He finished 11th after United were 21st and in the relegation zone, so he was congratulated for vast improvement. It's a very poor comparison.
I believe the point here is not really what Ferguson did in his first season alone, but what he did in his first seasons in general.
Ferguson took over a side which had placed either 3rd or 4th the five seasons prior to him taking over. Yes, they were in 21st place when he took over, which is why he can not be criticized for only achieving 11th in his first season. But he then proceeded to finish 2nd, 11th, 13th and 6th before finally winning the league in his fifth full season.
In other words, in his second full season, he took a team that had been 2nd the year before, and worse than 4th only one time in seven seasons, to 11th place in the league. In his third season, he regressed further to 13th Place. The fourth season saw improvement again with 6th place, but still that would have been far from what is currently acceptable here. I won't even start to imagine how the caf would have treated him in his second and third seasons.
We all agree that Ole is no Fergie. But Ferguson's initial years does give some perspective to the Ole debate. To me, the club is now in every way in as much of a need of rebuild as it was when Ferguson took over in 1986. I am not sure that Ole will be the one to steer the team to titles again. But one can say a few things from Ferguson's United statistics:
1) If a club has gone wrong, a proper rebuild will take time. Even a manager as great as Alex Ferguson needed a number of years to get United on track.
2) Patience can give great rewards. Ferguson would never have taken United to the heights he did if he had not been given the necessary patience in his first years.
Even if we are erratic at times, struggle to break down park the bus teams and don't win enough, I generally find that I agree with the steps Ole are taking to move the club back on track:
- Out with players who are expensive/mercenaries/old/without sufficient mobility
- Emphasise on developing young players from within
- Buying for the future as much as for the current year
- There seem to be a focus on players with speed, mobility and energy
- He seem to have focused on fixing the defence first. In a perspective that goes beyound the next game, and in a world where we can not buy 8 world class players at once, I am fine with that. I am sure he will aim to bring in players who can break down a defence in the next transwer windows.
- Fergie's teams were always deadly on the counter. That is back with Ole
-It seems that he is successfull in installing a team spirit and passion in the team, which I have not seen since Fergie's days (with some exeptions, such as the Arsenal game).
For me it would be madness to kick him out now, with so much work still to be done on the transition side. As Ferguson's early years shows, transition will take time if a club has lost its way. To me, sacking Ole now and bringing in a "top" manager for short term success comes with ith a huge risk, as we may be back to square one if this new manager is not successful in the short term.
It seems clear to me that any manager, even Fergie, would struggle to obtain consistant success with the current United squad. Based on the actions he has taken so far, it does however seem to me that Ole is close to the perfect fit to take us through the rebuilding process of the next few years. A "top" manager will be much more likely to succeed if he takes over in two years, compared to today.
In my view, Ole also deserves a lot of credit and respect for taking the long perspective even at the expense of his own managerial career and reputation, due to his love for the club. Most other managers would be much more focused on the short term in order not to risk their reputation, but as Fergie's early United years shows, patience and a long term perspective is some times needed to get a club back on track. I can not really see us getting that to the same degree from any other manager than Ole.
Other managers would be much more focused on the short term in order not to risk their reputation, but as Fergie's early United years shows, patience and a long term perspective is some times needed to get a club back on track. I can not really see us getting that to the same degree from any other manager than Ole, as the downside to such an approach is ridicule and a destroyed reputation if the manager is eventually not successful or given sufficient time to oversee the transition. Imagine Fergusons reputation in the early nineties if we had lost the famous game to Norwich and he had been sacked in the winter of 1990.
And again, I am in no way saying that Ole is the new Fergie, only that the club is at a point in time where patience and a long term perspective is needed, like in the 1986-90 period. And in my view, Ole is the correct manager for such a period.
