Yeah, it's long been a problem even since before Scholes retired and came back, Fletcher, Carrick and Giggs held it together for a few years. But since then it's been a long series of nothing players who've lacked the quality and consistency you need on the ball. You just can't expect to compete at the top of the table or in the latter stages of the CL, without a proper midfield who can control the ball and dictate the game.
The Overlap - Ole Gunnar Solskjaer
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Yeah, it's long been a problem even since before Scholes retired and came back, Fletcher, Carrick and Giggs held it together for a few years. But since then it's been a long series of nothing players who've lacked the quality and consistency you need on the ball. You just can't expect to compete at the top of the table or in the latter stages of the CL, without a proper midfield who can control the ball and dictate the game.
Nah his recovery ability is the reason why even when our press was beaten, we didn't let that many shots away at goal. You take that out and every time the opposition team beats the press (which is often because we can't really press that well) it results in a shot.
The other part of the equation is that Casemiro's legs are gone but I think this season's Casemiro + Fred will let fewer shots from counter attacks than Casemiro + whoever else we currently have.
He does want to be a manager but he can't get a top-level job because he's not respected. He was never considered by Bayern either, it was a rumour because he works for the club.
You’ve just proven my point with all that you said.
He clearly wants to be a manager but is waiting for the perfect job, one that hasn’t come up yet in over three years without a job.
Most managers are multi-millionaires who would have much better quality of life if they didn’t get back into management. They choose to go back into management because they love it and have the confidence that they are good enough to do the job and continue to grow.
Unless you’re an elite manager, there is no perfect job, they all come with huge risk. ole just strikes me as someone who knows he’ll likely never have it as good as he did with the Manchester United job which is why he doesn’t seem that fussed about going back.
That is the reason why I don’t take him seriously because real coaches serious about management are keen to challenge themselves to get better and prove they belong at the top.
Your last paragraph is a joke. You are counting speculation as a win? Ole is still at home and Tuchel is still in the job so what are you on about. Mctominay was linked with Bayern in the summer too, is he suddenly a top midfielder?
Makes me sad seeing Ole now. He seems so sad when he talks now and always on the edge of tears. Think he has really suffered since leaving.
Wasn't good hearing him coaching under 14's, he could be doing better than that surely. Roy alludes to him being in a bad place and then quickly shuts it down.
Wasn't good hearing him coaching under 14's, he could be doing better than that surely. Roy alludes to him being in a bad place and then quickly shuts it down.
I think it's quickly become the best one to be fair. Great chemistry and heavyweight guests whilst still asking good questions.
I kind of wish we'd given him until the end of that season.
Not like they do now, Fred was in no way what we need but he's better than what we have currently (Mainoo aside)
People forget Fred's second half performance at Barca last season or his performances against City in the wins over Pep under Ole. Fred could be a really brilliant player at times.
The under 14's are his son's team for feck sake. This thread is a testament to why players have mental issues. Imagine hearing what you lot are tweeting them every day and have to live with that. Jesus Christ this thread is low IQ
Imagine going from Manchester United manager to relying on nepotism because his son has put in a good word. The man deserves more.
I find it hard to believe Fred is Brazilian. Had the skills of a 3rd string Brentford centre back. Have we had other shit Brazilians before? I can't remember.
You're right, but I remember when we were linked with Haaland back when he was at Molde he did look instantly really, really good in his Molde highlights.
Maybe a month or two after we were first linked he scored like 7 or 9 in a single match for Norway's U-21s. From what I remember it was against awful opposition, but you could still see the pure physical tools and the scent for goal he had.
For a £3m punt (according to Solskjaer) it seemed like a no brainer even at the time for a striker prospect scoring like he was coupled with the speed and size.
Edit -
Haaland Molde Highlights video made around the time we were first linked
Haaland 9 goals vs Honduras
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Oh noes are people looking bad at Fred with rose tinted glasses now? Oh boy
I agree that Ole should have known. But to be honest, I think at the time after those signings most people thought we had a team capable of challenging but in reality it was just an over bloated squad with some very big names and individually good players. But that only became clear with time. Because players like Martial, Pogba, Rashford etc were given the benefit of the doubt of “mourinho”
Fred's problem was you never knew which version you were gonna get, when he was good he was really good and when he was bad he was really bad, but this season we needed his energy
I love the fact that Roy drove nine hours in Norway to visit Ole to cheer him up when he was a bit low.
It is good to see people with such strong characters to respect each other. There is some beauty in it. A kind of beauty that is rarer and rarer in modern day life.
It is good to see people with such strong characters to respect each other. There is some beauty in it. A kind of beauty that is rarer and rarer in modern day life.
What a wonderful interview that was. A joy to watch really. Yes they could have pressed him a bit more on some points but I don’t think that’s the point of these interviews anyway. It’s more of a mix of insight, personality, nostalgia and fun and this had all of that. Few things that stood out for me
- the tidbits from these chaps playing together was lovely
- G Nev the photographer
- Ole on Bruno lacking control and being too emotional
- How he didn’t seem to get into Sancho but just said that he didn’t have time with him and everyone at the club was aligned
- The stuff about the issues in how we operate
- Players shirking from and shrinking under responsibility
Personality wise - Ole came across as a manager to me. You can see why he connected with the team. At the same, he was never the man for us as he just a top coach and his judgment on players was just average (a product of him not being a great coach). Still he’s a great fellow and you can see why he was such a great sub / squad player as his mentality is excellent.
- the tidbits from these chaps playing together was lovely
- G Nev the photographer
- Ole on Bruno lacking control and being too emotional
- How he didn’t seem to get into Sancho but just said that he didn’t have time with him and everyone at the club was aligned
- The stuff about the issues in how we operate
- Players shirking from and shrinking under responsibility
Personality wise - Ole came across as a manager to me. You can see why he connected with the team. At the same, he was never the man for us as he just a top coach and his judgment on players was just average (a product of him not being a great coach). Still he’s a great fellow and you can see why he was such a great sub / squad player as his mentality is excellent.
Indeed.
Every time I listen to ex players what stands out most is how brilliant their mentality seemed to be. Leaving aside that lovely effort from Roy on a person level, can’t help but feel one of the top priorities Ineos should have is putting together a squad that will not melt under the furnace of pressure at Manchester United. Some people thrive in it - Keane, Ole and all other top players - you can see them thriving under it and wanting the ball / a chance whereas a lot of the current group sink. I think Sir Alex was just next level in terms of identifying the right individual. Neither us or any other club is getting that level of manager anytime soon so we need a proper structure to do that like other big clubs have.
Firstly, How often have teenagers not from the United academy got the minutes Bellingham wanted?
Second, how many minutes did James get for United as compared to Bellingham in his first season at Dortmund?
Furthermore stop using hindsight to claim Bellingham would have got the minutes he wanted. The midfield department also had Pogba, Bruno and Matic. It's fallacious to pretend at that stage in his career Jude was going to start as much as those 5.
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He got the dogs abuse from a large portion of our fans while he managed us, but comparing his tenure with ETH and its not looking so bad
It wouldn’t make a difference, it’s not a player problem it’s a system problem. No matter what Fred turned up our midfield got decimated. If your midfield is always getting ran through it’s on the manager.
You have to ignore that as the manager. Its not about being popular or scoring points with fans and pundits, it's about being confident enough to go with your convictions.
If United had gone to the Etihad and Stoke a 1-0 win, which we might well have done without Foden's wonder-strike, then I guarantee people on this forum wouldn't complain.
Firstly, are you forgetting how much Pogba and Matic were unavailable during that period through injury?
Are you forgetting this was during covid football where every rubbish United performance was blamed on players being tired and us unable to rotate.
Bruno also doesnt play in the position Bellingham played in at the time so no relevance mentioning him.
Also think you need to probably reflect on your usage of the word hindsight….
How many teenagers not from our academy got minutes ? I don’t know, off the top
Of my head the following teenagers, some with barely even a season of first team football.
Luke Shaw, Antony Martial, Alejandro Garnacho, Rafael Da Silva, Fabio Da Silva, Wayne Rooney.
Dan James got 3,000 minutes in his first season here. Jude Bellingham got 2,800 minutes in his first season at Dortmund.
Now move some goalposts and come back with some other stuff..
Genuinely don’t know why people are choosing to die on this hill. Ole fecked up with Bellingham it’s that simple. It’s okay. It happens. It doesn’t take away from the great things he did at this club as a player. But we know management wasn’t his strong point and neither was recruiting players.
Just a quick update for all those people who were questioning their character (well, questioning Rashford's and conveniently giving Scott a pass).
Was Andy Mitten in the dressing room that day? Odd he’s come out saying that so emphatically. Some of these journalists need to wind their neck in sometimes.
In the 2020/2021 season Pogba started 21 times and had 5 sub appearances in the league that season. Matic had 12 with 18 sub appearances. They were not as injured as you remember that season.
First, I haven't forgotten what happened that a season. Second, I also don't need to revise my use of the word hindsight. For only hindsight bias can make anyone believe at 17 Bellingham would have got the 19 starts and 10 sub appearances he got for Dortmund with us in season 2020/2021.
Strange comment. Firstly Asking you questions your post raises has nothing to do with shifting goal posts.
Furthermore in league football Dan James played 914 minutes for us that season. Bellingham had 1705 for Dortmund that term (whoscored.com). A whopping 719 minutes more
Sure, but you don’t build a stronger team by replacing your best players by better players when you have other areas of the pitch that don’t even have a single decent option. Like I’m not even sure if we had a single natural right winger that summer.
I know Jadon can play on the right, but his stats were definitely better on the left and apparently the player himself prefers it. So we spent 80m on a player just so we can play him out of his preferred position
In Ole's case, he is a man of principle deserving Roy's respect. In Roy's second biography, he tells the story how Ole stood with Roy under enormous pressure when Roy was unwelcome. The other was Paul Scholes. Both Scholes and Ole were threatened losing their jobs. You have to respect that kind of character.
That is why I love that United. so much for these guys.
One of the biggest issues we have had as a club is fixating on a player who may be quality but does not fit our actual need.... somebody like Sancho being British and a "generational talent" it is like the club feel that we have to be in for him, similar examples being Maguire, AWB and Mount.... I think this is Legacy from early PL days where Utd had such financial dominance that they could cherry pick from most other clubs within the league, we do not limit this to British players, off the top of my head, not sure we needed Di Maria, Sanchez, Schweinsteiger, DVB, Ronaldo (2nd time)
I must admit some little bias towards signing or having British players, whilst a CB (Maguire) and RB (AWB) were required there were better or at least comparable options British and non British for much cheaper, Mount and Sancho were not filling a gap, I hope that this is one thing that INEOS and the new structure change.
I am wise in hindsight
You know Mitten is the only journalist Ole has spoken to since he got the sack? Him and Ole just did a tour of India together. If anyone knows what happened, it's probably him,
Fred would've been better than McTom and I think he would've complimented Casemiro tbh. Might've given us good options in a 3 too with Eriksen last year.
He clearly wasn't brilliant and infuriatingly inconsistent but he was a good player when we were playing well and it was the wrong idea to get rid.
He clearly wasn't brilliant and infuriatingly inconsistent but he was a good player when we were playing well and it was the wrong idea to get rid.
Thanks for posting @RedSky
Very interesting stats. I must admit as soon as I heard we were re-signing Ronaldo I had this doubt, I thought it could de-rail Ole progress. Suddenly you had a bigger star than the manager that Ole had to accommodate.
Be interesting to know what the stats would have been if Klopp and Pep had swapped places. Would Pep have done what Klop did? I guess we will never know.
Ole and Mitten are literally mates, they just went on a tour of India together. Maybe you need to wind your neck in?
All our Brazilians have been pretty rubbish.
Some would be, they'd be moaning the number of shot's conceded or how much worse our xG was or something other BS metric
It's the wax, they can't handle it
i think Ole said he asked who wanted to play eg...come on v watford, not hands up who wanted to carry on playing. dont think the suggestion was the subbed players Mctom and rashford had said they didnt want to play. only of the players to come on, he asked who wants it
It probably matters more because we've got a bunch of players that can't be arsed but how much Ole loves Manchester United comes across so much, not just in this but in everything he's ever said or done with the club. Just rare to have that connection.
Even if ultimately he and the team weren't good enough to get us back to the top, it was by far and away the nicest period post-SAF. Something just felt good about it. And the Ronaldo return was really sabotaged by using City as bait to get us to act and SAF reacting leaving Ole's hands tied even if he didn't want him but I can completely understand why we'd go get him regardless of having the knowledge that we'd screw the team building cause of the way Ronaldo needed to be accomodated plus that feeling against Newcastle, both pre, during and post game was about as high as I've felt with United since we lifted the title last.
Thank you Ole, for everything.
Even if ultimately he and the team weren't good enough to get us back to the top, it was by far and away the nicest period post-SAF. Something just felt good about it. And the Ronaldo return was really sabotaged by using City as bait to get us to act and SAF reacting leaving Ole's hands tied even if he didn't want him but I can completely understand why we'd go get him regardless of having the knowledge that we'd screw the team building cause of the way Ronaldo needed to be accomodated plus that feeling against Newcastle, both pre, during and post game was about as high as I've felt with United since we lifted the title last.
Thank you Ole, for everything.