What I will say, is that Ole let the fitness levels of the team become so bad it's actually embarrassing. We just look so far behind everyone in terms of sharpness.
Solskjaer's legacy and his future
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Just like during his Cardiff stint, he bought overpriced not so good players. This time he cost the club hundreds of millions in failure and loss.
This would have been a mess right now if we didn’t have Ronaldo. Greenwood can’t play. We would have ended up relying on a never fully fit Cavani or a want away Martial.
This was a problem he inherited from Mourinho, if we are to be perfectly honest. We were close to the bottom in all those metrics and there were even reports that, under Jose, we were the only PL club that didn't use GPS tech to track the physical performance of the players. Solskjaer did try to increase the intensity of our game when he first arrived, but then the players started to drop like flies. Then, he chose to back down on what seemed to be his initial plan and opted for a mix of counter attacking and zombie passing football. Nevertheless, the issues that stem from our poor possession game and are the main theme of the post-SAF era were not created by Solskjaer. This is what RR, ad whoever comes next, has to eventually fix, along with the set pieces. You can't ask of players to sprint up and down the pitch and press tirelessly for 90 minutes (and twice per week). You have to make your possession count and you have to get goals from set pieces that will allow you to be in the driver's seat and kill off games.
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They are miles away 1 season of the last 3 (20/21), and fighting for the title in the other (18/19) and running away with it in between (19/20).
And they're not regularly getting embarrassed in Europe by teams as rich/poor as Millwall.
And I dont disagree. The message I quoted was around losses we've suffered
Like I mentioned to Elmo, the reason why losses were brought up was because of the post I quoted
Read the post I've quoted before replying. I wasnt the one brought this into the picture
Do you get a cut when the player would move to us? I don't read all the threads around this place but I feel everytime the name Rice is popping up, its you.
And your problem is? This was about Solskjaer and why I thought he would be good without certain transfer ins. Literally Pogba was bossing it as LAM aswell and is played great yesterday in our formation to the point I remembered/thought about what Ole was attempting to build.
I don't even know who you are to care about what you talk about, I'm glad I'm in your thoughts and mind because your not in mine. Take care
Come on mate, keep the mood positive. I didn't say I have a problem with your fondness of Rice. Its just noticable. And thats something considering the number of people posting on here. Don't know why you like the thought of you being in my thoughts though. But each to their own. Just like I am to you, you are just a nickname on a website about football.
For all the greatness of Pogba yesterday - it was a pretty weak Middlesborough side we played against. It is interesting that after all those years, there are still so many people who are still affiliated with a player and his need of a certain midfield partner to finally release its potential. I think, we should know better, but thats just me.
And to close the bow to this thread, I think, our generally good results with Ole masked quite a few dreadful performances and a pretty bleak level of football that was designed around star players being in form. And it worked impressively well as long as they were in form. This season form hit rock bottom with so many of our players. Plus we added a player with Ronaldo who needs to be mitigated by team tactics. I was doubtful that Ole had it in him to do that. Finally the perfect storm came upon us and got the manager out of his misery. His legacy for me is that he helped to recreate some sort of productive environment after Mourinho to update the club hierarchy. It also taught us the lesson that feelings should have no place in decisions. Ole was the right man at the right time. The people above him were hoping for him to turn out a miracle for too long but thats not on him.
No hard feelings for the man, I just hope we learned some lessons.
Just thinking back to all the pro-Ole posts. So many saying “you just don’t see it, if you can’t see the progress, I don’t know what’s wrong with you”. I started to really believe that I just didn’t know enough about tactics or how football should look. Maybe I really couldn’t see it…. There are a lot of things I haven’t seen in the past, so it was always possible.
And here we are, three years later with hundreds of millions wasted, a lazy, arrogant squad getting paid far more than they are worth, no midfield, aging attackers and a recall for Phil Jones, Dalot and Telles.
Horrible planning, terrible coaching and in 5 months time, the squad will be way worse than the one he inherited.
Great player, nice person, but an absolutely awful manager who has caused a crazy amount of damage in his stint here.
The board are either naive or corrupt, but the one thing we can agree on is that they are not fit for purpose.
And here we are, three years later with hundreds of millions wasted, a lazy, arrogant squad getting paid far more than they are worth, no midfield, aging attackers and a recall for Phil Jones, Dalot and Telles.
Horrible planning, terrible coaching and in 5 months time, the squad will be way worse than the one he inherited.
Great player, nice person, but an absolutely awful manager who has caused a crazy amount of damage in his stint here.
The board are either naive or corrupt, but the one thing we can agree on is that they are not fit for purpose.
Good assessment of the board!
I do want to debate your review of Ole though. I too was one of Oles biggest haters when he was manager but believe it or not I now have changed my mind and think he did a great job in the circumstances.
The money spent was the negotiators fault and the signings were not Ole’s. He signed off on them so must take some responsibility for that but it’s clear the money men and scouts have an equal input.
Ole somehow managed to turn around a toxic dressing room full of players on insane wages into a friendly group. He got rid of a lot of dead wood too. I think the board let him down and didn’t sell as many players he would have hoped for.
Then Ronaldo came in during this summer, this was clearly nothing to do with Ole plan of bringing in young hungry players. He wanted a midfielder but seems he was overwhelmed and agreed to Ronaldo. Certainly he has to take responsibility for that and it cost him his job IMO.
Overall though, 2nd place in the prem, back to back CL qualification. What more could he do in reality? We have never had a better squad than City so 1st place is out of the question
You've done very well to excuse all his mistakes.
I like how you leave out the fact that he left a dressing room that is equally as toxic because of unfair favouritism and lack of rotation. A dressing room completely depleted of confidence, with absolutely no clear structure of play to add to that. And a "friendly" group of spoiled brats with no accountability for their tumescent performances. Didn't matter how badly you performed under him, if you were his favorite you would keep getting picked. Great "friendly" group.
There is a reason why well run clubs hate spending all the budget on 1 player.
a- a squad usually need more then just 1 reinforcement.
b- once a club commits itself to one big fee signing then its set to play that guy irrespective whether he does well or not.
c- the player in question will be under intensive pressure to perform
d- the player in question would ask a salary that reflects the fee
They rather have 4 twenty million signings then 1 eighty million signing because if 2 of the former fail, one is meah and the last one is a success then they would probably recoup most of the money or even make a minimum profit out of their assets but if the one eighty million signings turns out to be meah or shit then they are in trouble.
Unfortunately for such strategy to succeed one has to have a well oiled system in place with scouts being able to unearth a talent before it becomes popular/expensive, a negotiation team that is able to sign the player quickly and efficiently and a manager/coaching staff that can develop the talent into top players. That's something that United lack across the board. Our scouting team seem to be unable to find talent outside the obvious ones, our negotiation team is a parody and when we had Ole we seem uncomfortable working with young talent that weren't a generational talent such as Mason is.
Considering that we're among the richest clubs in football that's quite infuriating. That's because we can easily get the best in every single job. The club CHOSE to get a CEO with no experience in football, a DOF with no previous DOF experience, a technical director with no previous experience in the job and a manager who got Cardiff relegated instead.
Most damaging Utd manager of all time?
Well let me be clear, I never wanted Ole in the first place, I wanted us to thank him for the amazing interim job and part ways which was supposed to be the plan. I think that’s what we all wanted.
Ole and the fans knew that he didn’t deserve the permanent job, he had no track record for it. Therefor, I give Ole massive amount of leeway as what was the boards intentions? Just my theory but I believe they wanted someone they could control in terms of transfer spend and extensions etc.
Ole said multiple times he wasn’t involved in transfer fees and extensions. Take the Ronaldo signing, Fergie intervened to sign him. Would a decent manager like Klopp or Pep want Fergies help to sign a player? No obviously not. I can only assume these decisions were being made above Oles head and therefor can’t blame him.
Of course performances were his fault and he should have been sacked after the Europa final loss last season. You say it got very toxic under Ole but its not his fault that the board allowed him to continue until it was toxic. Rival fans were singing ole at the wheel ffs and the board allowed that to get worst.
Moyes is the most damaging manager of all time. The decision to bring the whole Everton staff and part with SAF team was a huge mistake
No manager is involved in transfer fees and extensions. However if a manager asks for an expensive player then guess what, that player will only be signed for an expensive fee. Same with contract extensions. If the manager wants a player to stay then a contract extension needs to be offered.
I'm sure he wasn't involved in the transfer fees, but that's no different to any other manager. He could have always refused certain deals if they became too expensive and spend the money elsewhere. Plus, the real problem isn't the fees. It's the players he chose, no matter how much they cost.
As for Ronaldo, I think any manager would use even took he could in order to sign a player he wants, especially if it's a big player. If Fergie helped, it's hardly a sign of things done over Solskjaer's head. Are you hinting here that other signings were made over his head as well?
Tell that to Liverpool. They showed you can do more with less. We regularly do less with more.
Ole had a bottomless pot of funds. 440 mill in 2.5 years is a fantastic amount
Ole knew he didn’t deserve the job? There’s absolutely nothing in his words, attitude or demeanour that ever suggested he thought or felt he didn’t deserve the job. Where did you come up with that one from?
You said he turned around a toxic dressing room, and I explained to you how and why he left us with an equally toxic dressing room. Reasons which you conveniently left out of your reply to deflect the blame from him, again.
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Nowhere near
Yep. Just look at how the squad players like Lingard and Donny and Henderson have excelled for the new manager after he's gone. Oh wait...
He left a huge mess, why the hell was he not fired so much earlier. No wonder we need an interim manager to clean up all that shit within the club and our players
I think Ole's legacy was very insipid, I get the feeling that nothing has changed. Which eventually translates into mediocrity.
Obviously, I'm not saying he deserves lots of the backlash that many people place on him. He is a good guy and certainly, I think he did better than Mourinho or Moyes, but unfortunately he didn't have the blood or leadership to create a solid playing style... Maybe the one closer to get that was LVG and yet he still underperformed.
BTW, I don't see Rangnick as a long term solution. I believe someone like Zidane or Conte would have been ideal.
Obviously, I'm not saying he deserves lots of the backlash that many people place on him. He is a good guy and certainly, I think he did better than Mourinho or Moyes, but unfortunately he didn't have the blood or leadership to create a solid playing style... Maybe the one closer to get that was LVG and yet he still underperformed.
BTW, I don't see Rangnick as a long term solution. I believe someone like Zidane or Conte would have been ideal.
To the first point, I do think your right that he did believe he could win with us but he did keep saying it’s a dream come true. Ole is a really humble guy. He was well aware that he got the job not solely based on his managerial status but also his legendary status here.
Regarding you saying the dressing room was toxic through favouritism and no rotation. He came 2nd last season so it wasn’t toxic then? and he had players who weren’t good enough, Lingard, James, Pereira etc so why rotate?
It was literally just this season when the whole dressing room turned sour. Don’t you think that had alot to do with a situation Ole didn’t create?huge crazy contracts for half the squad. Forces him to play players who perhaps don’t deserve to and other players get disgruntled at their low contract and not playing when they should.
I suppose none of the above matters though if he could of actually managed to get the team winning, morale can’t be bad in a winning team!
What you say makes absolutely no sense. Lingard and Pereira weren’t even in the squad last season, so you can’t use them to support your twisted argument.
Of course not. Those were his players. He didn’t choose their transfer fees but they were mostly his targets. Plus, he’s the one who wanted Sancho yet had no clue how to use him when he got here.
He wasn’t forced to play any players. He just had his favorites. Case in point, Ragnick had no problem dropping Maguire, Rashford, AWB or Bruno if he wanted to. Yet their contract/salary was exactly the same as under Ole. Ragnick also knows better than to rush players back from injury.
You’re still twisting and turning to take the blame off Ole, but many in this thread are not buying it.
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Now your the one ignoring my points. There were loads of players on terrible contracts before Ole got there. Even when he was here there’s no way he had involvement in the Martial, De Gea, Ronaldo and Phil Jones contracts. He said he isn’t involved in contracts unless your calling him a liar
Fergie always wanted to be the one earning the most money for good reason, as he was the boss. It creates squad disharmony when you have all these disproportionately issued contracts.
He was definitely forced to play De Gea and Ronaldo. How do you leave out players who earn half a million a week? You have to be realistic about that.
If it’s true that Ole was the only problem then now Ole is sacked, the next manager should be easily winning with our amazing squad that Ole had underperforming? But that hasn’t happened because the problems are deep rooted way beyond Ole being not good enough coach.
This isn’t the SAF days where manager is responsible for everything. Scouting, negotiations, coaches are all vital pets of success which are managed by the club. I include coaching in there as coaches were forced on Ole.
He isn’t directly involved in contracts and salaries/transfer fees. But he chooses who comes and who stays. There is absolutely no statement or report anywhere that he did not want those players renewed or signed (unless you’re calling him a liar). The players you mentioned (except for Martial this season) were not the problem. The disharmony in the locker room was not because of Ronaldo, Jones and De Gea. The disharmony is because of unfair favoritism towards the players I already mentioned, and his treatment of VDB and Lingard. And giving the captaincy to a player who shouldn’t be anywhere near it.
De Gea has been our best player this season. And if it wasn’t for Ronaldo we would be out of the CL. Ole would have been sacked way earlier if it wasn’t for them. “You have to be realistic about that.”
You keep evading this subject: He surely wasn’t forced to play Maguire, AWB, Shaw, Rashford, Fred etc… all the time when they were greatly underperforming under him this season, and had back-ups on the bench that couldn’t have been worse if they tried. This had nothing to do with contracts or the board.
Of course he wasn’t the only problem. The ownership and the board are a huge problem. But he certainly was a bigger part of the problem than you are trying to portray.
It’s taking time now, but it’s refreshing to see players’ form improving under Ragnick. Even Maguire is now better after he’s been dropped. Refreshing also to see Dalot, Telles and Elanga get a fair opportunity that they wouldn’t have gotten under Favorites FC.
No they weren’t. Maybe at the very beginning they were, but later the club asked him if he wanted some new coaches to support him and he said he was happy with what he’s got. He even said in his farewell interview that his coaches were World Class ==> unless you’re calling him a liar
But keep twisting and turning to try to absolve him from any responsibility and lay all the blame on others.
If he was forced to play De Gea, why did he leave him on the bench for months last season?
As for the second point, Solskjaer clearly wasn't the only problem. But, the squad was never amazing - and the bad building of it is part of his failure.
He isn’t directly involved in contracts and salaries/transfer fees. But he chooses who comes and who stays. There is absolutely no statement or report anywhere that he did not want those players renewed or signed (unless you’re calling him a liar). The players you mentioned (except for Martial this season) were not the problem. The disharmony in the locker room was not because of Ronaldo, Jones and De Gea. The disharmony is because of unfair favoritism towards the players I already mentioned, and his treatment of VDB and Lingard. And giving the captaincy to a player who shouldn’t be anywhere near it.
De Gea has been our best player this season. And if it wasn’t for Ronaldo we would be out of the CL. Ole would have been sacked way earlier if it wasn’t for them. “You have to be realistic about that.”
You keep evading this subject: He surely wasn’t forced to play Maguire, AWB, Shaw, Rashford, Fred etc… all the time when they were greatly underperforming under him this season, and had back-ups on the bench that couldn’t have been worse if they tried. This had nothing to do with contracts or the board.
Of course he wasn’t the only problem. The ownership and the board are a huge problem. But he certainly was a bigger part of the problem than you are trying to portray.
It’s taking time now, but it’s refreshing to see players’ form improving under Ragnick. Even Maguire is now better after he’s been dropped. Refreshing also to see Dalot, Telles and Elanga get a fair opportunity that they wouldn’t have gotten under Favorites FC.
No they weren’t. Maybe at the very beginning they were, but later the club asked him if he wanted some new coaches to support him and he said he was happy with what he’s got. He even said in his farewell interview that his coaches were World Class ==> unless you’re calling him a liar
But keep twisting and turning to try to absolve him from any responsibility and lay all the blame on others.
Wait so your blaming Ole for not playing DVB but also blaming Ole for the signings made? Surely if DVB was Ole signing then he would be playing him?
You say Ole wanted Lingard contract extended yet Ole is the same manager who didn’t play him for a whole season and loaned him out? Sorry but that doesn’t stack up, if I am twisting things in Oles favour then you are twisting things against him a bit too.
I didn’t say De Gea hasn’t been our best player, I rate him over Henderson. During that period he wasn’t performing though it felt awkward that he was on 400k and not playing. Same as Ronaldo, there is financial and reputation all pressure to play them, did Ole really identify Ronaldo or did the board present Ronaldo to Ole? To use your examples though, AWB and Maguire had to be played because they cost 130m combined, how can he leave them out?
I know you will respond to that by saying he chose them but I think this is a separate debate as to who chose the transfer targets. I am with the theory that Ole was a yes man who took what he got but it’s quite possible your right and I am under estimating the power he had.
The coaches were there before Ole was there so that’s impossible he chose them. As you quite rightly said though, it’s his fault for sticking with them, he clearly rated them highly.
I don’t absolve Ole of blame, he deserved to be sacked after the Europa league final. I am just saying he’s not as bad as you make out and certainly not responsible for the mess we are in now. Agree it’s good to see players improve and develop under Ralf. One of my biggest disappoints from Ole was he said he was all about youth but he didn’t give any real chances to any young players.
I think De Gea contract demanded that he played games, it’s lucky for us that he has come good again.
Yeah I do agree mate, we have a terrible squad for what we have spent. I am just very dubious as to how much of these transfers were Ole decision (DVB, Amad, Ronaldo etc). Even Maguire was being chased before Ole came in
Year 1 : he should be made DoF. Long term planning. His purchase is astute. His strongest point
Year 3 : it wasnt his purchase
Year 3 : it wasnt his purchase
There's absolutely no evidence to that. And again, he was on the bench for months last season, and only started this season as the starting goalkeeper because Henderson contracted Covid.
Again, there's absolutely no evidence to that. The only real evidence we have is what Solskjaer himself said. Which is that no one was coming or going unless he said so.
He didn't bring them, but he could have replaced them. He didn't, so yes, they were his choice.
Spot on. Thats what you get when you hand over the keys and budget of a club of our size to a manager that shouldn’t be any where near even bottom of the league teams.
I’m blaming Ole for blocking VDB’s loan move and telling him he was going to get game time when he clearly wasn’t in his plans this year. Same situation with Henderson and Lingard this year. He could easily have loaned them out. Instead, they were sold false promises by Ole and this created the disharmony in the locker room that you keep mentioning.
Haha spot on. I never had any problems with people saying "let's not put all the blame on Ole for transfers", since it was a consensus decision (although i suspect that Ole - due to his character and tendency to avoid conflicts - did not use his veto power as much, which led to him eventually holding a grudge about not signing a midfielder - likely a self-inflicted problem due to not blocking other transfers).
But for years the focal point of pro-Ole arguments was that "his transfers are good" and he "built a great squad for the next manager". Now that over time it is transpiring that most of the purchases under him were either overpaid or not good enough or past-it, and the squad is bloated, unbalanced and composed of players that do not fit together/do not fit any particular style - suddenly "all of the purchases were foisted on him by the board". At the same time he is somehow still getting full credit for "clearing the deadwood" (so apparently Ole somehow still personally lead negotiations to shift the likes of Alexis to Inter I guess), of which he actually left as much if not more than Jose left