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The Overlap - Ole Gunnar Solskjaer
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I think Ole benefitted a lot from covid football. We have been cursed with bottleless players for the past decade and I think they thrived playing in empty stadiums with no pressure on them. Remember that crazy unbeaten run they had away from home? Went to pot as soon as the fans came back.
Bring back empty stadiums I say.
Pretty sure the vast majority or all of the unbeaten away run took place in front of fans.
I went and checked, it started just before Covid and ended within a couple of games of the fans coming back
Still it was a much longer run than I remembered. 29 games! Probably not strung together more than 2 or 3 since.
The longer ETH stays, the higher Ole will get elevated.
I will say it feels like such a bizarre and fun period when you just see the highlights of Ole’s time here. It did have a proper feel good factor when things were going well, but that’s to be expected I suppose.
I can’t say I go back to the Jose and LVG eras and feel much positive nostalgia.
I can’t say I go back to the Jose and LVG eras and feel much positive nostalgia.
It was very bad and no structure could have helped him. You seem to have short memory
Do you know how a forum works? You can't post what you just posted and expect people to let it go, it was a ludicrous post.
The only positives about Jose and LVG were the trophy wins. Big I know. But the inbetween was meh. Whereas the positives on Ole were the inbetween and the lows were the losses in final/semis.
Most people here wished that the team controlled the game more and that there was a better balance between counterattacking and positional play. Having said that, we played world-class counterattacking football under Ole.
Compared to the last league match (against Liverpool) where I experienced the worst performance ever «playing out from back», I have to say that I prefer world-class counter-attacking football - although it is safe.
Our play under LVG and Jose was hard to watch, at times cringeworthy. We can never go back to that kind of football.
The move from Ole to Ten Hag is a lesson in 'the grass isn't always greener'.
I'm not convinced he OK'd DvB arrival that much, he barely played him, even before we found out how crap he was, it looked pretty obvious to me that he didn't really rate him
Which is natural tbh since it adds a great deal of context to his time here.
I defended him for a long time, but i still think he getting sacked was the right call because he had proved during his time here he was not an elite manager. ETH beign worse does not make Ole a top class manager, but at the same time he was not as bad as some made him out to be
Saying ETH has been worse despite having won 2 cups, reached 3 finals and finished 3rd is certainly personal preference.
He wasn't as bad as some made out, sure. But on the flipside, he's nowhere near as good as some made/make out either. The truth as always, is somewhere in the middle.
Some of the revisionism on here lately has been crazy. I get it though, it's easy to reminess when things are currently a wee bit shite. The thing is, some of the posts recently seem to indicate that most of his tenure was filled with fantastic attacking football and it was all rosy. However, the massive divide on here about him in real-time as manager, tells a very different story. He done an ok job, nothing more, nothing less. I went from wanting him gone, to being on the fence to being quite positive when we had the summer when we signed Varane, Sancho and Ronaldo. It certainly wasn't this rosy era like some like to paint it, but there were some good times and good wins etc. That's about it though.
How?
All Three permanent managers in a row have shown the easiest way to setup is with the double pivot. 2 of those won trophies, only Ole didn’t. ETH is trying - Lord knows we’re seeing the fallout from it - to move away from that setup because it’s been basically defunct at the highest level for a decade if you want to win one of the 2 big trophies.
People talk of standards falling, well being happy with not trying to close the gap is exactly that. You either try something new and succeed/fail or you bottle it completely and do something you know will never be good enough but it’s familiar and low risk.
This is just a wacky theory based on absolutely nothing that people keep regurgitating.
Why didn't every other or at least most other teams also benefit from less pressure?
Perhaps but it's a move we had to make. Ole wasn't good enough to take us to the next level. It's looking like Ten Hag isn't good enough either but you have to take that risk when changing manager.
Our biggest problem is the club seem to wait too long to realize these managers aren't good enough, instead of being a bit more proactive.
We need to sack managers who aren't good enough. Jose, Ole and ETH would have been sacked by top clubs long before we sacked them/will sack ETH. Fans need to move on from them. If the next man also isn't good enough, it doesn't vindicate anything.
With Ole he was sacked pretty much as soon as results went south which is fair enough. He completely messed up the transfer window that summer and paid the price. I'd say that was pretty proactive.
Up to then he'd had us performing consistently like a top 4 side in line with the quality of the squad.
Ten Hag has us performing far worse and over a longer period of time but somehow still here - although it seems like lack of funds to sack him and other managers turning us down might be the main reasons.
Indeed mate.
The club needs to let go of this idea that we should give every manager enough time to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're not good enough, basically we wait until everything goes tits up and the season is basically wrote off before we make a move. All of Moyes, Jose and Ole should have been replaced before they were. Only Van Gaal was moved on with a bit of forward planning, though in hindsight it wasn't great planning to go from LVG to Jose but at least the club realized he wasn't taking us anywhere.
It's should be ok to sack a manager who's done alright but isn't pulling up trees.
It was reactive, being proactive would have been asking him to move aside when we didn't win anything for 2 seasons. Ole did a decent job but, I love the guy but it was obvious from at least part way through 20-21 he wasn't the guy to take us to the next level. Yes we were performing like a top 4 side but we weren't performing like a title challenging side. Which is where we should be, top 4 given the resources and players available to the manager of Man Utd should be the bare minimum.
I'd have loved for Ole to win the Europa before he left, but it wasn't to be.
I think expecting a title challenge from the squad we had at that time was completely unrealistic. In the first half of 19-20 we were relying on the likes of a younger Pereira, McTominay, James and Lingard but still not too far away from top 4 if you look at the stats.
This is why I always said at the time be careful what you wish for. I never once said Ole was anything special but he had us performing in line with our squad level before 21-22. Night and day from last season where we fortunate to finish top half.
I agree he did have us performing at that level but all I'm saying is I think that was his limit. He tried to change the style and brought in Ronaldo to try to get to the next level but it was beyond him. Had we not signed Ronaldo and kept playing the same way I'm fairly confident Ole could still be here finishing 3rd-4th the last few seasons.
While you're not wrong I wonder at what point despite spending around a billion to assemble squads over the last load of years will it be realistic to expect one of these managers to perhaps not win the title but at least bloody even challenge for one?
3 years on and another £600-700m spent now we're not even wondering if we can launch a title challenge. Now we're hoping we can muster a top 4 challenge.
It seems like that because of the new low bar set by ETH.
Any manager who oversees so many spineless performances against our biggest rivals has no business being here. It's not even about the scorelines in specific matches. But the way City and Liverpool would just turn up and boss us was unacceptable.
Regardless of squad level, any visit to OT should be miserable for them. How many comfortable away games at Anfield under Fergie can you remember?
I agree. Before that season I said it was a big mistake not going for someone like Rice instead. Ultimately what cost him.
Yep. Crazy how low the bar has move since.
Some seem to think it's a case of having to take a few steps backwards to move forwards. I hope they're right and the last 3 years haven't been a monumental waste of time and money.
Even if our current trajectory were to start to improve each season starting this season, we're still looking at not even challenging for a title until 26/27 at the earliest probably. And that's if we finish top 4 this year, if we don't it could be even longer.
With the scousers next year was always their year, with United it's becoming 3-4 years from now is our year (maybe).
Bit of a strange comment in regards to City. From the managers who have faced Pep at least five times (over his entire career) only Conte has a better record against him. Ole is in second place, fractionally ahead of Klopp. 4 wins, 1 draw and 4 losses. It's not like they were big losses either, never losing by more than two goals (and over the course of the nine games it was only a -2 goal difference).
Liverpool was a different matter, with only 1 win out of 7 while drawing 3 and losing 3. But it was still only that last match when our entire season was going off the rails that they really spanked us 5-0.
Haha, fair enough on City, at least in terms of results. Think that 0-2 really traumatised me.
Against Liverpool, he won zero games iirc and conceded 9 in his last two games against them at home. Disappointingly, it's nothing surprising anymore, but that shouldn't excuse him either.
Solskjaer has now done a big Norwegian podcast as well which I'm sure there will be posted more from.
He talks about the Ronaldo signing again, and how McKenna rushed to the video room to look at Ronaldo's last six games for Juventus. His response was: "How are we going to defend?"
It annoys me a bit that we saw the problems, but felt we had to sign him.
If you can read Scandi or want to use GPTs, the article about the podcast is here.
He talks about the Ronaldo signing again, and how McKenna rushed to the video room to look at Ronaldo's last six games for Juventus. His response was: "How are we going to defend?"
It annoys me a bit that we saw the problems, but felt we had to sign him.
If you can read Scandi or want to use GPTs, the article about the podcast is here.
Fergie. That’s why.
I think that says more about today's coaches than it does Ronaldo.
They seem to think it's impossible to defend unless all XI run a marathon every game.
But in any case, if we hadn't signed Ronaldo who else would play up front that first season? Martial was injured plenty. Rashford? Who everybody complains is lazy?
I love Ole but it's too convenient to keep hinting the problems hinged on Ronaldo.
If you wanted to go up against 2017-2023 versions of City under Pep and Liverpool under Klopp? That’s actually true.
Easy Cavani.
Mason has well, before his issues.
Cavani? Not the most reliable, fitness-wise of course, but he had just been convinced to sign an extension and was then effectively pushed aside.
Cavani and Martial mainly. He who shall not be named was a natural goalscorer and would've moved to the middle if Rash and Sancho became undroppable on the wings.
Daft to blame the coaches. You can't carry passengers in today's game.
A well-run football club would've swallowed their pride and let him go to City, with the expectation internally that he would quickly fall out of favour and fall out with Pep anyways. I think he would've used Ronaldo at City in a Giroud type of "super sub" role where he would've just been tasked to get into good positions in the box against low-blocks, especially in game-states where they need a goal, and not start a lot of games for them. That would've caused big issues within the first weeks and Ronaldo would've been thrown out of City maybe even as early as January 2022.
To be fair he says he missed tactically as well. We had a good counter attacking squad, but tried to control the game vs Liverpool at home and ended up 0-4 at HT (as an example). He knows he messed up, but felt it would be cowardly to sit back to anyone at home.
Now a better manager could probably have been successful (or at least more successful) with that approach, but I think most of us can understand why he did what he did.
Edit with the actual quotes:
– We were solid defensively; we shouldn’t have taken risks. We should have stayed back and "picked Liverpool off," countering them, as that was our strength. But I don’t think the players would have bought into that approach. We had to try at home. So, it became an open game: 0-4 at halftime, 50-50 in possession, and just as many attempts, but by then, the game was over.
– The choice I made leading up to that game is something I’ve thought a lot about.
– The management and I were clear that we didn’t have a top-3 squad. We were fourth-best; at least, that’s what they told us, so top-4 was the goal. But we probably got a bit carried away by the feeling of wanting to challenge. We should have been pragmatic, should have thought that if we kept a clean sheet, we’d win. Often, the better you defend, the better you also attack.
So every coach is too inept because they can't coach 9 hard-working outfield players, and 1 lazy bum, to outwork and outdefend 10 hard-working opposition outfield players?
Look at how much Odegaard helps Arsenal with his out of possession work and how he leads Arsenal's press, as many Arsenal fans on here have pointed out already.
Look at how much Mount has helped United's out of possession game, whenever he's played.
Look at how pissed Enrique got with Mbappé at PSG when the latter was half-arsed out of possession and was basically sabotaging them, despite probably being the best player in the world at the time.
Look at how many goals we've conceded in the last 5 years, because the likes of Rashford, Pogba, or Greenwood weren't disciplined and well-coordinated enough for our pressing and we just got bypassed easily by the opposition players.
And let's not act like Ronaldo was anywhere near being one of the best players in the world for us to even consider allowing him the luxury of doing feck all when we don't have the ball.
He was a good poacher in the box with really good athleticism and very good ball striking (the only quality he provided outside the opposition's box) by the time he returned, nothing more. It would be risky enough to allow prime Messi to just jog around the pitch in today's football, let alone someone like Ronaldo who did more harm than good for the team. I'd bet my life Rangnick would've been the happiest person on the planet if he would've been able to get rid of him in January 2022, but it obviously was never a real possibility.