Of course, not to that extreme but we heavily relied on moments of individual brilliance and most of them came from Bruno.
Solskjaer's legacy and his future
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Today's game showed us that we wasted 2 years with Ole.
If only Fergie could have sent Rangnick on against Bayern in 99, we would have won 5-1
No need to downplay a victory where we actually had a clue in possession just because it was a narrow one. That lack of appreciation for the details on the pitch is why we ended up 8th, with no manager and 3 years wasted to some fantasy project.
33 pages with more anti Ole Bs. Some people still can’t get rid of that chip on their shoulder it seems.
It’s actually heart warming to hear the new manager say thinks like “I’ve heard so much the last few days about him from Ole”.
That’s a nice legacy.
That’s a nice legacy.
Maybe I can't predict the future, do you think finishing 2nd is a great achievement?
How so? How did the lack of fans benefit United players more than the players of other teams?
By this logic surely City benefitted even more from the lack of fans yes?
That was comfortably the weakest aspect of today, in fact when we stopped pressing we were extremely wasteful and disjointed with the ball.
So United benefitted from an FA rule that didn't benefit other teams as much.
One of our players scored goals that gained important points.
And our best player was in fantastic form?
Anything else?
Hes not the manager anymore, why do people feel the need to constantly bash him?
He wasn't good enough to take us further and I like most am happy about that, I'm excited to see how we progress under RR and it was much better today, but to constantly look to find a stick to beat ole with is ridiculous.
Just be glad he's no longer our manager and look forwards not backwards.
He wasn't good enough to take us further and I like most am happy about that, I'm excited to see how we progress under RR and it was much better today, but to constantly look to find a stick to beat ole with is ridiculous.
Just be glad he's no longer our manager and look forwards not backwards.
Europa League will never be the same since he left.
You guys remember Ole's first game right? It made today look pedestrian.
I'm sure we'll get a lot from Rangnick but it's one game.
Disagree, I only caught the second half and thought we were more organised than any point in the last 3 years. To make matters better I heard we were even better in the 1st half specifically the first 30 minutes.
But wait, even if what you say is true, even if we were to take it as fact, then so what? the interim manager didn't transform us to prime Barca after a 45 minute training session? Should we open a sack thread?
Luckily none of that is true and we played very well. I hope downplaying of progress on the pitch doesn't become a thing just to absolve the last manager. He's gone and we need to improve.
This is such a disingenuous straw man. Genuinely dreadful.
I could point to games like Newcastle or Spurs last season where we were clearly better on the ball, our dismantling of Leipzig etc. but a scrappy 1-0 win was the most organised we've looked in 3 years?
I can see why you've gone straight for the above.
You say we were poor in possession. Were you expecting a nuanced response to a blatantly false premise?
Oh come off it. No one looks back at Jose's 2nd season as impressive either. It's forgotten and so will Ole's absolutely pointless 2nd and 3rd place finishes.
Me disagreeing with you isn't a "blatantly false premise", you are free to disagree with it if you like, but we generated 3 shots on target at home against Crystal Palace. There's clearly a case to be made that we were poor in possession.
What you did was take that argument and make a ridiculous extrapolation. It's pathetic.
I don't think Mourinho managed us incompetently in that second season. I don't know where you think I called it impressive, can you link it to me please?
People moved on quicker from Sir Alex. Loved him as a player, as a manger the sooner we move on from his stint and put him back in the ex-player category the better.
Then why do you think people won't downplay it if they get 2nd that way? It's neither an achievement nor proof that a manager is competent, we had another one who got 2nd with even more points three years ago and he was also incompetent.
No, we have seen City performing well in all situations. They benefited though from the lack of any real contenders last season.
Because Ole inherited team which was coached (more or less). Ragnick inherited team which was not coached at all.
Ole got from Jose broken team regarding morale. But that team under Jose worked on tactics and fitness. Same was with LVG's team which Jose inherited. Lvg's team was coached.
David de Gea said few weeks ago that we don't know what to with the ball in attack ffs. Our stats show that we are awful in running. That we are awful in defence. That we are absolutely awful at set pieces in defence and attack (we scored zero goals this season).
Legacy....
What's pathetic is using shots on target to discredit the blatant improvement in our possession play. Also what was the point of even bringing up poor possession play? Go ahead , let's hear it. We're waiting.
Why? Because people love to be proven right about something and an internet forum like this is a place where you smugly tell the world how right you were all along. These things come across as petty most of the time, sure, but I too do it for ego-feeding purposes. It's human nature and I don't want to be a hypocrite about this.
I would suggest going back and reading the threads from the end of Mourinho's reign. This was not the prevailing view, in fact the two biggest criticisms of him where that we didn't have any stamina because we sat back in a block and Mourinho couldn't coach them to be more ambitious.
Because we are discussing todays performance on a Man Utd forum.
And you can disagree with using it, but for a man who watched half the match only and resorted to hilarious levels of aggression when challenged you've not done much to substantiate your point.
That's just way off. We were awful in every way at the end of Mourinho. Mental gymnastics to give Ole zero credit.
Anyway point being one game under the new manager means very little about the previous.
"Discussing today's performance". Sure that's all you did. We totally didn't see you make an attempt at downplaying the result and Rangnick's performances to defend Ole's setup.
This has been done to death, but some people do also forget quickly the context behind 3rd and 2nd finishes and cite only the final position, so the impression is created that we had 2 comfortable top-4 finishes in a row, which we did not:
1. In 2019/2020 we were out of top-4 for 90% of the time and were often literally midtable before Bruno. We only scrambled to 3rd place in the last matches due to Leicester collapse - and were tied on points with Chelsea who were 4th. We finished on 66 points, which rarely is enough for top-4: over the last 10 seasons it was barely enough only in 2015/2016 where City overtook us for top-4 on GD with both of us finishing at 66 points. Expected points showed that we underperformed a bit (had 71 expected points), but Chelsea underperformed them more, so we were 4th in expected points table.
2. 2020/2021 looked more like a comfortable top-4 finish, but again - as posters above detailed, it was also papering over cracks. Even the improved point tally (74) would on average over last 10 season make you 4th, plus actually we had only 66 expected points (and 4th on expected position) - suggesting that we might have indeed been lucky and declined rather than improved from the 19/20 season with its expected points of 71.
So basically under Ole we performed barely good enough for top-4 with no real progress from first season to second if one looks at least a bit beyond headline league finishes and points. And that was with an improving squad. It is no coincidence that the thread "we are a poorly coached team" was created long ago. And I follow quite a lot of football data/analytics/tactics podcasts -I do not consider myself very knowledgeable in this topics - but I was struck how the opinions in them contrasted with the mood here in the summer. The vast majority (especially those who are not United fans) thought that Ole was far from being good enough at this level, found our persistence with him baffling, thought that we are still chasing big names without a proper transfer strategy, squad balance or idea how to fit them and play a defined style of football - and as a result expected us to be a distant 4th at best.
The magnitude of the crash this season was impossible to predict, as it is a confluence of several factors and a chain reaction basically - (1) expectations increased due to 2nd place and a strong on paper transfer window, (2) Ole did not prepare/did not know how to integrate the new signings (3) results caught up with our performances (4) Ole panicked and started frantically changing the approach to games, (5) players were not prepared for it, and became unhappy and confused and lost belief in his managerial abilities.
I disagreed with your analysis of the performance to recontextualise the comparison. I'm allowed to do that, just as you're allowed to "overplay the result and Rangnick's performance to undermine Ole's setup".
it's a discussion. If you don't like it then stop.
We should probably stop pissing on Ole’s grave (myself included) but those of us who did express reservations about a sacked Championship manager’s suitability for one of the most demanding jobs in world football did have to put up with years of of patronising posts explaining the equivalent of why the earth is flat, often accompanied by insults about being knee jerk and plastic.
I dont rate his management but I'm just curious, I have a question
When he came in and did so well, people said it was Joses tactics and Oles man management.
Can we say the same now for Rangnik? Can we classify it as Oles training, if not why not?
When he came in and did so well, people said it was Joses tactics and Oles man management.
Can we say the same now for Rangnik? Can we classify it as Oles training, if not why not?
Wonderful post. Could not have put it better myself.
Don't think so. After Jose left no one was rushing to credit his tactics behind anything good that happened. Also because it would be a leap to credit the organized passing and pressing we're seeing now as the effects of anything Ole did on the training ground. Did the passing and pressing training just start working after he left? Why weren't they apparent when he was in charge? Might have been useful in his final month.
Fully agreed, we really should and i myself also should let it go
But this is exactly the reason it is so hard to do. Anyway let's hope that - as someone aptly said here - Ole leaves a positive albeit unplanned legacy of the club being less nostalgic and giving more weight to actual ability and experience (and less weight to United connection) than before in staff recruitment.
Wasted time, 3 years with no real plan other than nostalgia and cliches. Sub standard and/or very basic training, time wasted for players collectively and individually.
Personally I could never understand what people were expecting Ole to do or why anyone ever expected him to be able to compete.
His whole career and everything he said and did made it pretty obvious he was a very limited manger with very basic ideas. Somehow we thought it was a good idea to entrust him with a reboot and rebuild and give then give him a three year deal for no reason.
Personally I could never understand what people were expecting Ole to do or why anyone ever expected him to be able to compete.
His whole career and everything he said and did made it pretty obvious he was a very limited manger with very basic ideas. Somehow we thought it was a good idea to entrust him with a reboot and rebuild and give then give him a three year deal for no reason.
Ole's training?
Do I think that?
So it's not an achievement nor is it proof of a manager competence?
Interesting, is it proof of a managers incompetence?
Cool, so how exactly did United's players benefit from no fans in the stadium more than the players of other teams again?
Exactly. We had it with VG for ages afterwards as well. At least he won a trophy and didnt spend as much. Ole player yes, reminisce. Manager no, forget it.
Today’s match proves his management (lack of) ‘’legacy’’ should have ended 2.5 years ago.