Utd District and The Mail.
I feel like I'm almost in the dressing room, listening in.
I feel like I'm almost in the dressing room, listening in.
The manager has lost the players
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Looks plausible, but it doesn't answer the question: If it's only Ronaldo, why is our defence, particularly Maguire and Shaw are so shaky this season? We are leaking goals, and that's what is causing the mayhem.
But it is only that way because Ole allows it. A strong manager would simply say "I'm the manager now" and make sure he does decide in the end, not SAF. And I don't even think that this would be an issue for SAF himself, I think he respects strength.
I realise I am a lone voice in the wilderness, but eventually people might get where I'm coming from. I understand Man Utd fans can't bare to criticise their legendary former Manager and up and down the land the whole who is best, Messi or Ronaldo arguments have been waging for years and I bet a fair few who said Ronaldo are Utd. fans who love that he is now back at the club. But if his presence has caused issues in the dressing room and if his decision to return was influenced by Sir Alex (and I think was) then fans need to accept perhaps putting your old manager on the payroll and on the board and allowing him to still make key decisions, is causing big problems.
Why is SAF supporting OGS, because to not do so when he was so influential in getting Ronaldo to come back, would be unbelievably unfair.
Why is OGS still in post after all these poor results, because nobody is willing to go against Sir Alex Ferguson and decide otherwise.
Why is SAF supporting OGS, because to not do so when he was so influential in getting Ronaldo to come back, would be unbelievably unfair.
Why is OGS still in post after all these poor results, because nobody is willing to go against Sir Alex Ferguson and decide otherwise.
We were bad at the end of last season without Ronaldo. We were atrocious before Bruno was signed. This season we are bad not only against big teams, We lost to Leicester, Villa, Young Boys, were really bad playing Southampton, Wolves, Villareal, Atalanta...Some of the games Ronaldo did not even play and for the majority of games we played the same formation as last year just with Ronaldo instead of Cavani.
Everyone understands downsides of signing Ronaldo, and if we were not quite at the top at the end of the season and narrowly lost some big games - surely, it could comceivably be traced to the team having to adapt to Ronaldo and his goalscoring prowess not always being enough to compensate for "side effects".
But there is no way his signing is responsible for more than like 10% of our woes. I am absolutely convinced that if City, Liverpool or Chelsea signed him, the mangers would have found a way to use him so that his strengths are maximized, weaknesses are minimized and he ends up a huge net benefit. But for Ole it is just another class player that was signed for him to bail him out with individual brilliance.
Wilson seems to blindly hate Ronaldo and does not make any useful point about hiw Ronaldo's signing is related to the current mess in the defense.
But I do think that he is on the right track. Signing Ronaldo, Varane and Sancho was a power move to show that United wants to challenge this season. Ole was not in the position to be really expected to win, so until this season he could safely sit back and counter attack like a typical midtable team. United's setup was not like a typical top team, but it was fine to be the best of the rest and good enough to finish ahead of struggling top 4 contenders.
Those signings, especially Ronaldo, meant that more was expected and he simply has no idea how to coach an elite team. This is what is breaking his neck now, and he has lost the team so much now that even the basics don't work well any more.
That whole post is just pure speculation you don’t know if Ronaldo has a negative presence in the dressing room or if SAF had anything to do with him joining or keeping Ole on as manager.
And have you not read the forum Ole has been getting criticism for ages.
I've said this before that winning one trophy puts pressure on you to win more. I think Ole as you said is happy in his own little comfort zone, close but no cigar.
The players need to take it into their own hands. The boards not going to help them & neither is the fanbase.
In the extremely unlikely event that is true, when any of them have done what he has for our club, or in the game in general they can moan, until then suck it up princess, do your damn jobs and learn from the best.
Ole himself has even said (despite also claiming he's an attacking football manager) that he's gone into a lot of big games previously with a view to stopping the opposition first and foremost and building from there. He said after the win against Liverpool in the FA cup last season that it was the first time United ditched their usual style against Liverpool and were more attacking. Now that he actually has better players and more world class individuals he doesn't seem to know what to do with them or how to fit them in, and the pressure to play those players is enormous. That should't be a criticism of those players, it's a criticism of the manager.
If Ole can only get good results with a very specific way of playing, with players that 'run around a lot' and approaches big games with an underdog mentality then that's not good enough for a United manager. This whole nonsense of blaming Ronaldo is crazy and ignores the fact that the problems have been there since day one of his appointment.
The only thing Ronaldo is probably guilty of is raising the standards from the absolute dogs that it was in, quite frankly if this becomes his last season, and honestly it should be because he won't be going out on a high with us - is to raise the standards of this place, get rid of Ole and bring in a better manager then i'll consider it a masterclass signing. How in gods name does anything change in this team if we didn't sign Ronaldo and we had, say, either Martial or Cavani there, nothing changes, this has been a long time coming, and has happened multiple times since OGS has been here and Ronaldo has not, it's just now people are expecting more because of the signings of Varane and Ronaldo and he's not delivering because he's not able to, because he's not good enough.
This is a brilliant post and perfect description of Solskjaer tenure here . This was the season where it was all suppose to come together for Ole's United no more hiding behind rebuild bullshit but unfortunately it only exposed his incompetence and flaws further .
The problem being that if the players do that, the fanbase will create a toxic environment and lambast the players at every opportunity. Look at what happened with Mourinho.
He only uses buzzwords about attacking, on the front foot, the United way etc etc because he feel that it was people want to hear. But when he describes his actual approach to especially big games more concretely - it is absolutely analogous to Moyes' infamous "make it difficult" and "aspire to be" comments. How it was overlooked for so long is a mystery to me. In one of resent pressers he said something like "first of all, you have to defend well". Not that it is a bad comment per se, but Moyes would be crucified for the same in 2013 (not that he was not criminally out of his depth either).
That's just lazy backwriting of history to make it easier to explain the present. We did not "sit back and counterattack like a typical midtable team last season", by any stretch of imagination. On the contrary, we typically dominated possession (5th in the league, despite not playing a style heavily emphasising possession) and generally faced teams who played a low block against us. We also scored the second most goals, had the second most goals from inside the box, and were 4th in the number of passes made and shots taken.
Weird thing about counter attacking is Leicester did it and won the league.
Feck the status of the club, if it works and we suit it then play that way.
Some of the most memorable goals I’ve witnessed us scoring have been lightning quick counters and if teams know that’s what you’re gonna do then they’re less likely to attack for fear of getting caught and boom, we suddenly don’t need to counter as much.
But equally as said, it’s a silly misrepresentation because we wouldn’t be so impotent against low blocks and it be such a big thing that we are if we weren’t in possession most of the time.
Feck the status of the club, if it works and we suit it then play that way.
Some of the most memorable goals I’ve witnessed us scoring have been lightning quick counters and if teams know that’s what you’re gonna do then they’re less likely to attack for fear of getting caught and boom, we suddenly don’t need to counter as much.
But equally as said, it’s a silly misrepresentation because we wouldn’t be so impotent against low blocks and it be such a big thing that we are if we weren’t in possession most of the time.
Well, if I thought Ole's thought processes and work are accurately reflected in what he says in his pressers, I'd have been Ole out two years ago. I've always kind of assumed he sees the pressers as being about absorbing the outside pressure without creating disruption, and therefore chooses to keep things simple and superficial in those situations rather than get into the real nitty-gritty. I do hope that's true. Surely it must be.
Following Mourinho that was a refreshing approach, and it's probably been a useful element in managing the squad. But he does pay a price for it in that nobody has a clue what he's really thinking, why he's doing things and what the whole approach really is, and he inevitably comes across as being of little substance.
Question for people who understand the British press -- does this show that the players, led by Ronaldo, are starting to agitate for change? Is there a move to cut Ronaldo off at the knees?
To win or to get him sacked? I don't think the players need to do anything to get him sacked. In fact, if they just continue doing what they're doing now, it will happen in due time. If they can all of a sudden turn it on to start winning games, what's stopping them from doing that earlier in the season? I think Ole has lost the majority of the playing squad. I'd include the likes of Bruno, Pogba, Maguire, and even DDG in that with possibility of Ronaldo and Cavani in there as well. Not to mention the ones who don't play or get very limited playing time like Donny, Sancho, Martial, and Lingard. Especially if they wanted out and Ole vetoed the sale or loan move elsewhere.
Yeah only his favourites club are still in his camp I reckon
I remember that. He said it was how he wanted us to be able to play. So we know that behind all the jargon he knows full well that we've been plucky underdogs the whole time during his managerial reign. He just doesn't have the ability to coach a top side.
Well, it was more or less the basic idea. Obviously you can't do that all the time when the opponent themself is happy sitting deep.
United surely had possession, but more because it was forced upon them, and while players like Bruno had great form United were able to create a lot of goals. But it was not because there was a lot of plan behind the attacks. This plan how to attack and beat every team is demanded from a title contender (which this squad should be), and it is simply not there.
Generally I don't think there's much merit to either the "It's all Ronaldo's fault" or the "It's got nothing whatsoever to do with Ronaldo" schools of thought. I think there's a reasonable case for Ronaldo's arrival bringing a lot of impact in various ways, requiring some serious adjustment, and for the management and the team evidently not being able to make that adjustment. Figuring out why that is the case seems to me likely to be a complex issue, and not one amenable to be explained by bombastic single causes.
Also, people are not above rewriting history to support their advocacy of one side of the argument or the other. Such as arguing that "the problems have been there since day one of his appointment." Very obviously, the way we are performing these days is very different from how we were performing last season. So clearly, these are either not the same problems, or we are having them to a much greater degree than before. Also, it's not like he suddenly and for the first time has had to deal with world class players. We had several of those in the team already, and always have during his tenure.
In 2019/20 we generally did play a quite defensive setup against the best opponents, but I don't think that was the case last season - at least not any more than the opponent did. And in any case, that's just 6 of 38 games. It's not like we were a team founded on strict defensive organisation and built around a group of journeymen last season - we were one of the most attacking teams in the league, whose fortunes revolved principally around the performance of world-class attackers.
So, whatever the problem is, it sure as hell can't be that the manager is unable to deal with star players, or play an attacking style.
What, you mean we dominated possession and were among the top teams in the league across the metrics associated with offensive dominance purely because the opposition forced us to? Come on. We were an attacking team last season, just like we've been trying to be one this season (well, at least until the last three games). It may not have been working as well as it should (and it certainly isn't now), but that's a different matter.
Jonathan Wilson is a massive clown, I have sympathy for you if you’re reading his drivel
Would a Top Top Manager not bring in Top Top coaches?
I’m concerned that only a Top Top / Top combination would not bring the Elite Level Patterns of Play that WE ALL DESERVE
funny. But I think that would be the Top Top/Top Top combination that WE ALL DESERVE. Just a suggestion.Would a Top Top Manager not bring in Top Top coaches?
I’m concerned that only a Top Top / Top combination would not bring the Elite Level Patterns of Play that WE ALL DESERVE
Be very surprised if we don't start hearing more reliable stuff in the press about senior players being fed up with his methods
I can't remember if it was an actual quote or whether it was just tabloid rumours but there were stories that we were going to play a more attacking brand of football this season with a formation change. As stated, Ole was clear after the Liverpool game in the FA cup last season that it was the first instance of his team playing with more of a view to causing them problems rather than containing and the counter attacking. I did note that as something that I thought would get more attention than it did but no one made much of it.
I'm probably in the minority but i think we did flatter to deceive a bit last season in a lot of games such as against Villa when Pogba tripped himself up for a penalty or when West ham dominated us and then we won 3-1 I think with yet another comeback. There were lot of iffy and unconvincing moments and we'd play well in short bursts but overall it just wasn't that different to Jose's second season.
When I say I think the problems have been there from the start I am stating a personal opinion that a lot of people would disagree with and I acknowledge that but I have found Ole's time here extremely unconvincing in a lot of ways.
How to manage the squad
# Players are shocked by how bad they are playing and can’t understand why they don’t run as much as their opponents. #
Daily Shit Rag
Not necessarily. Sometimes a club recommends and some times demand that they keep a certain member of staff, if you follow football. Not that we will recommend anyone here.Would a Top Top Manager not bring in Top Top coaches?
I’m concerned that only a Top Top / Top combination would not bring the Elite Level Patterns of Play that WE ALL DESERVE
Don't blame him for feeling like that, however Ole needs to lose more of the first XI players to really be concerned.
We play the same way with and without Ronaldo, he’s the only reason we’re not in the EL already. Midfield is the Achilles he’s of this team, not personnel wise but how it functions. Once a new manager comes in, it will be like night and day after a few weeks.
Yeah Ronny's late shows against Atalanta (home & away) and Villarreal say it all
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