 4 and a sense that maybe we'd made a big mistake.
6. LVG's second season (2015-16) - should be higher as the FA Cup semi against Everton and the final itself (and win) are great memories, but the football was increasingly awful leading to almost mutinous scenes at Old Trafford and we finished outside top 4.
7. Jose's second season (2017-18) - finished second but overall fairly miserable, with Jose starting to melt-down and fall out with the players, the fans and the club. The main high point was the comeback against City. Ended in disappointment with the FA Cup final loss.
8. Moyes season (2013-14) - goes without saying how bad this was, traumatic almost. The only saving grace was Januzaj's breakthrough, and Moyes sacking - leading us to believe maybe everything would go back to normal the following season...
9. This season (2021-22) - where to start? I loved Ole, still do, but accept he had to go as he had completely lost the dressing room, we were falling apart and there was a sense from all parts that he was nowhere near cut out for the job. Dressing room unrest worse than ever before, Mason Greenwood, the elation of our summer signings followed by crushing disappointment, Liverpool & City looking like the best teams in Europe still and humiliating us repeatedly, a bizarre choice of interim manager (I like and rate Ralf, but he was never going to instil his philosophy in 6 months on a group of unhappy players about a quarter of who may leave this summer) suggesting the new hierarchy also don't know what they're doing, crashing out of all the cups early, top four seemingly a lost cause, Rashford playing awful, even Bruno going off the boil. Solsjkaer's sacking was genuinely depressing as well and made me love football a little less - not because he didn't deserve to go (he did) but seeing one of my club heroes fail in spectacular and humiliating fashion with our whole squad giving up on him was horrendous. Unlike all the other seasons, not even a real sense of hope going into next. The best I can say about this season is that Sancho is looking promising, it's been nice to see Elanga break through (although I'm pretty sure he won't make it here) and there have been a couple of very memorable Ronaldo moments.
Rated, best to worst:
1. Mourinho's first season (2016-17)
Don't get me wrong, I heavily disliked him by the end (still do) but that season felt like maybe... just maybe... we were gonna spring back somehow. First of all - Zlatan, a real leader in the team again. Signing back Pogba was exciting and the first half of the season he was excellent. Mourinho hadn't yet gone insane, and to his credit defended his players regularly (especially Pogba) rather than throwing them under the bus. Our chance conversion was terrible, but it felt like we were trying to play attacking football again - something I think which gets forgotten about given that Jose was in charge and he usually deals in park the bus football.
To cap it all off - silverware, tin pot trophies but one which we'd never won before and the other won in exciting style with Zlatan running the show.
The only downside was Jose's weird misuse of Mkhitaryan, possibly justified but a sign of the eventual breakdown to come.
Overall though it felt like we were set up for second season Jose (remember that guy?) to spring into action.
2. Ole's first full season, Bruno signing, lockdown (2019-20)
Feels weird picking a season where Liverpool won the league and we played a third of it under lockdown, and started the season terribly, but we also managed to get to two semi finals, did the league double over City & Chelsea and made our best signing since RVP who lit up the league from day one and inspired a 14 game unbeaten streak in the league. Greenwood properly burst onto the scene with 17 goals, Rashford and Martial each got over 20.
I feel strangely nostalgic about the lockdown games as well, with every game on TV and basically being one of the few things to cheers us up during the pandemic.
3. LVG's first season (2014-15)
Part of the reason for this ranking highly is because like Jose's first it felt like maybe we were getting our shit together, bringing in a manager with a strong pedigree and a strong personality who was going to sort out our dressing room and get our shit together again tactically. He was a refreshing change to the dour Moyes and made some signings which were exciting eg. Di Maria, Herrera, Shaw.
It benefits also from being the first season post-Moyes, so looks better by comparison.
4. Ole's second full season (2020-21)
If we'd have won the Europa League this probably would have came top for me. Yes the signs were there that maybe individual brilliance was masking a lot of our tactical inadequacies but with a 2nd place finish and (almost unbelievably, looking back from the vantage point of this season) finishing above Liverpool & Chelsea. Cavani came in and surprised a lot of people, we battered Leeds 6-2 and there was the 9-0 thrashing of Southampton. Bruno also had an excellent first full season, and Maguire was actually decent.
The rest are all pretty fecking terrible and hard to rank, but here goes:
5. Jose's meltdown, Ole interim (2018-19) - saved by the insane run we went on with Ole as caretaker, peaking with the PSG win. Soured by a terrible end to the season, missing out on top 4 and a sense that maybe we'd made a big mistake.
6. LVG's second season (2015-16) - should be higher as the FA Cup semi against Everton and the final itself (and win) are great memories, but the football was increasingly awful leading to almost mutinous scenes at Old Trafford and we finished outside top 4.
7. Jose's second season (2017-18) - finished second but overall fairly miserable, with Jose starting to melt-down and fall out with the players, the fans and the club. The main high point was the comeback against City. Ended in disappointment with the FA Cup final loss.
8. Moyes season (2013-14) - goes without saying how bad this was, traumatic almost. The only saving grace was Januzaj's breakthrough, and Moyes sacking - leading us to believe maybe everything would go back to normal the following season...
9. This season (2021-22) - where to start? I loved Ole, still do, but accept he had to go as he had completely lost the dressing room, we were falling apart and there was a sense from all parts that he was nowhere near cut out for the job. Dressing room unrest worse than ever before, Mason Greenwood, the elation of our summer signings followed by crushing disappointment, Liverpool & City looking like the best teams in Europe still and humiliating us repeatedly, a bizarre choice of interim manager (I like and rate Ralf, but he was never going to instil his philosophy in 6 months on a group of unhappy players about a quarter of who may leave this summer) suggesting the new hierarchy also don't know what they're doing, crashing out of all the cups early, top four seemingly a lost cause, Rashford playing awful, even Bruno going off the boil. Solsjkaer's sacking was genuinely depressing as well and made me love football a little less - not because he didn't deserve to go (he did) but seeing one of my club heroes fail in spectacular and humiliating fashion with our whole squad giving up on him was horrendous. Unlike all the other seasons, not even a real sense of hope going into next. The best I can say about this season is that Sancho is looking promising, it's been nice to see Elanga break through (although I'm pretty sure he won't make it here) and there have been a couple of very memorable Ronaldo moments.