Solskjaer's legacy and his future

[Foxbatt]

People are trying to rewrite history too. When he took over from Jose we didn't make the CL.
He didn't know how to coach a modern football team. He got players who are not good enough and then didn't strengthen the one area which we are the weakest.
A combination of Woodward and Ole destroyed the club. Woodward of course was the person most culpable

 

[Skills]

He made Harry Maguire the most expensive defender of all time. How mental is that

 

[SAFMUTD]

He left us worse than any other manager in recent times, for all the stick Mourinho deservedly gets the problem with the squad was an attitude problem. After Ole left the problems run way deeper.

 

[Salford_Red83]

There's a difference between high and low standards - and entitlement. And you seem to be more entitled than having any sort of "standard".

And if you read my posts, you should know your last part is not me at all. As I said, getting rid of Ole was 100% the right decision.

Ah yes "spoiled and entitled".

I'd rather think of myself as demanding more from a professional footballer and manager who plays for or coaches Manchester United than just expecting good vibes, no tactics.

 

[VP89]

People are trying to rewrite history too. When he took over from Jose we didn't make the CL.
He didn't know how to coach a modern football team. He got players who are not good enough and then didn't strengthen the one area which we are the weakest.
A combination of Woodward and Ole destroyed the club. Woodward of course was the person most culpable

He took over a side who was capable of 81 points in their peak and won a cup.

He coached the cup form out of them, made them final chokers and had a seasons best of 10ish points less than what Jose peaked at, whilst spending almost 300m.

Whether he had good intentions or not, he did a real number on the squad.

 

[Jackal981]

So you don't want Manchester United to have a core of British players?

No. I want the best players in the world as our core. They could all come from North Korea for all I care. Do Liverpool and City have british core ?

 

[Idxomer]

He took over a side who was capable of 81 points in their peak and won a cup.

He coached the cup form out of them, made them final chokers and had a seasons best of 10ish points less than what Jose peaked at, whilst spending almost 300m.

Whether he had good intentions or not, he did a real number on the squad.

Semi-final chokers.

 

[flameinthesun]

His legacy will look worse and worse the further away from it that we get. Was given hundreds of millions of pounds, built the squad that he wanted and recruited the coaching team that he wanted. Only to win nothing, never challenge for a league, turn us into a team that could only really counter attack and left us in a state worse than any previous coach has done whilst presiding over some of the worst defeats in our history.

The guy as a manager was a charlatan. Glad he is gone as a manager, I have no sympathy how it ended, he was given more time and resources than he deserved.

Having said that, his legendary status as a player won't change. We will just say "Ole was a fantastic sub for us but a terrible manager"

 

[AFC NimbleThumb]

Whether he had good intentions or not, he did a real number on the fanbase.

Fixed.

 

[elmo]

That's how an average manager who is poor at man management would handle it yes.

But newsflash mate, circa 2022 all top footballers are rich and spoiled. Good managers can bring a squad together and get them motivated, playing well and getting results. We can't replace the whole squad or even a significant amount of it overnight so we have to hire a top manager capable of managing these players and this team.

Funny how it's always everybody's fault and never the players when we probably have the most unprofessional group in the league.

 

[fallengt]

So you don't want Manchester United to have a core of British players?

At what cost? breaking transfer record for Macguire and giving him armband were absolutely idiotic decisions.

AWB was hand picked out of 800 RBs by our scouts. How many promising talents were vetoed because they weren't British?

This is the reason you want a football person in charge. They don't hide behind agenda

 

[Sky1981]

I don't think this is completely fair, because it's not Ole's fault that Rangnick is more of a classroom teacher than a top level football manager. That's why the players don't buy into his methods, which are probably from a different era. I mean, there's a reason why Spurs, Everton, Arsenal, Milan all passed up on him, even though they could all benefit from his experience in building clubs and making a profit in the transfer market.

Ralph is a professor teaching undergrads who costed through highschool and have the knowledge of an elementary school.

Guess who's the highschool teacher?

 

[SadlerMUFC]

Getting Sancho is one of the things it's impossible to criticize Ole for. Impossible.

And I do believe most of those clubs you mention would pay 70m for Sancho, never mind 50m. How do you know no one else wanted him? Can it be he simply wanted to play for Man United?

I'm excited for the upcoming transfer window. Who can Rangnick attract? Can his project convince any big guns to play for us? Will he fix the midfield? Will our rebuild finally end this summer?

I hope you can chime in with your evaluation of every signing before they play for us. You seem to be very knowledgable with the highest of standards, so I'll be very interested in your opinion. No hindsight, but before they make their debut.

The last thing we should do is look for "big guns". I like how we used to operate. Sign players and turn them into "big guns" at United. Sure, we signed the odd big player but for the most part we signed players who made their name at United

 

[UnofficialDevil]

His legacy will look worse and worse the further away from it that we get. Was given hundreds of millions of pounds, built the squad that he wanted and recruited the coaching team that he wanted. Only to win nothing, never challenge for a league, turn us into a team that could only really counter attack and left us in a state worse than any previous coach has done whilst presiding over some of the worst defeats in our history.

The guy as a manager was a charlatan. Glad he is gone as a manager, I have no sympathy how it ended, he was given more time and resources than he deserved.

Having said that, his legendary status as a player won't change. We will just say "Ole was a fantastic sub for us but a terrible manager"

That's it basically.
Fantastic sub
Terrible manager
Three years for nothing.

 

[AneRu]

More like exacerbated them. It's part of a managers job (especially an interim) to create harmony in a squad, engender confidence and motivate his players, Rangnick sadly seems to have failed on all three counts with most of them.

Exacerbated them by expecting professionalism and better application from players who signed multimillion dollar contracts promising to do just that? I get that Ralf isn't that popular but this lack of application didn't start under him, remind me again how Liverpool came to OT, barely got out of second gear and spanked us 5-0?

Ole, under the guise of man management, sew the seed of entitlement and I'll discipline which was to later cost him. For example, Rashford didn't start strolling about on the pitch under Ralf, he started doing it under Ole and now RR is making him pay for that attitude he is telling the media he wants out. To him it appears strange that he is being held accountable because Ole never did. That's not man management, it's appeasement.

I don't think this is completely fair, because it's not Ole's fault that Rangnick is more of a classroom teacher than a top level football manager. That's why the players don't buy into his methods, which are probably from a different era. I mean, there's a reason why Spurs, Everton, Arsenal, Milan all passed up on him, even though they could all benefit from his experience in building clubs and making a profit in the transfer market.

Rangnick may have his issues but he is here now and at a critical stage of the season so was it too much for the players to listen and apply themselves better to ensure the season is salvaged? Rangnick won't play in the Europa, it is them that will. They had a duty to stop whining and play for the fans but they literally downed tools on both Ole and RR.

So you don't want Manchester United to have a core of British players?

The PL is now global, why hold yourself back by building on the basis of an insanely expensive but not very good British core. It's not like he was spending those amounts on Paul Scholes, Lampard or Rio either, it was wasted on Harry Maguire and AWB whilst ignoring DM or the AM that he later bought in January to rescue the season that was going sideways.

 

[Jackal981]

The PL is now global, why hold yourself back by building on the basis of an insanely expensive but not very good British core. It's not like he was spending those amounts on Paul Scholes, Lampard or Rio either, it was wasted on Harry Maguire and AWB whilst ignoring DM or the AM that he later bought in January to rescue the season that was going sideways.

This is spot on. The notion that United as a british based club should be comprised of british core players is xenopobhic crap. Its 2022 not 1922. Football is a global game now. According to his brilliant logic, we should be confined to Manchester born players only. He might as well support Bilbao then.

 

[marktan]

What an awful take. Clubs dont just buy players "because". They buy because of needs and this is especially true for marqueè signings like Sancho was. City didnt have a need, Liverpool didnt have a need, Bayern definitely dont have a need, Barca werent buyers and Real was after Mbappe. And lets not forget Chelsea just came off a colossal spending spree.

We had a a free reign at Sancho because we were the only realistic buyers.

.. City literally spent £100m on a player that plays in the same position in the same window

Liverpool spent £40m the following Jan

Before you chime in with your 'awful take', a players value like everything in life is only what someone will actually pay for them. No one's going to pay £50m for Sancho, especially after the season he's had, it doesn't matter what the reason is. Now if Liverpool said Salah was available for £50m, or Real with Vinicius, it doesn't matter who has a need or not, clubs will be lining up to snap up that deal. For Sancho? No. Because their actual value on the market is intrinsically different. You can consider what you want and yes while he is a good player, we overpIaid, along with a whole host of others like Maguire, AWB, Van De Beek etc. It's a big part of why we're in the mess we're in. Poor scouting, signing marque players for £80m a pop every summer hoping they'll fix everything; when having proper analysts, recruiters and a footballing board / CEO to actually build a well scouted squad would be far more beneficial for us. It's not that hard either - look at Liverpool, or examples like Brighton for a lower budget range.

 

[Skåre Willoch]

Ah yes "spoiled and entitled".

I'd rather think of myself as demanding more from a professional footballer and manager who plays for or coaches Manchester United than just expecting good vibes, no tactics.

We all do, mate. Despite whatever you may think. Good vibes only and no tactics isn’t good enough for anyone. And is totally not part of any discussion lately in this thread.

The last thing we should do is look for "big guns". I like how we used to operate. Sign players and turn them into "big guns" at United. Sure, we signed the odd big player but for the most part we signed players who made their name at United

We signed big guns regularly, tbf. But we had a more balanced transfer structure for sure.

 

[fastwalker]

My bad looked it up and it was £20m.


Good player but point is we overpayed for him, as with all the other players in the list. No one would pay £50m for him if we put him in the window this summer, absolutely no one. You can value him at 200m if you want but no one's going to pay that. We paid way over the odds for pretty much every player under Ole except for Bruno and Varane and then we wonder why we suck. For the 300m spent on that list if we had a better scouting team we could've signed 8 as good if not better 40m players the way Liverpool do.

On point! We are constantly allowing ourselves to have our pants pulled down in the transfer market. So much so now that clubs can see us coming. They know that we will pay over the odds so on top of they are adding the 'stupidity tax' to the fee. They know full well that our recruitment is informed as much but social media clicks and performance analytics. Liverpool have show that there is some amazing business that can be done for under £50m. Salah, Mane, Robertson, Jota, Konate, Diaz and Fabinho were all bought for under £50m. Where they have needed to they have spent more but when they have (Van Dijk and Alison) they have been nailed on.

I would love to see us ferreting around in the sub £50m market. The problem for us that we lack a manager with the acumen to turn good players into world class players. We think just because they have a £70m plus price tag it means that they are guaranteed to be a success.

 

[Adisa]

Blaming him for the squad is bullshit and ask anyone here, I was one of his biggest critics. This club has had a transfer committee for the best part of 5 years. All our signings under Ole were based on decisions they all took. That's the key here and why keeping Rangnick around and giving him real power is so important.
With the exception of Ole, all the people that fecked our squad building post Mourinho are still around. I am convinced we are in a worse state than at any point post-Fergie.
Another thing that gets on my nerves is this club constant mantra about the "progress under Ole and all the work that went on behind the scenes". It was just crap some idiots were telling themselves to make it sound like they were doing a good job. We have big big problems and I am not sure we have the money to fix them anytime soon.

 

[90 + 5min]

I don't understand how some of you can go on and on and on about Solskjaer when we know he did good job considering what group of players he had. By now, it should be pretty clear what we have been stuck with when it comes to players and where blame is.

 

[SadlerMUFC]

We all do, mate. Despite whatever you may think. Good vibes only and no tactics isn’t good enough for anyone. And is totally not part of any discussion lately in this thread.



We signed big guns regularly, tbf. But we had a more balanced transfer structure for sure.

Yes and no. And for the most part, our "big guns" didn't work (think Veron and Kleberson). I liked signings like Vidic, Evra and of course, Ronaldo. These guys were anything but big names when we signed them but they certainly were when they left...

 

[OrcaFat]

I don't understand how some of you can go on and on and on about Solskjaer when we know he did good job considering what group of players he had. By now, it should be pretty clear what we have been stuck with when it comes to players and where blame is.

I agree.

Okay so Ole’s last 15-20 games were not good, just when it should have been clicking and kicking on, the team started to collapse. So many players were out of form and Ole just couldn’t turn them around. Before that he was doing as well as anyone could, I think.

Ole’s last 5-10 games are what gives the vultures their meat. We were mostly terrible over that period, indefensibly bad. He had to go. And now he’s gone, of course he’s an easy target for lazy whingers who can’t be bothered or wilfully refuse to look at the deeper problems which have plagued us since before SAF left and won’t go away by sacking this manager or that.

Next season we should find out if the appointment of RR the “consultant” starts to right the ship. Honestly, though, it is the work of many years to get us back to the top. Personally, I’m not optimistic but it could be good fun either way.

 

[Skåre Willoch]

Yes and no. And for the most part, our "big guns" didn't work (think Veron and Kleberson). I liked signings like Vidic, Evra and of course, Ronaldo. These guys were anything but big names when we signed them but they certainly were when they left...

Do both! For your Verons and Klebersons, we also have Carrick, Berbatov, Cantona, Rio, RVP. I can keep going. A balanced transfer structure is the way to go. Get both the Evras and the Carricks. Fix immediate problems, plan for the future.

 

[Max_United]

I agree.

Okay so Ole’s last 15-20 games were not good, just when it should have been clicking and kicking on, the team started to collapse. So many players were out of form and Ole just couldn’t turn them around. Before that he was doing as well as anyone could, I think.

Ole’s last 5-10 games are what gives the vultures their meat. We were mostly terrible over that period, indefensibly bad. He had to go. And now he’s gone, of course he’s an easy target for lazy whingers who can’t be bothered or wilfully refuse to look at the deeper problems which have plagued us since before SAF left and won’t go away by sacking this manager or that.

Next season we should find out if the appointment of RR the “consultant” starts to right the ship. Honestly, though, it is the work of many years to get us back to the top. Personally, I’m not optimistic but it could be good fun either way.

So Jose did splendidly for us after all before his meltdown season? Since he won trophies and finished 2nd on more points than Ole whilst having inferior squad. He got 80+ points in the league with the likes of Jones, Mata, Valencia, Smalling, Lingard, Young and Matic starting 20+ games all of whom started fearuring on deadwood lists shortly after.

 

[OrcaFat]

So Jose did splendidly for us after all before his meltdown season? Since he won trophies and finished 2nd on more points than Ole whilst having inferior squad. He got 80+ points in the league with the likes of Jones, Mata, Valencia, Smalling, Lingard, Young and Matic starting 20+ games all of whom started fearuring on deadwood lists shortly after.

I thought Jose did okay, yes. I enjoyed Ole more. I didn’t mind LVG and if we really ask ourselves honestly there has to be a chance that Moyes would have improved. I don’t think the managers are the problem here.

 

[VivaRonaldo85]

Not walking away from the job the same evening we got mauled 5-0 at home to Liverpool will be his legacy for all the wrong reasons. A dark dark day that was.

 

[wolvored]

In American English, we would say "overstated" in this context. For example:

"The damage Ole has done cannot be overstated." That sentence would make perfect sense in the US, but perhaps not in the UK.

The following sentence "The damage Ole has done cannot be understated." would make no sense to the ear of an American.

I'm English and we would say overstated in that sentence not understated.

 

[OrcaFat]

Not walking away from the job the same evening we got mauled 5-0 at home to Liverpool will be his legacy for all the wrong reasons. A dark dark day that was.

It was - the darkest day of all. I already wanted him out at that point but, yeah, I wish he had resigned then. They never do, of course, but it would have been the best thing he could do after that horrible game. Doesn’t matter now.

 

[stevoc]

Why does it matter where they're from though? If they're talented and have the right mentality thats all that matters. What kind of passport they have shouldn't even be brought into the equation.

And tbh its most of the British players in this current setup are the ones dragging the club down i.e Maguire, Rashford etc.

Yeah why should an English club bother with English players, especially trying to develop local lads.

Feck me.

 

[stevoc]

No. I want the best players in the world as our core. They could all come from North Korea for all I care. Do Liverpool and City have british core ?

Yeah I can imagine mate.

Both those clubs have cores of 5-6 British players that regularly in their first team, same as United.

 

[Ole'sgunnarwin]

At least we still have Varane, Bruno and Sancho.

Meh, they're a bit rubbish too though, aren't they?

 

[tenpoless]

His signings let him down. The players we thought would be the backbone of the team for years to come are the ones that need replacing now. I didnt think AWB and Maguire will be this bad and we have spent more than a hundred on their transfer alone minus the salary.

 

[stevoc]

Funny how it's always everybody's fault and never the players when we probably have the most unprofessional group in the league.

I'm not saying the players are free of blame but it's clear that this group of players has been poorly managed this season. Things went bad under Solskjaer and he didn't have the experience or ability to turn things around.

Many thought Ranknick would turn things around yet on the pitch we are only very marginally better but off the pitch things seem to have got much worse.

Both managers deserve criticism for that, football management like any leadership role is as much about managing men as it is anything else. A ship is only as good as it's captain and we've had poor ones.

 

[stevoc]

Exacerbated them by expecting professionalism and better application from players who signed multimillion dollar contracts promising to do just that? I get that Ralf isn't that popular but this lack of application didn't start under him, remind me again how Liverpool came to OT, barely got out of second gear and spanked us 5-0?

Ole, under the guise of man management, sew the seed of entitlement and I'll discipline which was to later cost him. For example, Rashford didn't start strolling about on the pitch under Ralf, he started doing it under Ole and now RR is making him pay for that attitude he is telling the media he wants out. To him it appears strange that he is being held accountable because Ole never did. That's not man management, it's appeasement.

You seem to be giving Ralf an easy ride here mate, I reckon it's possible he's just shit at man management as he can't seem to get a tune out of this squad. 20 games in and we've only very marginally improved results wise. And the bad press and shit going on behind the scenes making the back pages every day on his watch also reflects badly on him.

The PL is now global, why hold yourself back by building on the basis of an insanely expensive but not very good British core. It's not like he was spending those amounts on Paul Scholes, Lampard or Rio either, it was wasted on Harry Maguire and AWB whilst ignoring DM or the AM that he later bought in January to rescue the season that was going sideways.

It doesn't matter who the players are I'm asking someone do anyone really want to watch a Manchester United that isn't built upon a core of English/British players?

For the record I'm not English or even British, but I just can't imagine watching a United side made up of 11 foreigners.

 

[lex talionis]

I'm English and we would say overstated in that sentence not understated.

I believe you, but what’s crazy about this mini-debate is that this morning I was reading an article in the FT or some other British media outlet and it used “understated” in exactly the same context as the previous poster, which makes no sense to me at all.

 

[wolvored]

I believe you, but what’s crazy about this mini-debate is that this morning I was reading an article in the FT or some other British media outlet and it used “understated” in exactly the same context as the previous poster, which makes no sense to me at all.

No nor me.

 

[Iker Quesadillas]

I follow Real Madrid. In 2019 our squad looked like they all needed to be put in a garbage bin, it was dire. Failed under three managers.
Today, at least half of that squad is still around and very solid and competitive. It was just a bad season and it dragged down everyone, not really a reflection of their actual quality. On the other hand, there was probably 1/3 of the squad who were truly finished at that level, and they never recovered. We mostly didn't get rid of them, they just don't get minutes anymore.

Probably similar to United. A good chunk of these players will be better after a hard reset.

 

[Desert Eagle]

I don't understand how some of you can go on and on and on about Solskjaer when we know he did good job considering what group of players he had. By now, it should be pretty clear what we have been stuck with when it comes to players and where blame is.

You mean the players he chose to buy? Ole has no excuses about the group of players because they are his chosen group. He had 6? transfer windows and spent hundreds of millions. A lot of our players are mentally weak and average footballers but that doesn't absolve Ole who was also an average manager at best.

 

[Karlos PFC]

He got slaughtered on here and in the general media you'll struggle to find another manager criticised so heavily.

He got plenty of stick.

Man, Ole had the most easy ride among all of our managers post SAF. His friends in the media were jerking off to his "cultural reboot" and "United DNA" shit, and even though we were playing like shit and were literally stealing wins and draws all those "respective" pundits like GNev, Scholes, Hargreaves, Rio, Keane were sure that we just needed that one player in this or that position. Absolutely noone (until the Liverpool game) suggested that he wasn't good enough for a club of our stature.
Now all of a sudden in a months time you have Scholes ripping RR and saying shit like "why United went for a manager with no previous top club experience... " like Ole came from Bayern for fecks sake.