Solskjaer's legacy and his future

TrustInJanuzaj said:
I’ll remember him as the best manager post Fergie if he leaves soon. If he continues to stay I will always defend those first few seasons as they matched expectations and he has delivered some wonderful memories that I just didn’t get under the other managers. Shame he’s now fallen short and the hyperbole is out but I think he can hold his head up high and say he’s a good manager, just not good enough for the very top.
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Not disagreeing norv agreeing. But let’s look at what people says he’s done good.

1) lifted the mood after Jose, once Jose was gone the mood improved… Donald Trump could have come in and the same thing would have applied.

2) Squad improvement: He’s spent £450m… while we can debate he’s signings mostly being above 27 and established players and he’s destruction of younger signings etc. The worse thing for me is his inability to trim his squad, City sold Sane to Bayern, but Ole keeps Lingard, Martial etc.

3) Football under Jose and LVG was crap, actually it wasn’t. Under Ole it’s crap and clueless. Under Jose it was tactically defensive, under LVG it was to advanced for the players he had. Can you imagine LVG with these players? The defending would be top notch, and do you think they’d be passing it around for 60-80% without the likes of Bruno, Pogba, DVB, Shaw, Sancho, Martial etc making breakthroughs and attacks ?

4) He’s the only one who understands the United DNA, He cares for the club? Dumbest narrative I’ve ever heard. You love your own house more than a builder, does that mean you’ll do your own loft conversation?
 
AjaxCunian said:
Juanfield, van Gaal's 1 pre-season, smashing City 4-2, Liverpool 3-0, Rashford's sudden breakthrough, winning the FA Cup under van Gaal doesnt compare to the memories we had under Ole? Bare in mind that Ole's tenure has spread over 4 seasons now nearing a 3 year reign.
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Exactly… LVG best manager since SAF. Jose most successful. People really don’t understand Ole has spent £450m and taken us backwards. When Carragher says he’s not being disrespectful but Ole isn’t good enough, he’s actually being very polite.
 
Ferguson’s Hairdryer said:
Not disagreeing norv agreeing. But let’s look at what people says he’s done good.

1) lifted the mood after Jose, once Jose was gone the mood improved… Donald Trump could have come in and the same thing would have applied.

2) Squad improvement: He’s spent £450m… while we can debate he’s signings mostly being above 27 and established players and he’s destruction of younger signings etc. The worse thing for me is his inability to trim his squad, City sold Sane to Bayern, but Ole keeps Lingard, Martial etc.

3) Football under Jose and LVG was crap, actually it wasn’t. Under Ole it’s crap and clueless. Under Jose it was tactically defensive, under LVG it was to advanced for the players he had. Can you imagine LVG with these players? The defending would be top notch, and do you think they’d be passing it around for 60-80% without the likes of Bruno, Pogba, DVB, Shaw, Sancho, Martial etc making breakthroughs and attacks ?

4) He’s the only one who understands the United DNA, He cares for the club? Dumbest narrative I’ve ever heard. You love your own house more than a builder, does that mean you’ll do your own loft conversation?
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1) Nonsense.
2) The squad is better now than when he inherited it, we actually have a strong squad with a lot of potential. City didn't sell Sane, they lost him. To compare Sane's stock then to Lingard and Martial is just :wenger:
3) Football under Jose was dire. We might be "moments FC" or whatever phrase is popular at the moment but we weren't even that under Jose. It was pure joyless, negative rubbish, and worst thing is that's exactly how Jose likes it. "under LVG it was to advanced for the players"... that's an interesting way to put it. The players looked just as clueless then as they do now, all the while LVG harps on about his mythical "philosophy" he's implementing. If his philosophy was Jones and Smalling passing the ball side to side not knowing what to do then job done. And if his system really was too brilliant for the players, then it's his own fault for spunking so much money on complete trash.
4) Well, he does care for the club. Jose didn't, which is why he went on his usual self-sabotage rampage that ran the club into the ground.
 
Claiming the squad is better than the one he inherited is shallow praise given he clearly isn’t able to make the best of it and has spent large sums of money he clearly has no idea how to use.

He’s spent someone else’s money on players hopefully someone more competent than him might be able to make use of
 
His legacy as manager will be poor. Many United fans won’t remember him much as a player so all they will have is what they think now.
For me, I’d say he’s the worse manager since SAF. Given how much he’s spent and the really basic level of dull, slow, painful football - he’s been dreadful.
I will always remember him fondly as a player - that can’t be ruined by his stint as manager. But as a manager he has left a horrible taste in the mouth.
 
Good player for us but horrific manager. The current teenager demographic and younger won’t look too favourably on him though since all they’ll remember is the manager side, so he’ll be a divisive figure in 10 years or so.
 
If he was sacked or resigned after the EL final I believe his reputation would have been much much much better, I can already see the narrative that Ole built us a solid foundation for the future managers even without winning a single trophy. But now his reputation is sadly already beyond repair, to have spend the most money since Sir Alex and still got schooled by City and Pool at home is what he'll be most remembered for
 
Worst manager I’ve ever witnessed. Considering what he did at Cardiff. He was probably a better manager then. Atleast he coached.
 
Against PSG we were terrible. They played us off the park but failed to score and we hit them on the counter.
It's was one of the worst results to happen recently. Without it we would have a proper coach/ manager.
 
Ferguson’s Hairdryer said:
Exactly… LVG best manager since SAF. Jose most successful. People really don’t understand Ole has spent £450m and taken us backwards. When Carragher says he’s not being disrespectful but Ole isn’t good enough, he’s actually being very polite.
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Here's a question - What were your expectations at the start of 2018/19 season?

And what were your expectations at the start of this season?

The thing is he's judged harshly because he wasn't able to take the final step unlike others who were stuck at the stage of establishing us as a top 4 side. He's spent money and failed at the final hurdle, but there's no shame in that - unable to make the final step.

Also, fun fact - not sure if you are into xG models or not, but the 2 Ole seasons have been the only 2 seasons post SAF where xGD put us in top 4 places, so surely, something was going right
 
Worst manager after SAF hands down. Said earlier in this thread that he's barely got a legacy to leave behind. Done nothing noteworthy that any other Championship-level manager could not have done. Brought back the good vibes? Rubbish that some people even consider that a tangible metric by which to measure his performance. Spend a lot of money for big names, throws them all together with some random 'tactics' (if you can even call it that) and hope they nick him a win. Watching Ole flounder going from 4-2-4 to 3-5-2 to 7-0-3 after the Pool massacre just because people were calling out his lack of tactical nous made it look very much like our manager was playing real life FM. Luckiest schmuck in the footballing world.
 
anant said:
Here's a question - What were your expectations at the start of 2018/19 season?

And what were your expectations at the start of this season?

The thing is he's judged harshly because he wasn't able to take the final step unlike others who were stuck at the stage of establishing us as a top 4 side. He's spent money and failed at the final hurdle, but there's no shame in that - unable to make the final step.

Also, fun fact - not sure if you are into xG models or not, but the 2 Ole seasons have been the only 2 seasons post SAF where xGD put us in top 4 places, so surely, something was going right
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The issue is that everyone knew and saw he couldn't take the final step at the earliest two years ago and at the latest the El final. Instead of moving him and getting a better manager, he was retained.

If he was moved on at either of those times his legacy could remain untarnished because our squad was indeed better, even if you think (I do) anyone could have accomplished that with the money he was given.

Since he wasn't sacked, he's overstayed his welcome and he's undoing any progress the squad made. His football was mediocre during his tenure but the joy people had in it was was because it was more fun to watch than Jose. But this season that has completely unraveled. Even the most tactically obtuse fan knows ole has no tactics or style of play now. It's just hoping for something good to happen while at the same time making goals. So that whole idea of him playing "the United way" is done and dusted. You can't argue it anymore.

Squad building and man management. These two go hand in hand because his horrible skill in the former ruined something he was given credit for. When he came in pogba and Shaw looked and played happier. This was made relatively easy because Jose legit hated both the players. Ole was able to turn their united careers around in a positive way and he should be given credit with that. Apparently all the players got along with him too with almost everyone saying he's a nice guy and they enjoy playing for him. Unfortunately that is now over. Leaks from players being unhappy about him having favorites and rewarding poor form have made it known that Ole didn't actually have much going for him in terms of man management. Players are incredibly frustrated with playing time and want out of the club.. Combine that with giving out new contracts to players he refuses to use when his favorites are unfit, promising players like lingard and dvb minutes, and playing rashford injuries for half a season, it's obvious to anyone he cannot manage a squad. It is bloated with poor.contracts that he didn't move when he had the opportunity. He didn't sell players he has no intentions of using to fund moves for other positions we are lacking. It's awful planning and the next manager will have to balance the squad.

Basically everything that people gave him credit for doing well is being unraveled the longer he stays. He's quickly removing any positive that he's done for the club by still being here (not just his fault, the board should have removed him). And yes, his legacy is tarnished. It's not the fans' fault that a lot of us weren't fans in 1999. We don't have that connection to him (fairly or unfairly) so all we see is a poor manager still in charge of a large club because of nepotism
 
Flytan said:
The issue is that everyone knew and saw he couldn't take the final step at the earliest two years ago and at the latest the El final. Instead of moving him and getting a better manager, he was retained.

If he was moved on at either of those times his legacy could remain untarnished because our squad was indeed better, even if you think (I do) anyone could have accomplished that with the money he was given.

Since he wasn't sacked, he's overstayed his welcome and he's undoing any progress the squad made. His football was mediocre during his tenure but the joy people had in it was was because it was more fun to watch than Jose. But this season that has completely unraveled. Even the most tactically obtuse fan knows ole has no tactics or style of play now. It's just hoping for something good to happen while at the same time making goals. So that whole idea of him playing "the United way" is done and dusted. You can't argue it anymore.

Squad building and man management. These two go hand in hand because his horrible skill in the former ruined something he was given credit for. When he came in pogba and Shaw looked and played happier. This was made relatively easy because Jose legit hated both the players. Ole was able to turn their united careers around in a positive way and he should be given credit with that. Apparently all the players got along with him too with almost everyone saying he's a nice guy and they enjoy playing for him. Unfortunately that is now over. Leaks from players being unhappy about him having favorites and rewarding poor form have made it known that Ole didn't actually have much going for him in terms of man management. Players are incredibly frustrated with playing time and want out of the club.. Combine that with giving out new contracts to players he refuses to use when his favorites are unfit, promising players like lingard and dvb minutes, and playing rashford injuries for half a season, it's obvious to anyone he cannot manage a squad. It is bloated with poor.contracts that he didn't move when he had the opportunity. He didn't sell players he has no intentions of using to fund moves for other positions we are lacking. It's awful planning and the next manager will have to balance the squad.

Basically everything that people gave him credit for doing well is being unraveled the longer he stays. He's quickly removing any positive that he's done for the club by still being here (not just his fault, the board should have removed him). And yes, his legacy is tarnished. It's not the fans' fault that a lot of us weren't fans in 1999. We don't have that connection to him (fairly or unfairly) so all we see is a poor manager still in charge of a large club because of nepotism
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I get the gist of it that the longer he stays, the closer he brings us to the state in which he found it, and I completely agree with that. I also agree that he should be sacked.

However, most fans, and I have been guilty of it in the past is that if we're against a person, we downplay the good they've done. Ole spent 300m before this season or thereabouts. And he took us to 3rd and 2nd in the league and in top 4 in underlyings as well.

Should we be doing better? Possibly. But can everyone achieve this? No. LVG spent 300m during his time here, Mou spent a similar amount as well in his 1st two seasons. Nearly all of them flopped, or couldn't find success under the manager who signed them. And let's be honest, in terms of transfer fee paid for the squad, we've always been in top 2-3 since forever, so relative to the league, they were at a similar advantage as well.

look, this season has gone down, and fast. But i dont think the analysis done for his time here is remotely fair right now
 
He's above Moyes but that's about it. LvG and Jose won some silverware at least.

I think he'll be looked back on as a mistake to be honest, wasted time even.

Just another manager failing whilst spending a great deal of money and leaving us with players not fitting into any plan.

If you think of the money spent and some of the players he's been given could he really have done that much worse?
 
anant said:
I get the gist of it that the longer he stays, the closer he brings us to the state in which he found it, and I completely agree with that. I also agree that he should be sacked.

However, most fans, and I have been guilty of it in the past is that if we're against a person, we downplay the good they've done. Ole spent 300m before this season or thereabouts. And he took us to 3rd and 2nd in the league and in top 4 in underlyings as well.

Should we be doing better? Possibly. But can everyone achieve this? No. LVG spent 300m during his time here, Mou spent a similar amount as well in his 1st two seasons. Nearly all of them flopped, or couldn't find success under the manager who signed them. And let's be honest, in terms of transfer fee paid for the squad, we've always been in top 2-3 since forever, so relative to the league, they were at a similar advantage as well.

look, this season has gone down, and fast. But i dont think the analysis done for his time here is remotely fair right now
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We should have given LVG one more year. Just because he failed on goal difference to make the CL he was sacked. I always felt he was going to be sacked no matter what as Woodward was going to hire Jose.
 
Foxbatt said:
We should have given LVG one more year. Just because he failed on goal difference to make the CL he was sacked. I always felt he was going to be sacked no matter what as Woodward was going to hire Jose.
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Think LVG's fate was sealed in Dec'15 itself- after a string of 0-0s and CL exit - and no matter what he did, there was no way he was going to be retained.
Jose's availability a week post that meant that it was just a matter of whether Woody will give LVG the full season or not
 
Foxbatt said:
We should have given LVG one more year. Just because he failed on goal difference to make the CL he was sacked. I always felt he was going to be sacked no matter what as Woodward was going to hire Jose.
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Yeah I remember days ahead of the FA Cup (on this forum I think even) reporters were basically confirming Mourinho was set to takeover.

I don't agree he needed more time though. He should have been fired in December before the season was lost. He was playing horribly. We won a FA Cup but it wasn't exactly pretty.

I just don't agree with people saying "we look back and downplay" Ole and other managers. There's obviously good times in all the managerial stints (even moyes started off well, I remember a 4-0 to Swansea and thought "wow it's just gonna keep going") but because the board refuses to sack until the season is essentially lost and players are toxic, it negates the good times. Like I'm sorry but Ole turning around Shaw's career into a good LB is essentially crossed out from the history books because we didn't win anything when he was playing well and he looks absolutely shook this season. I'd say the "good" Shaw was just a good run of form at this point.
 
anant said:
I get the gist of it that the longer he stays, the closer he brings us to the state in which he found it, and I completely agree with that. I also agree that he should be sacked.

However, most fans, and I have been guilty of it in the past is that if we're against a person, we downplay the good they've done. Ole spent 300m before this season or thereabouts. And he took us to 3rd and 2nd in the league and in top 4 in underlyings as well.

Should we be doing better? Possibly. But can everyone achieve this? No. LVG spent 300m during his time here, Mou spent a similar amount as well in his 1st two seasons. Nearly all of them flopped, or couldn't find success under the manager who signed them. And let's be honest, in terms of transfer fee paid for the squad, we've always been in top 2-3 since forever, so relative to the league, they were at a similar advantage as well.

look, this season has gone down, and fast. But i dont think the analysis done for his time here is remotely fair right now
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Who is against Ole? Maybe now people are as he has shown himself unfit, but how many United fans had some dislike for him making then judge him unfairly?
 
The fact it went so well so early didn’t help. I think it perpetuated this idea that’s dogged his tenure that good football and good results is something that just happens because we’re Manchester United and all those things are a magical happenstance based on our history.

This is why we’re evidently so poorly coached today; we’ve spent three years not thinking such things are necessary for a club like ours. We just need to rely on the ‘United way’

Had he needed to work harder from the outset he MIGHT be a better manager now
 
stw2022 said:
The fact it went so well so early didn’t help. I think it perpetuated this idea that’s dogged his tenure that good football and good results is something that just happens because we’re Manchester United and all those things are a magical happenstance based on our history.

This is why we’re evidently so poorly coached today; we’ve spent three years not thinking such things are necessary for a club like ours. We just need to rely on the ‘United way’

Had he needed to work harder from the outset he MIGHT be a better manager now
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Classic example of just making stuff up and posting it as fact. Utter shite.
 
His legacy for me is losing to Sevilla & Villareal in ‘shit trophies’ that are apparently beneath the club. He should have been sacked a long time ago but was excused of sub-par results. I actually don’t blame him for this season, you don’t let a man fail for 3 seasons then add Ronaldo to the mix & tell him to win the league.
 
anant said:
Here's a question - What were your expectations at the start of 2018/19 season?

And what were your expectations at the start of this season?

The thing is he's judged harshly because he wasn't able to take the final step unlike others who were stuck at the stage of establishing us as a top 4 side. He's spent money and failed at the final hurdle, but there's no shame in that - unable to make the final step.
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Considering we had finished 2nd and reached a final 3 months earlier, my expectations were certainly not that it’d take another 3 entire seasons to match (but not exceed) that…

I was firmly Jose out a healthy point before he was actually sacked, and I agree his standard 3rd year meltdown left us in a bad position which Ole initially did well to smooth over, but I’ve also been convinced for bordering on a quite unhealthy amount of time now, that a significant portion of our fan base, and it’s representatives in media have been usefully bastardising that season as some singularly cataclysmic period which required longer and longer to “recover” from, than any similarly equatable time at any similarly equatable club…

I’ve expected top 4 at the very least in every season, considering our squad quality and egregious outlay, and there seems to have been a weird dual paradoxical attitude to that season, that manages to hold that Jose deserved to be sacked for failing to get the best out of that squad (a squad which we still use at least 12-13 match day players from even now, minus Lukaku - a player most agreed was solidly world class at the start of this term) but that it was also somehow so horrendously poor and unbefitting (despite us still regularly starting about 7 of them) that it needed the same said 3 years to get back to where it peaked…. Without even the smallest expectation of a trophy in the mean time!

For comparison, Jose himself inherited a similarly underperforming mess, which by the start of his second season was already expected to compete for the title (we were solidly second favourites at the time, and very much expectant of a real challenge until we lost to City at home) having also won some trophies in its teething period…. Furthermore Conte managed to actually win the league in his first full year after Jose’s (second) 3rd year meltdown at Chelsea, and Real Madrid won La Decima the season after his implosion there, too…. There are the standards at the elite, big spending clubs…. All apart from ours.

Ole may well have succeeded in his overall remit to improve the squad he inherited to the point of viable competition, but he’s also done it in much longer time frame than was necessary, to the point where any real achievement in the squad is in very real danger of being rendered pointless if he isn’t sacked soon enough for us to actually win something with it….which I yet again must point out contains several of the same players, only older, as well as a couple of World Class forwards that are already over the hill. (And that’s without even getting into the fact that his additions Maguire & AWB have been amongst our worst performers this year!)

So I feel it’s actually not completely unreasonable to conclude that if we don’t win anything big this season, he has taken us backwards… and certainly lowered the expectations of Manchester United to align far more with his as a rookie manager, than ones actually befitting the club…

(All of this is stuff I can find posts of me, and others, saying at the time too… so it’s not like no one saw it coming either)

All of that said, the fact that he did reach the very bare minimum requirements in his 2 full seasons, as well as the feckery of COVID, meant sacking him would always have been a bold thing to do … so I can’t really blame the club for not…. Even though I disagree with it.

So in summary, we’re fecked.
 
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Mockney said:
Considering we had finished 2nd and reached a final 3 months earlier, my expectations were certainly not that it’d take another 3 entire seasons to match (but not exceed) that…

I was firmly Jose out a healthy point before he was actually sacked, and I agree his standard 3rd year meltdown left us in a bad position which Ole initially did well to smooth over, but I’ve also been convinced for bordering on a quite unhealthy amount of time now, that a significant portion of our fan base, and it’s representatives in media have been usefully bastardising that season as some singularly cataclysmic period which required longer and longer to “recover” from, than any similarly equatable time at any similarly equatable club…

I’ve expected top 4 at the very least in every season, considering our squad quality and egregious outlay, and there seems to have been a weird dual paradoxical attitude to that season, that manages to hold that Jose deserved to be sacked for failing to get the best out of that squad (a squad which we still use at least 12-13 match day players from even now, minus Lukaku - a player most agreed was solidly world class at the start of this term) but that it was also somehow so horrendously poor and unbefitting (despite us still regularly starting about 7 of them) that it needed the same said 3 years to get back to where it peaked…. Without even the smallest expectation of a trophy in the mean time!

For comparison, Jose himself inherited a similarly underperforming mess, which by the start of his second season was already expected to compete for the title (we were solidly second favourites at the time, and very much expectant of a real challenge until we lost to City at home) having also won some trophies in its teething period…. Furthermore Conte managed to actually win the league in his first full year after Jose’s (second) 3rd year meltdown at Chelsea, and Real Madrid won La Decima the season after his implosion there, too…. There are the standards at the elite, big spending clubs…. All apart from ours.

Ole may well have succeeded in his overall remit to improve the squad he inherited to the point of viable competition, but he’s also done it in much longer time frame than was necessary, to the point where any real achievement in the squad is in very real danger of being rendered pointless if he isn’t sacked soon enough for us to actually win something with it….which I yet again must point out contains several of the same players, only older, as well as a couple of World Class forwards that are already over the hill.

So I feel it’s actually not completely unreasonable to conclude that if we don’t win anything big this season, he has taken us backwards… and certainly lowered the expectations of Manchester United to align far more with his as a rookie manager, than ones actually befitting the club…

(All of this is stuff I can find posts of me, and others, saying at the time too… so it’s not like no one saw it coming either)
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See this post right here. BANG.ON.

So many people have tied their bandwagon to whatever Ole has been at the wheel of that even now as they climb down they have to attribute further intangible things, ‘he’s built a great squad’, ok but they’re nowhere near winning anything. ‘the squad is happier’, you mean the 13-14 players he utilises; I doubt Martial, Bailly, VdB, Lingard, Dalot, Pogba are loving here currently.

We are in the exact position we deserve to be because all people have done is excuse the man for his failings, he has definitely gotten things right at times but he shouldn’t have survived Sevilla. Anyone shocked by this season hasn’t been watching this team play for the past few seasons.
 
Mockney said:
Considering we had finished 2nd and reached a final 3 months earlier, my expectations were certainly not that it’d take another 3 entire seasons to match (but not exceed) that…

I was firmly Jose out a healthy point before he was actually sacked, and I agree his standard 3rd year meltdown left us in a bad position which Ole initially did well to smooth over, but I’ve also been convinced for bordering on a quite unhealthy amount of time now, that a significant portion of our fan base, and it’s representatives in media have been usefully bastardising that season as some singularly cataclysmic period which required longer and longer to “recover” from, than any similarly equatable time at any similarly equatable club…

I’ve expected top 4 at the very least in every season, considering our squad quality and egregious outlay, and there seems to have been a weird dual paradoxical attitude to that season, that manages to hold that Jose deserved to be sacked for failing to get the best out of that squad (a squad which we still use at least 12-13 match day players from even now, minus Lukaku - a player most agreed was solidly world class at the start of this term) but that it was also somehow so horrendously poor and unbefitting (despite us still regularly starting about 7 of them) that it needed the same said 3 years to get back to where it peaked…. Without even the smallest expectation of a trophy in the mean time!

For comparison, Jose himself inherited a similarly underperforming mess, which by the start of his second season was already expected to compete for the title (we were solidly second favourites at the time, and very much expectant of a real challenge until we lost to City at home) having also won some trophies in its teething period…. Furthermore Conte managed to actually win the league in his first full year after Jose’s (second) 3rd year meltdown at Chelsea, and Real Madrid won La Decima the season after his implosion there, too…. There are the standards at the elite, big spending clubs…. All apart from ours.

Ole may well have succeeded in his overall remit to improve the squad he inherited to the point of viable competition, but he’s also done it in much longer time frame than was necessary, to the point where any real achievement in the squad is in very real danger of being rendered pointless if he isn’t sacked soon enough for us to actually win something with it….which I yet again must point out contains several of the same players, only older, as well as a couple of World Class forwards that are already over the hill.

So I feel it’s actually not completely unreasonable to conclude that if we don’t win anything big this season, he has taken us backwards… and certainly lowered the expectations of Manchester United to align far more with his as a rookie manager, than ones actually befitting the club…

(All of this is stuff I can find posts of me, and others, saying at the time too… so it’s not like no one saw it coming either)

All of that said, the fact that he did reach the very bare minimum requirements in his 2 full seasons, as well as the feckery of COVID, meant sacking him would always have been a bold thing to do … so I can’t really blame the club for not…. Even though I disagree with it.

So in summary, we’re fecked.
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What an excellent post - I agree with every word. I would add that in Jose's 2nd season we started really strongly, played some half decent football, scored quite a few goals and were top of the league after about 10 games. He then went to Anfield, set up defensively and came away with a 1-1. The Caf was absolutely up-in-arms, and he was pretty much destroyed on here. That's how far standards and expectations have fallen on here in the 4 years since then.
 
When you think of the years he stayed as a manager, it looks pretty bad. We are going backwards. But really though you dont need to look at those years. Even looking at the squad now and how it performs should be clear enough. Ole is out of his depth at this level. No more hiding behind passion and "dont trust the players". His legacy as a manager... err... PSG match where we won away and sadly lost to Villareal in the final. Thats about it.
 
Rusholme Ruffian said:
What an excellent post - I agree with every word. I would add that in Jose's 2nd season we started really strongly, played some half decent football, scored quite a few goals and were top of the league after about 10 games. He then went to Anfield, set up defensively and came away with a 1-1. The Caf was absolutely up-in-arms, and he was pretty much destroyed on here. That's how far standards and expectations have fallen on here in the 4 years since then.
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I think the issue there was that a lot of our supporters f*cking hated Jose, so had zero patience with him from the off.
 
Rusholme Ruffian said:
What an excellent post - I agree with every word. I would add that in Jose's 2nd season we started really strongly, played some half decent football, scored quite a few goals and were top of the league after about 10 games. He then went to Anfield, set up defensively and came away with a 1-1. The Caf was absolutely up-in-arms, and he was pretty much destroyed on here. That's how far standards and expectations have fallen on here in the 4 years since then.
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I can go one better… I had a convo with someone I’ve been to games with - and who used to post here - who said in all seriousness that Ole had done “brilliantly” to even get us to the Europa League Final considering where we were…. Which is frankly bonkers considering we actually won that competition, against a much stronger team than Villareal (one who are incidentally now somehow so far above us, after the same rebuilding period, that most of the Caf are desperate to poach their manager) a shorter time away from Jose’s sacking than we are now…

I love Ole, but pretending there hasn’t been a palpable lowering of expectations to give him a greater benefit of doubt is delusional
 
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Mockney said:
I can go one better… I had a convo with someone I’ve been to games with - and who used to post here - who said in all seriousness that Ole had done “brilliantly” to even get us to the Europa League Final considering where we were…. Which is frankly bonkers considering we actually won that competition, against a much stronger team than Villareal (one who are incidentally now somehow so far above us, after the same rebuilding period, that most of the Caf are desperate to poach their manager) a shorter time away from Jose’s sacking than we are now…

I love Ole, but pretending there hasn’t been a palpable lowering of expectations to give him a greater benefit of doubt is delusional
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:wenger:
 
It was kind of a genius appointment when you think about it. Ole could have us in the relegation zone and fans would still support him because he's Ole.
 
His legacy is that he stayed too long and has damaged the club in doing so. It is all about self preservation now when all evidence points to the fact that he isn’t good enough.

Loved him as a player but this has certainly tweaked his legacy for me. It’s been a last 18 months filled with disappointment and I hate the fact that we have such good young players who aren’t being coached properly and have wasted the return of one of the greats.

That’s on Ole.
 
Mockney said:
Considering we had finished 2nd and reached a final 3 months earlier, my expectations were certainly not that it’d take another 3 entire seasons to match (but not exceed) that…

I was firmly Jose out a healthy point before he was actually sacked, and I agree his standard 3rd year meltdown left us in a bad position which Ole initially did well to smooth over, but I’ve also been convinced for bordering on a quite unhealthy amount of time now, that a significant portion of our fan base, and it’s representatives in media have been usefully bastardising that season as some singularly cataclysmic period which required longer and longer to “recover” from, than any similarly equatable time at any similarly equatable club…

I’ve expected top 4 at the very least in every season, considering our squad quality and egregious outlay, and there seems to have been a weird dual paradoxical attitude to that season, that manages to hold that Jose deserved to be sacked for failing to get the best out of that squad (a squad which we still use at least 12-13 match day players from even now, minus Lukaku - a player most agreed was solidly world class at the start of this term) but that it was also somehow so horrendously poor and unbefitting (despite us still regularly starting about 7 of them) that it needed the same said 3 years to get back to where it peaked…. Without even the smallest expectation of a trophy in the mean time!

For comparison, Jose himself inherited a similarly underperforming mess, which by the start of his second season was already expected to compete for the title (we were solidly second favourites at the time, and very much expectant of a real challenge until we lost to City at home) having also won some trophies in its teething period…. Furthermore Conte managed to actually win the league in his first full year after Jose’s (second) 3rd year meltdown at Chelsea, and Real Madrid won La Decima the season after his implosion there, too…. There are the standards at the elite, big spending clubs…. All apart from ours.

Ole may well have succeeded in his overall remit to improve the squad he inherited to the point of viable competition, but he’s also done it in much longer time frame than was necessary, to the point where any real achievement in the squad is in very real danger of being rendered pointless if he isn’t sacked soon enough for us to actually win something with it….which I yet again must point out contains several of the same players, only older, as well as a couple of World Class forwards that are already over the hill. (And that’s without even getting into the fact that his additions Maguire & AWB have been amongst our worst performers this year!)

So I feel it’s actually not completely unreasonable to conclude that if we don’t win anything big this season, he has taken us backwards… and certainly lowered the expectations of Manchester United to align far more with his as a rookie manager, than ones actually befitting the club…

(All of this is stuff I can find posts of me, and others, saying at the time too… so it’s not like no one saw it coming either)

All of that said, the fact that he did reach the very bare minimum requirements in his 2 full seasons, as well as the feckery of COVID, meant sacking him would always have been a bold thing to do … so I can’t really blame the club for not…. Even though I disagree with it.

So in summary, we’re fecked.
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Bang on the money, this.
 
In short, Ole's legacy has taken a serious hit. United supporters will never forget Ole's stunning contributions coming off the bench, but we'll also never forget that the mediocrity he supervised as manager persisted far too long.

When the sacking occurs we'll have plenty of opportunities to discuss when and how it all went wrong, but there is no doubt that going into the 21/22 season Ole was unprepared for the challenge of managing the massive amount of talent he had at his disposal.
 
His legacy is fine.

He's finished 3rd then 2nd and had a really poor start to the following season. If he goes soon, he's not exactly Fergie but nothing that will stop me remembering that goal.
 
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