The “Ole In” Brigade

Lentwood said:
It strikes me that many members of this forum don't know what they want.

- They want a clear-out but they don't want players to leave.
- They want experienced, 'complete' footballers who are young, hungry and can be developed the 'Manchester United way'.
- They want an experienced manager who is a proven winner but also someone very trendy and 'modern', unlike those dinosaurs LvG and Jose.
- They want the club to throw money at players but they don't want to waste any more money on overpaid mercenaries.
- They don't want 'Galatico' signings but they do want Bale, Neymar and Dybala.
- They want our Scouts to identify young, talented players before they become household names but they complain when we sign young, talented players who are not already household names
- They want to implement a 'long-term' strategy but they want to tear up the plan every time we lose a football match

I believe all of the above comes from short-termism and the desire to 'have their cake and eat it', symptomatic of the 'NuFootball' fan. The NuFootball fan is a strange creature who likes to share football-related "hilarious" banter memes on Facebook, refers to our rivals as 'Loserpool' and 'Shitteh' and has never actually kicked a football, nor been to a football game, bar the odd occasion they get a free ticket through work or a mate. The problem with this 'fan' is they become so entrenched in the tribalism and petty squabbling they fail to see the big picture.

Let's just make a couple of my opinions clear before I make my points;

- The Glazer takeover has done immeasurable damage to Manchester United, they are blood-thirsty, cretinous, uber-Capitalist parasites who have contributed NOTHING to this club

- Ed Woodward may be, in some sense of the word, a 'smart' man, however, when referring solely to his skills at running the operations of a modern day football club, he is an incompetent buffoon

HOWEVER

As I stated earlier in my post, we cannot, as fans, have our cake and eat it. Over the last six years, the Glazers and Ed have been RIGHTFULLY criticised for;

- Failing to understand the 'United DNA'
- Failing to invest between 2005 and 2014
- Looking for 'quick fixes' as opposed to long-term strategic planning
- Throwing money at mercenary footballers who perform better on Instagram and Twitter than they do on the field
- Sacking managers who are basically hung out to dry, effectively fighting a war against an armoured tank division with what has amounted to water pistols
- Employing managers who's very footballing ethos goes against 'the United way'

NOW

If you look at what the Glazers and Ed have done over the last 12-18 months, it would appear to me that somewhere, somehow, they have had an epiphany. It would appear to me at least that there has been a total shift in mindset and that the foundations are now (hopefully) being laid for a better future....what makes me say this?

- The club have done what they should have been doing for the last six years and signed the best two AVAILABLE 'young' players in their position from the PL (Maguire and Wan-Bissaka)

- The club have let go of several players who, whilst admittedly may have contributed to varying degrees over the last few seasons, were NEVER really Manchester United players. Either in terms of personality or ability. I am talking here about your Fellaini's, Sanchez's, Lukaku's, Herrera's and HOPEFULLY Rojo's, Darmian's etc...

- The club refused to bow to Dybala's wage demands NOT because we couldn't afford them but because we felt he was joining for the WRONG reasons

- The club immediately distanced themselves from the usual press speculation about signing players like Bale and Neymar

- The club moved to sign a young player with potential from the Championship. Something we never had to do in the past because we were by far the most resource-rich team in the league. Roman, Sheikh Mansour and TV money has changed that.

- They have appointed Ole, a man who understands Manchester United and its History

Now, I can feel the NuFootball lot gnashing their teeth.....'but what about squad depth' they cry....'how will we cope with only three senior forwards', furthermore 'Ole is a novice, a Glazer yes-man with no more tactical nous than a cabbage'. They also bang on about 'net spend' and 'not replacing Player X'.....well I have an answer to all of the above and that is that this situation we are in now is going to have to get A LOT worse before it gets better and I believe the club finally appreciate this. Here's what I think the club have realised;

- A senior football manager like a Jose Mourinho is the antithesis of what we need right now. We cannot afford to spend the £800m+ I believe it would take to transform us into title contenders in one window and therefore we would end up in another situation whereby we have a frustrated manager sat in the dugout, constantly firing shots at the Board and at the players. We do not need this right now. What we need is a positive man, a man who understands the club and his role within it, a man who admittedly, to a certain extent, is happy just to be here. That man is Ole. Is he the best manager out there? Hell no. Does Ed believe he is the best manager out there? I highly doubt it. I believe the Board see Ole as a man who can oversee this painful transitional period with a smile, whilst just about managing to keep just enough players and fans on-side to make it bearable. At the point were we ARE ready to start challenging for titles again, I believe Ole will make way for a more senior, tactical aware manager who will then go to war with a proper squad of footballers.

- Signing mercenaries and expecting players who performed well for other teams in other positions/formations/styles to slot straight in and produce a 'quick fix' is NOT the way forward. This never, ever works. All of the very best teams are constructed, not bought in one window. What we need now is to identify the right players at the right age and steadily, over the course of four or five windows, build a team. We will lose players like De Gea and Pogba along the way, but this is a hangover of poor choices made in the past. In De Gea's case, we wasted his best years and his powers are now waning. In Pogba's, we failed to find the right players to get the best out of him and keep him happy in a side challenging for trophies. He won't want to, nor should he, waste two/three more seasons pissing about in 6th. This will make it more difficult to build a strong squad but IF we keep identifying the RIGHT players, at the RIGHT age and adding two/three at a time, it ought only be three seasons max before we can at least compete for second

- We need to get rid of the players who don't WANT to be here or who are not good enough to be here as quickly as possible, even if we don't have replacements lined up. A common mistake the NuFootball lot make is that they have gained their experience of buying and selling football players from Football Manager 2018. They think you can simply transfer list 12 players, sell them for asking price before July and spend the money on 5 replacements. Sorry but this is so far from the reality it's laughable. Selling players is almost as complicated as buying players for a club like Manchester United. Our players by default are on big wages and by virtue of the fact we want to sell them, it's unlikely other clubs who could afford their wages would touch them with a barge pole. That means that IF the club identify that Lukaku is NOT the striker to take us forward as a club and there is an offer of £75m on the table, then we HAVE to take it whether a replacement is lined up or not. Does this weaken us short-term? Of course it does, because right now Lukaku and Sanchez are better players than Greenwood, however, next window and the window after we SHOULD have cash, wages and squad positions free to target the players I outlined earlier - the best young players from the PL (and the odd one from elsewhere) in their positions.

So in summary, I believe;

- The Glazers and Ed have learned something from the Jose debacle and the last 6yrs
- Ole is basically a 'long-term caretaker' overseeing the transition phase
- Money IS available but we won't just throw it around anymore. NOT a bad thing at all.
- The club want to get back to signing two/three top young, hungry players at a time, as opposed to hordes of mediocre 'established' footballers (and I include your Lo Celso's and Ndombele's and Icardi's and Fernandes' in that 'hordes of mediocre' category)

However, that all being said, in terms of league position and points gained, this season IS going to be very, very painful. We've left ourselves very thin, our squad is lacking in quality and we have a manager who doesn't appear to have much tactical nous. What we need to appreciate as fans is that this is a result of poor choices made between 2005 and 2018 and just repeating these poor choices MIGHT scrape us 4th on the odd occasion but will never get us back to where we want to be. For that, we need open heart surgery and unfortunately, where going to be very weak for a while before HOPEFULLY making a full recovery

Patience is a virtue. Don't come on here wailing every time we lose one football match. Understand the big picture. Still appreciate the damage that the Glazers and Ed have done to our club. Let's just hope that the green shoots on display are not a mirage!
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In another example of an extremely prescient thread by me, here’s my OP from my thread “The Green Shoots of Recovery” which I created at Christmas last year.

I got absolute dogs abuse at the time. I would say roughly 75% of the replies where rude and aggressive in tone.

But hey, no need for any apologies, l was right again, I’ll settle for being able to say “I told you so”. The only obvious error was me calling Fernandes “mediocre”!

I’d just like the enraged, impatient and petulant Ole out posters to think about where the club would be now if the rest of the fanbase had turned after Newcastle (0-1) last year and Ole had been sacked. Maybe remember that next time they want the newest and most fashionable hipster manager to take over?
 
No one can question the squad mentality Ole has built - we look really, really together right now. And our season of come from behind wins highlights the sheer grit he's instilled too. Plus the squad is vastly better than when he took over. And we're competing for the title at Christmas! All excellent things, and will keep him comfortably employed for the rest of the season. Which is wonderful, because he's f*cking Ole and no United fan doesn't want us to lift trophies with him as the manager.

But, this isn't the first time he's gone on an excellent run - and all the other times it's been followed by utter disasters. So let's get to the end of the season, then we can review.
 
Above all, he's brought back the belief. That moment post match when everyone was surrounding Bailly was awesome and you could tell the players believe that they can win the league.
 
glazed said:
I'm a Glazers out DoF in guy, which amounts to Ole out in the medium term.

That said there is no case for Ole Out right now. He is pretty much doing as well as he could in the circumstances and we're playing watchable football. But of course you lose Bruno and it all goes south again.
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Why would a DOF amount to Ole out though in medium term? Ole deserves as much time as he earns, the same as any other manager.
 
For the Ole in brigade. Are you fans of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer or Manchester United? If you are fans and supporters of Manchester United then be very happy that we are joint top of the league and pray we win the league. If you are only fans of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, then better go from here and form another forum.
For the Ole out brigade. Are you Ole outers because he is Ole Gunnar Solskjaer? If so you can go and form an Ole out forum somewhere else. If you are fans of Manchester United then be very happy that we are joint top of the league now and pray we win the league.
 
Foxbatt said:
For the Ole in brigade. Are you fans of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer or Manchester United? If you are fans and supporters of Manchester United then be very happy that we are joint top of the league and pray we win the league. If you are only fans of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, then better go from here and form another forum.
For the Ole out brigade. Are you Ole outers because he is Ole Gunnar Solskjaer? If so you can go and form an Ole out forum somewhere else. If you are fans of Manchester United then be very happy that we are joint top of the league now and pray we win the league.
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Nobody is a fan of a manager over the club (other than the odd strange poster on here).

'Ole in' is only a thing describing those of us that dared to argue with the likes of yourself that sacking him wasn't the right thing to do and took a lot of abuse for it.

Is every fan of their club an 'x manager in or out' by default? It's not a thing is it?

We just support the club and have more patience beyond what the last result was. Currently enjoyable to be rewarded for our backing.
 
Foxbatt said:
For the Ole in brigade. Are you fans of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer or Manchester United? If you are fans and supporters of Manchester United then be very happy that we are joint top of the league and pray we win the league. If you are only fans of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, then better go from here and form another forum.
For the Ole out brigade. Are you Ole outers because he is Ole Gunnar Solskjaer? If so you can go and form an Ole out forum somewhere else. If you are fans of Manchester United then be very happy that we are joint top of the league now and pray we win the league.
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For Foxbatt.

Are you a bat, or are you a fox? If you're a bat, go from here and form a bat forum. If you're a fox, send me pics.
 
One thing Ole needs credit for is that in the last month we played a lot of games and he managed the squad very well in terms rotating players and choosing the most suitable team based on the opposition. With the Europa league starting in February, this will become even more crucial moving forward in order to be competitive on all fronts so here's hoping that everyone stays fit and we get 1/2 reinforcements in (Diallo for ballon d'or 2021 :D).

Also, let's hope VdB is able to feature more and show his quality
 
Oldyella said:
Why would a DOF amount to Ole out though in medium term? Ole deserves as much time as he earns, the same as any other manager.
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Because we'd have to pick a consistent playing style and I'm not sure Ole even has one.
 
Can already see the pages upon pages of 'OUT OF HIS DEPTH' if we lose at Anfield. I hope he's earned a bit of goodwill after putting together a really strong run
 
Jonno said:
For Foxbatt.

Are you a bat, or are you a fox? If you're a bat, go from here and form a bat forum. If you're a fox, send me pics.
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He's a Fox with the power of one Bat.

Let's see who gets the reference.
 
I don’t understand the Ole naysayers... Look, we had criticisms of SAF as well — we’re fans, it’s what we do. But surely the Ole outers want to see where this goes given our position in the table...?
 
DSG said:
I don’t understand the Ole naysayers... Look, we had criticisms of SAF as well — we’re fans, it’s what we do. But surely the Ole outers want to see where this goes given our position in the table...?
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Nice words my man. We could criticise Fergie for stupid decisions like why drop an inform Nani for Valencia against City and we all debate it with not issues. But talk bad of Ole your not a true fan.
 
I think we will see alot fewer Ole outers now that pochettino is off the market. A lot off poster have a massive hard-on for him. Now there are not really not that many obvious candidates out there.
 
KungPaoChicken said:
I think we will see alot fewer Ole outers now that pochettino is off the market. A lot off poster have a massive hard-on for him. Now there are not really not that many obvious candidates out there.
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If Poch manages the amazing feat of not losing the league title in his 1 team league, and we don't win the prem this year there will be threads.
 
Mainoldo said:
Nice words my man. We could criticise Fergie for stupid decisions like why drop an inform Nani for Valencia against City and we all debate it with not issues. But talk bad of Ole your not a true fan.
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Precious. I remember you saying at one point that the fans who backed Ole wasn’t real fans because real fans would see the only way forward was sacking him. Heh. Imagine that.
 
dpansheth said:
Yes, I remember very well. The point I wanted to make wrt “debacle” was how we didn’t close the deal after 3 very good games. Hence my comment about assistants. To me Thats naivety
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It was fine margins for not getting out of that group. The real killer was the result in Turkey and even under Ferguson United had a poor record in Turkey.
 
I am glad I saw this thread. As Pochettino is now signed for PSG, there won't be much "Ole out" from fans I suppose :)
 
Are Ole Outers really Poch groupies? Maybe they will 'support' PSG now? Or do they have to carry on with their Ole vendetta and still feign support of United?
 
Handré1990 said:
Precious. I remember you saying at one point that the fans who backed Ole wasn’t real fans because real fans would see the only way forward was sacking him. Heh. Imagine that.
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Go find it and bring it to me! Also go look what I was responding to. I’ve never been a self righteous fan like most of Ole backers.
 
dpansheth said:
CL is certainly important to even attract bigger talents. Once we won again PSG, ole should have been able to close the deal. Make no mistake i m putting the blame squarely on ole carrick team. Not just ole.
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Being in top 4 is important to attack bigger talents.

But, you can't measure the team progress in CL until we come out as the top team in own domestic league first. Not being able to close the the deal was what I meant about lacking experience there as a whole team, players, staff etc. Some of them might have a lot of experience individually, but not as a team which is vital.

I would not worry too much with not doing so well in CL at this point while trying to build a consistent league team first.
 
DSG said:
I don’t understand the Ole naysayers... Look, we had criticisms of SAF as well — we’re fans, it’s what we do. But surely the Ole outers want to see where this goes given our position in the table...?
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I think the Ole naysayers have just been beaten down by the "one step forwards, two steps back" nature of the club for the last 8 years and now find it very difficult to develop any trust. The biggest issue with Ole's entire reign has been the fact that support for him builds and builds until we lose or draw one game at which point it basically feels hopeless. It is clear to anyone that more good has been done for the club under him than there has been with anyone since 2013. Even in the downturns I have always felt grateful that we have someone who is genuinely doing trying to do the best for the club and create stable foundations. That is what I think goes underappreciated, if Ole left tomorrow the next manager would be in a far better place than any new manager since Sir Alex retired.
 
dpansheth said:
I am still firmly in “ole out” brigade but credit to him after CL debacle. He “needs to win over a doubter like me by appointing an assistant who can be more tactical and technical than him. And then he’ll have to make a right choice in choosing correctly two of these three players: Haaland, Grealish and Sancho.
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What tactics and technical skills would you want a new assistant to implement?
 
Mainoldo said:
Nice words my man. We could criticise Fergie for stupid decisions like why drop an inform Nani for Valencia against City and we all debate it with not issues. But talk bad of Ole your not a true fan.
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Criticising Ole is absolutely fine and normal, to a point. The guy takes decisions every game and is constantly rotating and changing tactics. Sometimes works and other times it doesn't but this is natural and good to consider the overall performances and whether taking good decisions more often than not. But hammering on about Ole being a shite manager and we must get rid, especially at this point in the season, and yes I would argue you are a weird fan and best ignored.
 
Mainoldo said:
Nice words my man. We could criticise Fergie for stupid decisions like why drop an inform Nani for Valencia against City and we all debate it with not issues. But talk bad of Ole your not a true fan.
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The issue here is that you criticised Ole blindly and being ignorant of what he has done, chose to look at irrelevant thing and ignore the much bigger and more important picture.

For example, you were arguing us not making progress under him for getting into 3rd place last season due to 66 points, in reality you are ignoring the bigger picture that he needs to move 2 step backward in order to move 4 step forward.

66 points is one of the step backwards he needed to take because he needed to rebuild the squad again after losing some first team players like Lukaku, Herrera, Smalling, Valencia and etc and also players like Matic & Mata were ageing. The rebuild what he did last season was to bring Maguire, Bissaka, Bruno (came in end of January) to replace players he lost, develop youth players like Greenwood for example, improve players like Martial, Rashford, Fred and etc, as a result we had 14 league games unbeaten run last season. These are part of step forwards that we called making progress last season.

Another example, you critcised his football style and you called it similar to Jose just based on irrelevant logic of not dominating in possession. In reality possession is not how you view football style.
 
dpansheth said:
I am still firmly in “ole out” brigade but credit to him after CL debacle. He “needs to win over a doubter like me by appointing an assistant who can be more tactical and technical than him. And then he’ll have to make a right choice in choosing correctly two of these three players: Haaland, Grealish and Sancho.
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So basically what your are saying is that ole is a bad manager if he somehow cannot convince the board aka the Glazers to fork out 250-300m pounds for two players in this economical climate?
 
dpansheth said:
I am still firmly in “ole out” brigade but credit to him after CL debacle. He “needs to win over a doubter like me by appointing an assistant who can be more tactical and technical than him. And then he’ll have to make a right choice in choosing correctly two of these three players: Haaland, Grealish and Sancho.
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It's no coincidence that Ole's assistant manager is Mike Phelan, who was Sir Alex Ferguson's right-hand man during three Premier League title wins, a Club World Cup, two League Cups and two runs to the final of the Champions League.

Who do you think we should replace him with?
 
CaptainBirdseye said:
Can already see the pages upon pages of 'OUT OF HIS DEPTH' if we lose at Anfield. I hope he's earned a bit of goodwill after putting together a really strong run
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The league won't be won or lost against Liverpool. Its worth remembering there's still 22 games left in this season.
 
OverratedOpinion said:
I think the Ole naysayers have just been beaten down by the "one step forwards, two steps back" nature of the club for the last 8 years and now find it very difficult to develop any trust. The biggest issue with Ole's entire reign has been the fact that support for him builds and builds until we lose or draw one game at which point it basically feels hopeless. It is clear to anyone that more good has been done for the club under him than there has been with anyone since 2013. Even in the downturns I have always felt grateful that we have someone who is genuinely doing trying to do the best for the club and create stable foundations. That is what I think goes underappreciated, if Ole left tomorrow the next manager would be in a far better place than any new manager since Sir Alex retired.
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I think its down to three things mostly.

1. Unrealistic expectations. Both in terms of results and how much one man can do. Its sad, but when Ole got here there was very little left of the legacy that Fergie built here. Memories yes, but almost all of the people that had made that legacy possible had gone. And while the manager does carry the can, football is not an individual sport

2. His lack of a CV. Which is perfectly understandable really

3. I think some people put all their eggs and then some in the Ole out basket. And dont want to back down
 
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