Solskjaer's legacy and his future

This just makes me so pissed. Utd mentality and no fight in them. As soon as it's gonna get tough they just disappear.
He bought just without a plan and purpose..

Donny - Who knows what he was thinking
Pallestri - Again who knows
Heaton - 3rd keeper
Telles - Very much a nothing player
Ighalo - needed him as a backup
Sancho - looks very much wasted 70m
Ronaldo - Romantic not what we needed
AWB - Did we scout him at all
James - Rapid nothing else, backup
Diallo - Less said the better
Harry - No words
Varane - WC and probably one of the best
Cavani - Came too late
Fernandes - Our best player

One midfielder who he never used even though we paid a fortune for him. Overpaid for all the players and bought with no plan.
500m spent renewed contracts for players who should have been let go andsold and pampered toxic primadonnas.
 
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Someone should bump that clownish 'Thank you Ole' thread that was made a little after he was sacked.
 
tjb said:
I actually think this vindicates him a bit. For a moment, I was in the camp that believed the coaching in training was the problem. What's become clear, and what I initially believed, we have one of the worst midfields in the league. It was the same with Ole. His decision to keep Pogba, he was absent for large portions of his reign, was probably part of why we didn't buy a proper midfielder under Ole. He had the opportunity to.

However, there were always signs it was a midfield issue. When Pogba played, we were able to play better in games more consistently, at least offensively. The problem was always that Pogba never wanted to stay in midfield and didn't have the defensive discipline to hold or tackle. We were slow in moving the ball due to the midfield lacking the first touch to collect balls or passing ability to move them forward, something which even Pogba couldn't do due to his slow turn and lack of awareness on the ball. Most teams, in fact every team in the league, at least has one player that can collect the ball from the defence or tackle. United, the biggest team in England, have managed to go almost a decade with the same problem. It's not the attackers, its not Maguire, its not De Gea or Shaw, its not Bruno...it has always been the central midfield. It started with us easily losing games to members of the big 6 and has progressed to us losing midfield battles both home and away against relegation fodder. The signs are even there from midfielders that have left us, when Herrera plays, PSG don't control games, Schneiderlin is nowhere, Schweinstieger went to the MLS after being with us. It's really annoying. We've spent years blaming the manager when personnel in the most important position on the pitch matter more.

We're the same team that won with Ince and Keane, Scholes and Keane, Scholes and Carrick, for years. Even in the last few years under Fergie, and even with the rotation policy he had in midfield at the time , there could never be an argument that our midfielders at the time were worse than anyone outside the top 4 at the time.
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How does any of this vindicate him? Knowing he could only have either Sancho or a quality midfielder, he still went for Sancho when we already had Greenwood, Amad and Pellistri for the RW role, then played Sancho as a LW for the majority even after Rashford returned! He did a terrible job and this bloated squad with no good midfielders mess is on him.
 
Jericholyte2 said:
Certainly not the guy who had three years to get a new midfielder but felt for some fecking reason that McFred would do!

For fecks sake!
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there is a weird expectation that we can sign 2-3 world class players in a transfer window. Ole was at fault for the poor performances this year, so were the players. Now Ole is gone. It’s either the new manager is accountable or not. Also, we really don’t need a kroos-modric combination to play better against the likes of newcastle, villa and wolves. Let’s move on from Ole and focus on what needs to be fixed now and how
 
spiriticon said:
The players might be happy under him but christ he has made everyone into a mental weakling.

Did he do all training as non contact or something?
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When I see posts like this, it makes me want to bang my head against the wall. So according to you, we finished 2nd and 3rd in the last 2 years with no training and mental fortitude? Never mind we came back from losing positions numerous times. People talk as if we were battling relegation the last couple of years.

Yes, the end was not good but by god thst doesn't mean we totally blast everything that was good the last couple of years.
 
Vdb turns out not suitable to EPL. That’s the whole issue. I guess he is not allowed to buy another midfielder in the summer. Then, CR was brought in and the extra issues eventually produced a chain reaction. You might say he is out of his depth. But, he did us a good two years in terms of promising future. The collapse has been fast as any collapse means to be.
 
luke511 said:
How does any of this vindicate him? Knowing he could only have either Sancho or a quality midfielder, he still went for Sancho when we already had Greenwood, Amad and Pellistri for the RW role, then played Sancho as a LW for the majority even after Rashford returned! He did a terrible job and this bloated squad with no good midfielders mess is on him.
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I'm not saying he didn't make some mistakes in recruitment, but I am saying that his tactics were not nearly as bad as it was made out to be. Many managers would have struggled with the midfield we currently have. I actually think Ole's biggest mistake was letting Pogba stay in 2019, the wages and transfer fee we could have recouped from him would have helped us. He should have done what Rangnick is currently doing with Martial or what he did with Lukaku. I'm not defending Ole, but his tactics/training sessions, whatever you want to call it were likely not nearly as bad as was made out in the end, the personnel in midfield simply weren't available enough or good enough.
 
united for life said:
there is a weird expectation that we can sign 2-3 world class players in a transfer window. Ole was at fault for the poor performances this year, so were the players. Now Ole is gone. It’s either the new manager is accountable or not. Also, we really don’t need a kroos-modric combination to play better against the likes of newcastle, villa and wolves. Let’s move on from Ole and focus on what needs to be fixed now and how
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The truth is, its not even about world class players, we literally don't have certain required midfield profiles. We don't have good passers or good holding midfielders. We just have an ancient Matic and a bunch of runners who can't even win the ball back. Norwich have a player that can collect the ball from the defence, southampton have both a passer and a holding midfielder, mighty man united, the biggest team in england with the largest fanbase in the world, do not have a player that can collect the ball from the defence, a player that can hold in midfield for longer than 35 minutes without tiring or a player that can tackle and win midfield duels. I'm not saying we should but Jonjo Shelvey or anything like that, but there is a legitimate case that players of that ilk are more talented than the current central midfielders we have at United ( outside of Pogba of course). Wolves outclass us in midfield constantly, Villa's McGinn is sending our Mctominay to defence in Scotland....it can't be that hard.
 
King7Eric said:
When I see posts like this, it makes me want to bang my head against the wall. So according to you, we finished 2nd and 3rd in the last 2 years with no training and mental fortitude? Never mind we came back from losing positions numerous times. People talk as if we were battling relegation the last couple of years.

Yes, the end was not good but by god thst doesn't mean we totally blast everything that was good the last couple of years.
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'Mental fortitude' to finish 2nd...THIRD? You mean mental weakness at throwing in the towel on a title challenge before Xmas in each of those seasons right?

Ok maybe I'm being a little harsh, but I tire of excuses for this bunch
 
spiriticon said:
'Mental fortitude' to finish 2nd...THIRD? You mean mental weakness at throwing in the towel on a title challenge before Xmas in each of those seasons right?

Ok maybe I'm being a little harsh, but I tire of excuses for this bunch
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Mate you are kidding yourself if you think we were in a title race the past season. You can't win leagues without a proper midfield, so there was no throwing in the towel or anything of that kind, we were simply a level or two below City.
 
I would say that Ole left us with a better defence and attack, but a threadbare midfield. We have too many players up front in the wider positions, and not enough defensive central midfielders.
 
tjb said:
I'm not saying he didn't make some mistakes in recruitment, but I am saying that his tactics were not nearly as bad as it was made out to be. Many managers would have struggled with the midfield we currently have. I actually think Ole's biggest mistake was letting Pogba stay in 2019, the wages and transfer fee we could have recouped from him would have helped us. He should have done what Rangnick is currently doing with Martial or what he did with Lukaku. I'm not defending Ole, but his tactics/training sessions, whatever you want to call it were likely not nearly as bad as was made out in the end, the personnel in midfield simply weren't available enough or good enough.
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The midfield is a big reason why we're way behind the top teams in terms of quality, Solskjaer didn't do anything to sort it out whilst spending £100s of millions season after season, he was evidently very content with McFred as starters in the double pivot with a past it Matic as back up, that's a sackable offence on its own. Solskjaer's in game tactics and management was bad as well, there are many examples of this but the two worst being when he didn't sub Fred off vs PSG (most obvious HT sub of all time) he gets sent off and utd don't qualify. He didn't make a sub until the 100th minute in a European final whilst the opposition made 5 before 90, we end up losing. Both examples are sackable offences. He signed loads of youth players but never played them, whilst renewing past it players and refusing to sell players that had resell value (Lingard, Martial), bloating the squad and messing up the morale completely. Now we have the reputation as being one of the worst clubs on the planet to join as a developing player. He did a lot of brain dead stuff and his management is a big factor as to why we're in this mess.
 
luke511 said:
The midfield is a big reason why we're way behind the top teams in terms of quality, Solskjaer didn't do anything to sort it out whilst spending £100s of millions season after season, he was evidently very content with McFred as starters in the double pivot with a past it Matic as back up, that's a sackable offence on its own. Solskjaer's in game tactics and management was bad as well, there are many examples of this but the two worst being when he didn't sub Fred off vs PSG (most obvious HT sub of all time) he gets sent off and utd don't qualify. He didn't make a sub until the 100th minute in a European final whilst the opposition made 5 before 90, we end up losing. Both examples are sackable offences. He signed loads of youth players but never played them, whilst renewing past it players and refusing to sell players that had resell value (Lingard, Martial), bloating the squad and messing up the morale completely. Now we have the reputation as being one of the worst clubs on the planet to join as a developing player. He did a lot of brain dead stuff and his management is a big factor as to why we're in this mess.
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He also had a lot of games where his tactics, particularly against the City's and Pool's won us the game despite the lack of quality we had at certain points, particularly in that dark 19/20 pre - Bruno phase. I agree about the midfield. Part of our problem I believe is that we did the whole full length rebuild thing, which allowed Ole to believe he had endless time to get in a full squad of players. A team like ours should never ever commit to a full rebuild, we have too much money and have had decent enough squads that we never needed to completely rebuild the team. Ole should have focused on improving the midfield first when he came in. It's the area we have always had the least talent, especially because Pogba is always injured. In defence, as inconsistent and injury prone Smalling, Bailly, Lindelof etc were, they could actually perform basic defending. The problem was always what was protecting them in front. Our midfield has consistently allowed our defence and De Gea fact consistent attacks. Liverpool even though they did not perform well in the league last season did not face the level of threat our defence consistently had to deal with last season despite having the majority of their backline injured. They were still able to produce good football and dominate teams, which is something we have not been able to do for years.
 
tjb said:
The truth is, its not even about world class players, we literally don't have certain required midfield profiles. We don't have good passers or good holding midfielders. We just have an ancient Matic and a bunch of runners who can't even win the ball back. Norwich have a player that can collect the ball from the defence, southampton have both a passer and a holding midfielder, mighty man united, the biggest team in england with the largest fanbase in the world, do not have a player that can collect the ball from the defence, a player that can hold in midfield for longer than 35 minutes without tiring or a player that can tackle and win midfield duels. I'm not saying we should but Jonjo Shelvey or anything like that, but there is a legitimate case that players of that ilk are more talented than the current central midfielders we have at United ( outside of Pogba of course). Wolves outclass us in midfield constantly, Villa's McGinn is sending our Mctominay to defence in Scotland....it can't be that hard.
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i agree with most of what you said. Our main problem is that no one knows how to take the ball and distribute. but still to compete we’d need to for someone like Rice not an average DM. As for the passer, vdb is there. He knows how to pass but i don’t know where And why its going all wrong for him
 
King7Eric said:
Mate you are kidding yourself if you think we were in a title race the past season. You can't win leagues without a proper midfield, so there was no throwing in the towel or anything of that kind, we were simply a level or two below City.
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Good to know he got us the proper midfielders the following summer to get us into a title race then. Oh wait…
 
Seems like he failed to recognize just how bad our midfield is and this was a major contributor to his undoing.
 
500M spent in almost three years, and we’re heading into next summer with a probable exodus of players (Cavani, Martial, Pogba, Ronaldo, Lingard, Mata, Henderson, Matic…) and another rebuild on our hands. Most likely out of the Top 4.
 
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pocco said:
The funny thing is that people were saying 'at least he's leaving us in a better position' etc. Yet more and more of Jose's signings and players from our academy seem to be trusted over Ole signings as time goes on. Hell even Dalot looks more dependable than AWB these days and Matic is our best midfielder, if only for 50 minutes per game.
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Yup, that's a funny one as people were giving him a lot of credit for something that hadn't even happened yet. Like he was heading in the right direction and was going to leave a team ready to win the big competitions and all those future titles were going to be thanks to him.

He was given a lot of time and resources and he was improving only respective to himself but in the bigger picture he left a team with no identity nor playstyle. It isn't everything his fault, he did what he could and he was simply underqualified for the job. Think the board liked him because he wasn't as troublesome as Mourinho but in contrast it feel like the team now requires a more strict manager.
 
antsmithmk said:
I would say that Ole left us with a better defence and attack, but a threadbare midfield. We have too many players up front in the wider positions, and not enough defensive central midfielders.
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Pretty much yeah, lack of recruitment in midfield was ultimately what lead to his downfall, placed way too much faith in Fred and McTominay.
 
Ralph1386 said:
Good to know he got us the proper midfielders the following summer to get us into a title race then. Oh wait…
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Every reliable journalist reported he wanted a CM, but there wasn't enough budget left over. It's clear some people just want to blame all our problems at Ole's feet and nothing anyone says is gonna deter you guys.

And some of the midfielders we are being linked with now, Haidara and Zakaria etc aren't also gonna solve the problem. We need players who can pass and keep the ball, someone like Neves or Tielemans.
 
King7Eric said:
Every reliable journalist reported he wanted a CM, but there wasn't enough budget left over. It's clear some people just want to blame all our problems at Ole's feet and nothing anyone says is gonna deter you guys.

And some of the midfielders we are being linked with now, Haidara and Zakaria etc aren't also gonna solve the problem. We need players who can pass and keep the ball, someone like Neves or Tielemans.
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3 fecking years and 500m

He had enough time and money to fix the cm. He just dont have a clue.

I dont think he even know what he's buying, and that's being kind to Ole. If he knew what he's buying then good lord help us with all his mega dross signing. It's better for him.to say he doesnt know what he's buying
 
It's cute that some are still trying to defend his time here as if a single singing would make all the difference.

The team doesn't unravel like this in style, spirit and quality when everything has been fine in the prior seasons. This season was just all the problems much talked about coming to their inevitable result.

But but but table :rolleyes:
 
King7Eric said:
Every reliable journalist reported he wanted a CM, but there wasn't enough budget left over. It's clear some people just want to blame all our problems at Ole's feet and nothing anyone says is gonna deter you guys.

And some of the midfielders we are being linked with now, Haidara and Zakaria etc aren't also gonna solve the problem. We need players who can pass and keep the ball, someone like Neves or Tielemans.
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He bought a CM. Remind me what he did with him again?
 
The Bloody-Nine said:
He bought a CM. Remind me what he did with him again?
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Van de Beek was bought as a Bruno back up if I'm not mistaken.

So all you guys think we were fluking our way to 2nd and 3rd for two full seasons? I mean this is ridiculous the arguments people are making. We disintegrated this season and Ole paid the price for it, fair enough, but to make up things in hindsight is just blame apportioning at this point. The man is gone, people need to move on. Our new manager can sign the midfielder he wants. It's the profile of players he's looking at that worries me.
 
- an unbalanced squad
- an ageing squad
- an unaccountable for actions culture
- top young talents regressing
- minus £500 million (or whatever the exact figure is)
- the worse season post Fergie since the Moyes debacle
 
King7Eric said:
Van de Beek was bought as a Bruno back up if I'm not mistaken.

So all you guys think we were fluking our way to 2nd and 3rd for two full seasons? I mean this is ridiculous the arguments people are making. We disintegrated this season and Ole paid the price for it, fair enough, but to make up things in hindsight is just blame apportioning at this point. The man is gone, people need to move on. Our new manager can sign the midfielder he wants. It's the profile of players he's looking at that worries me.
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But if CM was such a priority, then why spend 35m on a back up AM (and the price that Tielemans went to Leicester and Neves was available at?) Why spend initial 20m on Amad who was nowhere near even the squad? Why spend 80m on Maguire instead of finding a cheaper alternative and allocate funds to CM? I mean it is obvious that Ole was not the sole decider in transfers but he was definitely an important voice, could have blocker at least some of the above-mentioned transfers and had no right to be pissed off after having like 5 transfer windows to address CM issue. But it does not seem that he viewed it as priority.

And yes, we did fluke 3rd (definitely) and 2nd (to a lesser degree). 3rd was level on points with Chelsea on 4th, we were out of top 4 for 90% of the season, often literally midtable before Bruno, clinched it on the last day thanks to Leicester collapse and finished on 66 points which 90% of the time are not enough for top-4. But people like you keep naming 3rd place as if it were some comfortable top-4 finish. 2nd place was also somewhat lucky, we outperformed xG and expected points significantly (were 4th on them), Liverpool and Chelsea were in bad state. I am not saying that we were disastrous in the league those 2 seasons but the finishing positions really flattered us. Could have easily been 5th and 4th.
 
King7Eric said:
Van de Beek was bought as a Bruno back up if I'm not mistaken.

So all you guys think we were fluking our way to 2nd and 3rd for two full seasons? I mean this is ridiculous the arguments people are making. We disintegrated this season and Ole paid the price for it, fair enough, but to make up things in hindsight is just blame apportioning at this point. The man is gone, people need to move on. Our new manager can sign the midfielder he wants. It's the profile of players he's looking at that worries me.
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He spent 35 million on a back up?
 
King7Eric said:
Every reliable journalist reported he wanted a CM, but there wasn't enough budget left over.
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Right. And who decided to spend most of that budget on Sancho?

By the way, every reliable journalist reported that our next target was going to be Trippier before a midfielder. This was on Ole who had three years to strengthen the midfield that you claim was weak.
 
VivaRonaldo85 said:
- an unbalanced squad
- an ageing squad
- an unaccountable for actions culture
- top young talents regressing
- minus £500 million (or whatever the exact figure is)
- the worse season post Fergie since the Moyes debacle
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It’s really fecking grim we wasted those years with quite a good generation of our academy lads
 
King7Eric said:
Van de Beek was bought as a Bruno back up if I'm not mistaken.
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If we subscribe to that theory then he thought it was wiser to spend 35M on a Bruno back-up he barely used than on a midfielder? You don’t see anything wrong with that? :)
 
Ralph1386 said:
If we subscribe to that theory then he thought it was wiser to spend 35M on a Bruno back-up he barely used than on a midfielder? You don’t see anything wrong with that? :)
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Getting Fernandes transformed the team. So who knows, being rather one dimensional, maybe Solskjaer thought having someone decent to cover for Bruno and give him a rest here and there might be as important.
 
Amir said:
Getting Fernandes transformed the team. So who knows, being rather one dimensional, maybe Solskjaer thought having someone decent to cover for Bruno and give him a rest here and there might be as important.
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Don't think so. Ole is no Pep but he isn't that dumb. This is probably even worse than just saying he thought his options in midfield were good enough. It would mean he was prioritizing signing the back up of a player that was going to play nearly every game over upgrading first team areas in dire need. Talk about misplaced priorities, a successful first team midfield signing would do more for us than some bruno backup playing cup games. Don't buy it, he is a mediocre manager not a daft one.
 
Ralph1386 said:
If we subscribe to that theory then he thought it was wiser to spend 35M on a Bruno back-up he barely used than on a midfielder? You don’t see anything wrong with that? :)
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On one hand we dream of competing with City and then baulk at spending 35M on a backup. That's the price for players at the highest level, just look at City and Chelsea's sqaud. And he was bought in 2020, not this season. Sure he didn't get to play much but that was due to Bruno being brilliant and after a shaky start, us having a decent enough season.
 
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Amir said:
Getting Fernandes transformed the team. So who knows, being rather one dimensional, maybe Solskjaer thought having someone decent to cover for Bruno and give him a rest here and there might be as important.
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It's like buying a spare set of fancy wheels when your car engine are imploding and need fixing asap. You dont see anything wrong with it ?
 
How funny is that the squad Mourinho left went on a great winning strike during the interim manager that followed him, while the top class squad Ole left is still as shit as it was under him.

But..but..he left us at a much better place and made a cultural reset.

Those 3 years we wasted under him will feck us up for quite some time. Under a proper manager we would have been title challengers already by now.
 
Ralph1386 said:
Right. And who decided to spend most of that budget on Sancho?

By the way, every reliable journalist reported that our next target was going to be Trippier before a midfielder. This was on Ole who had three years to strengthen the midfield that you claim was weak.
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Everybody knows ole did all of the negotiations. All of them, signed all the cheques too.
 
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