What’s the reasons for keeping Ole?

mitchmouse said:
I don't think he's the right man but he has the job now and has to be given time and money. He is a United legend but that didn't work for Newcastle, Liverpool or Leeds. I made no secret of wanting Allegri for his European pedigree but I'd love to be wrong just as I was about some bloke who popped down from Scotland in 1986...
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This is such a myth used to justify Ole. Ferguson took a decrepit Aberdeen and won three straight league titles and the European Cup Winner’s Cup against Bayern Munich and Real Madrid. Then he won the Super Cup against the reigning European Cup (UCL) champions.

Please don’t act like that is comparable to Molde. SAF was a genuinely exciting manager with a track record of improving sides dramatically in the vein of Klopp or Poch today.
 
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Rafaeldagold said:
1) Ole hasn’t shown good signs or a style of play developing as Klopp/Poch has. Nowhere close. We’ve regressed performance wise since taking over.
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I'm not entirely sure how you reckon it's a problem that our current manager, after less than 6 months in charge, hasn't shown "good signs or a style of play" compared to arguably the two best managers that are still active.

Nor do i understand people harping on about how it's difficult to see what type of football Ole is trying to have the team play.

Weird.
 
Rafaeldagold said:
Exactly. It’s not being a ‘bad fan’ to question decisions of the club when all the evidence is there that this is a bad appointment that will set us back further.

In fact I think it’s worse being apathetic & hoping somehow a novice manager will turn us around
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Agreed you're not automatically a 'bad fan', as you put it, to question the amateurish decisions made by the board.

What we should be most weary of is that this split in the support regarding Olé's permanent appointment reflects a far more dangerous and potentially cataclysmic split in the United set up. This split concerns the idiotic favouritism shown by the board, to average performing English players like Jones, Smalling, Rashford and Young who have all been given extended contracts while foreign players such as Hererra and DeGea have had their contracts run down. DeGea, easily our best player since Fergie left, wants out according to Duncan Castles because he feels disrespected and Hererra too felt undervalued after he was asked to take an actual cut in his salary. Such amateurish shenanigans from the board can have serious impact at this crucial moment of the rebuild.

Apparently this perceived favouritism has split the dressing room with the foreign players disgruntled and questioning both the board's and OSG's favouring of certain English players whom Woodward values regarding the commercial promotion of a sense of Manchester United's English romanticism. Bringing in Olé (a reminder of the class of 92)and possibly more of the class of 92, like Rio for technical director has been part of Woodward's romanticising PR feel good, marketing factor.
This will no doubt pay commercial dividends but is a very dangerous route to tread down regarding football dividends. There should be no place for nostslgia and romanticism today as other clubs prove ruthless in their pursuit of winning.

According to Castles the English players like 'Rashy' are fully behind their manager whereas the other group don't have faith in him. If this is all true then such a split could have some devastating consequences regarding our football performance level as team cohesion, togetherness, team morale and actual hunger and ambition will all be negatively affected with the potentiality for melt down.

So instead of we fans, calling each other out regarding those not supporting the manager Versus those having naive blind faith in him we'd be better off not focusing completely on Solksjaer but rather seeing the antagonism played out in this thread as symptomatic of a far deeper split in the United set up , caused entirely by even more shitty board decisions, a split that could have explosive consequences as we attempt to rebuild.
 
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RedPed said:
I'm not disagreeing with you at all. You've kinda backed up my point. All I was saying is how do we know that Solskjaer can't do exactly the same thing?? Fans are writing him off after 5 months but fawning over a manager who has been at Spurs for over 5 years and not won anything. Where is the logic in that? Are you happy to give Solskjaer 5 years so long as we are making progress? As for signings, I would've thought you know by now that they are always a gamble. Poch hasn't signed many players because with Son, Kane, Alli, Eriksen etc., he really didn't need to.
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I'll answer based off the bold;
we don't know and maybe he can

they are writing him off based off 9 years of management of which he is only proven in the lowly Norweigian league and not the highest level. Poch has shown over 5 years that he can actually compete at this level and do so against sides with a vastly superior budget, build a squad and maintain levels. Solskjaer was sacked last time he was here.

Solskjaer has finessed his way into one of the biggest jobs in world football based off 15 game worth of form and will now be handed a sizeable bugdet and expecation to go with it. it will depend on the level of progress versus the spend I guess. If he needs 150 million every season and can only made 4th each year then thats a bit meh.

disagree, all bar Kane and Eriksen can and should be upgraded upon. Spurs need a Hazard not a Son. Maybe even a prime Bale, Sterling etc to actually go on and compete at the highest level.
 
thejtrain said:
Have you also thought about the other, more probable, outcome? Sentiments can't have a place at this level at this time.
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Yes, that's why we appointed Jose Mourinho three years ago.

You want to sound serious and talk about reality ? Sentiments will have place in this club if the owners will say so.
 
Rafaeldagold said:
Couple of points.

1) Ole hasn’t shown good signs or a style of play developing as Klopp/Poch has. Nowhere close. We’ve regressed performance wise since taking over.

2) just because I think this is an awful appointment I’ll still support United 100% whoever is in charge- The 2 aren’t mutually exclusive. I just have a different opinion on the direction of the club & the right choice for manager- I’m never negative about United actually. I want us to be the best club we can be
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Neither did Klopp nor Pochettino in 6 months of their appointment so that point isn’t valid. They’ve been at their clubs for 4 years going into their 5th. At this stage nothing is obvious apart from some people want a manager sacked after 6 months, which is embarrassing.
 
UncleBob said:
I'm not entirely sure how you reckon it's a problem that our current manager, after less than 6 months in charge, hasn't shown "good signs or a style of play" compared to arguably the two best managers that are still active.

Nor do i understand people harping on about how it's difficult to see what type of football Ole is trying to have the team play.

Weird.
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You don’t see it as a problem that we’ve regressed in performances since he took over?

Why is ‘ good signs’ or ‘style of play’ in quotations? We should be seeing progress not going backwards. But you don’t seem to worry about that.

Weird
 
crossy1686 said:
Neither did Klopp nor Pochettino in 6 months of their appointment so that point isn’t valid. They’ve been at their clubs for 4 years going into their 5th. At this stage nothing is obvious apart from some people want a manager sacked after 6 months, which is embarrassing.
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What has Ole shown to justify being the man to guide one of the biggest clubs in the world?? Absolutely nothing. We’ve gone backwards & got worse since he’s taken over.

It’s embarrassing to me that some of our fans are blinded by the fact Ole is a former legend of ours which somehow automatically means he should get lots of time & multiple transfer windows despite no signs at all that this is a smart move.

That’s embarrassing
 
Rafaeldagold said:
Why is ‘ good signs’ or ‘style of play’ in quotations?
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You know, in the same vein it’s silly to have ”ambition”. The United Way today is apparently to bathe in mediocrity and drape ourselves in nostalgia.

We’re Liverpool before Klopp now.
 
Rafaeldagold said:
You don’t see it as a problem that we’ve regressed in performances since he took over?

Why is ‘ good signs’ or ‘style of play’ in quotations? We should be seeing progress not going backwards. But you don’t seem to worry about that.

Weird
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You're telling half the story, either because you have an agenda or because you don't know any better.

We had a long period of improved performances where it was very clear what he was trying to achieve, followed by going backwards.
 
UncleBob said:
You're telling half the story, either because you have an agenda or because you don't know any better.

We had a long period of improved performances where it was very clear what he was trying to achieve, followed by going backwards.
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Sorry I disagree completely. There wasn’t a long period of improved performances- we had some good results (with an easy fixture list) but we weren’t playing great & what is he trying to achieve? I didn’t see any style of play being developed?

Also if that is true & he was building a style of play why are performances going backwards? They should be improving. Instead we were getting bossed off the park by mid table teams
 
Initially the ‘style’ was to tell them to go out and express themselves after being shackled by Mourinho. But that feel good only goes so far. I’m worried that we don’t seem to know what our style of play or favored formation is. However I am aware that may be because of limitations due to the players in the squad so happy to see how he gets on this season after summer and winter transfer windows
 
Rafaeldagold said:
What has Ole shown to justify being the man to guide one of the biggest clubs in the world?? Absolutely nothing. We’ve gone backwards & got worse since he’s taken over.

It’s embarrassing to me that some of our fans are blinded by the fact Ole is a former legend of ours which somehow automatically means he should get lots of time & multiple transfer windows despite no signs at all that this is a smart move.

That’s embarrassing
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Again, when he first took over we were playing good football. Many agreed, many articles were written how he was bringing back the United way. Here is a selection. You had Neville, Carragher, Scholes fawning over him on TV.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/03/07/ole-gunnar-solskjaer-perfect-fit-man-utd-dna/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/footbal...aer-has-restored-manchester-united-way-could/
https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...ws/how-ole-gunnar-solskjaer-bringing-16128685
https://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/ols...ter-united-success/1c4tuh6dxl2d11s2215l24uhek

So no we didn't regress as soon as he took over. In fact up till he got his contract we were Premier League winning form. Yes everything went downhill, but the players looked tired we had injuries upon injuries etc.But what do you expect when you go from a team that was at the bottom of running stats in the league, to a team that was covering the most ground?

You reference Klopp and Poch, but both took a season or more, and a few transfer windows. Klopp took 48 points in his first season from 30 games. Ole took 40 points in 21 games.

It's not his fault players were uni fit or injured, it's not his fault that he had to play the players he did (you still not offered up who he should of played instead of Smalling etc).
 
Hal9000 said:
It's not his fault players were uni fit or injured, it's not his fault that he had to play the players he did (you still not offered up who he should of played instead of Smalling etc).
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That should never be an excuse for a top team to fall in such form. It’s like only us had injuries and not Spurs, Pool, City, etc..

It’s a bollocks excuse. Even if the half the team is missing we should beat already relegated sides. Laughable really.

Abandoning your style is something you would never see Pep or Klopp do even if his starters aren’t available.
 
Enigma_87 said:
That should never be an excuse for a top team to fall in such form. It’s like only us had injuries and not Spurs, Pool, City, etc..

It’s a bollocks excuse. Even if the half the team is missing we should beat already relegated sides. Laughable really.

Abandoning your style is something you would never see Pep or Klopp do even if his starters aren’t available.
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Pep and Klopp have the players....
 
Rafaeldagold said:
Sorry I disagree completely. There wasn’t a long period of improved performances- we had some good results (with an easy fixture list) but we weren’t playing great & what is he trying to achieve? I didn’t see any style of play being developed?

Also if that is true & he was building a style of play why are performances going backwards? They should be improving. Instead we were getting bossed off the park by mid table teams
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:lol: Between 22nd December, when he took over, and up until knocking out PSG (6th of march) we had 14 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss, generally playing well, and that's not a long period ? Excellent, surely that must mean that our 2 months with shit results was a short meaningless period.

It's hardly a secret that Ole has for a long time admired the way Klopp sets up his teams, wanting to play aggressive football where the aim is to win the ball high up the pitch and take advantage, which we did until fatigue fecked us followed by an obscene amount of muscle injuries.
 
golden_blunder said:
Initially the ‘style’ was to tell them to go out and express themselves after being shackled by Mourinho. But that feel good only goes so far. I’m worried that we don’t seem to know what our style of play or favored formation is. However I am aware that may be because of limitations due to the players in the squad so happy to see how he gets on this season after summer and winter transfer windows
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Decent post - and I'm not just writing this because you're a Mod. Time will tell but Ole doesn't have so much.

As for Pochettino, the manager some on here want, I thought his Champions League Final tactics showed him up. Benching the hat-trick hero for a questionable Kane was unbelievable in the wrong way. Maybe he had the idea of unpredictability but all he did was play into the hands of Liverpool.

Spurs' unlikely-to-be-repeated chance to win the Champions League against another British team went down the dumper because of Pochettino. Yes he got them there but then undid that achievement by poor decision-making. Keep him away from Manchester United.
 
ryansgirl said:
Decent post - and I'm not just writing this because you're a Mod. Time will tell but Ole doesn't have so much.

As for Pochettino, the manager some on here want, I thought his Champions League Final tactics showed him up. Benching the hat-trick hero for a questionable Kane was unbelievable in the wrong way. Maybe he had the idea of unpredictability but all he did was play into the hands of Liverpool.

Spurs' unlikely-to-be-repeated chance to win the Champions League against another British team went down the dumper because of Pochettino. Yes he got them there but then undid that achievement by poor decision-making. Keep him away from Manchester United.
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Let's see if he learns from it. I suspect he will.
 
UncleBob said:
You're telling half the story, either because you have an agenda or because you don't know any better.

We had a long period of improved performances where it was very clear what he was trying to achieve, followed by going backwards.
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That period was just the players happy to prove Mourinho wrong. The players that improved and made the hole team play better were the players that had to prove something. Ole had just arrived and couldn't of possibly managed to transform anything. It was the players trying to prove a point which they did.
When they realized Ole was getting the credit for that and that he had just been given a three year contract based on their improved performances they lost all motivation again.
For the rest of the games we just had a bunch of unmotivated players and I dont blame them.
Ole as manager is a mistake.
 
Preseason feels like a death March for me. How Ole has half the fanbase echoing the 'fitness' dinosaurism is also depressing. This car crash I can actually see coming from 10 miles away.
 
Greck said:
Preseason feels like a death March for me. How Ole has half the fanbase echoing the 'fitness' dinosaurism is also depressing. This car crash I can actually see coming from 10 miles away.
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Elaborate
 
UnofficialDevil said:
That period was just the players happy to prove Mourinho wrong. The players that improved and made the hole team play better were the players that had to prove something. Ole had just arrived and couldn't of possibly managed to transform anything. It was the players trying to prove a point which they did.
When they realized Ole was getting the credit for that and that he had just been given a three year contract based on their improved performances they lost all motivation again.
For the rest of the games we just had a bunch of unmotivated players and I dont blame them.
Ole as manager is a mistake.
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That period..In a 3 month period we won 15 matches, lost 3 and had 2 draws. It's somewhat absurd to suggest that all of that was down to players wanting to prove Mourinho wrong, and suddenly they just decided to wing it because Ole was given credit :lol:

Lord almighty
 
UncleBob said:
Elaborate
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Our disorganised play is from severely poor tactical sophistication and poor tactical knowledge from the combined coaching staff. It's disappointing that Ole keeps namedropping fitness because it tells me he thinks that's the problem. The problem is he doesn't have a clue how to implement the kind of football Poch, Klopp or Pep play.
 
golden_blunder said:
Initially the ‘style’ was to tell them to go out and express themselves after being shackled by Mourinho. But that feel good only goes so far. I’m worried that we don’t seem to know what our style of play or favored formation is. However I am aware that may be because of limitations due to the players in the squad so happy to see how he gets on this season after summer and winter transfer windows
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You're confusing message with style.
 
Stacks said:
I'll answer based off the bold;
we don't know and maybe he can

they are writing him off based off 9 years of management of which he is only proven in the lowly Norweigian league and not the highest level. Poch has shown over 5 years that he can actually compete at this level and do so against sides with a vastly superior budget, build a squad and maintain levels. Solskjaer was sacked last time he was here.

Solskjaer has finessed his way into one of the biggest jobs in world football based off 15 game worth of form and will now be handed a sizeable bugdet and expecation to go with it. it will depend on the level of progress versus the spend I guess. If he needs 150 million every season and can only made 4th each year then thats a bit meh.

disagree, all bar Kane and Eriksen can and should be upgraded upon. Spurs need a Hazard not a Son. Maybe even a prime Bale, Sterling etc to actually go on and compete at the highest level.
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So you think Poch would have turned Cardiff into world beaters? Yeah so he works at Spurs. There's absolutely no guarantee that he'd automatically be a success at United. And history has shown that average managers can come good and great managers can go bad. After 5 years he still hasn't won anything...that's the bottom line! I ask you again, would you be happy with Poch at United if we never won a single trophy in 5 years? People used to say how Moyes had done a great job at Everton for 11 years with he constraints he had there. He was just the perfect fit for them but crap at United.

Thankfully, it doesn't matter about all the pontificating on these forums though, Solskjaer will get the chance to turn things around at least from rational thinking fans. I get that everytime we don't win 15-0 this season, fans will be on his case but hopefully he'll prove them all wrong. I'm expecting that the fans clamouring for Poch will also be prepared to give Solskjaer 5 years to win something too.

As for the players, Son has been their best player this season and I would take him at United in a heartbeat. Poch doesn't need to implement wholesale changes like at United or Arsenal, but yeah he could make them even better with a few additions. He was even able to let Dembele go.

These are the type of discussions we should be having about Ole next season anyway.
 
RedPed said:
So you think Poch would have turned Cardiff into world beaters?
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Pochettino turned up to the PL and succeeded at a lower club in order to earn a shot at a bigger club...

Solskjaer turned up to the PL and failed at a lower club, got them relegated, and then was seemingly never in demand by any other PL or Championship level club, and was then given the biggest job in English footy...

You'd think even Ole at the Wheel agenda posters would have to acknowledge the vast difference here.
 
Greck said:
Our disorganised play is from severely poor tactical sophistication and poor tactical knowledge from the combined coaching staff. It's disappointing that Ole keeps namedropping fitness because it tells me he thinks that's the problem. The problem is he doesn't have a clue how to implement the kind of football Poch, Klopp or Pep play.
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Weird sentence.

Disorganized play isn't something new, we didn't even have an organized defense under Jose never mind or attacking football.

Our fitness levels have been debated on here for quite some time. The excuse (and I generally believed it to be the case as well) was that our sprint stats, distance covered etc, was generally down to the football we were playing and not an accurate display of player fitness. Now that we've tried to play more aggressive football, introducing a lot more sprints and trying to win the ball higher up the pitch, followed by a shedload of injuries related to fatigue, it's safe to say that fitness levels are a major concern. It was mentioned early on, not when things started to go tits up, and it was also debated heavily around the period we went to Dubai.

It's hardly a surprise, or problem, that fitness levels are being mentioned, as it's most certainly a part of the problem.

If Ole manages to implement the type of football that he wants at United remains to be seen, his ideas might be too naive for the Premier League, but improving the fitness is a major part of that.
 
Rhyme Animal said:
Pochettino turned up to the PL and succeeded at a lower club in order to earn a shot at a bigger club...

Solskjaer turned up to the PL and failed at a lower club, got them relegated, and then was seemingly never in demand by any other PL or Championship level club, and was then given the biggest job in English footy...

You'd think even Ole at the Wheel agenda posters would have to acknowledge the vast difference here.
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Exactly. I cant believe we hired a manager from the Norwegian league. From relegating Cardif and managing in the bloody Tipitepia or whatever its called to the toughest most demanding managers job in the world.
 
golden_blunder said:
Initially the ‘style’ was to tell them to go out and express themselves after being shackled by Mourinho. But that feel good only goes so far. I’m worried that we don’t seem to know what our style of play or favored formation is. However I am aware that may be because of limitations due to the players in the squad so happy to see how he gets on this season after summer and winter transfer windows
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I don't think that was 'style' without any rhyme or reason. Look at Spurs game where he more or less played Rashford and Martial out wide, which allowed Lingard and Pogba through middle, he was all over them in the first half. The Arsenal game where he Lukaku stuck to the right and bulldozed them. Adapting to 3 injuries in the Liverpool game and still managing to come out with a draw. etc etc

I think injuries, players form and tiredness really had us struggling towards the end of the season.
 
UncleBob said:
Weird sentence.

Disorganized play isn't something new, we didn't even have an organized defense under Jose never mind or attacking football.

Our fitness levels have been debated on here for quite some time. The excuse (and I generally believed it to be the case as well) was that our sprint stats, distance covered etc, was generally down to the football we were playing and not an accurate display of player fitness. Now that we've tried to play more aggressive football, introducing a lot more sprints and trying to win the ball higher up the pitch, followed by a shedload of injuries related to fatigue, it's safe to say that fitness levels are a major concern. It was mentioned early on, not when things started to go tits up, and it was also debated heavily around the period we went to Dubai.

It's hardly a surprise, or problem, that fitness levels are being mentioned, as it's most certainly a part of the problem.

If Ole manages to implement the type of football that he wants at United remains to be seen, his ideas might be too naive for the Premier League, but improving the fitness is a major part of that.
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Fitness will ensure the players have the gas tank to implement a high intensity style fair enough but the big question in my head is still what is the high intensity style being implemented? Without one it's a means without an end. Simply telling players to play harder, run faster and be creative isn't a plan

Edit: the last sentence got me thinking maybe SAF wasn't the best manager to emulate after all because he might be the only great to succeed with no signature style. We now have a ton of imitators failing miserably
 
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Rhyme Animal said:
Pochettino turned up to the PL and succeeded at a lower club in order to earn a shot at a bigger club...
.
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Which was funnily enough a bit of a coincidence. Spurs initially wanted Van Gaal, he turned them down to join us and Spurs turned their attention to Poch.
 
UnofficialDevil said:
Exactly. I cant believe we hired a manager from the Norwegian league. From relegating Cardif and managing in the bloody Tipitepia or whatever its called to the toughest most demanding managers job in the world.
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Can't believe a manager who had one years experience in the Spanish 4th tier got given one of the toughest most demanding managers jobs in the world.
 
I just have to agree with obvious, even Van Gaal said it

Because Manchester United is one of the biggest clubs in the world that needs a manager with experience and not a manager who has trained at one or two teams and on a lower level.
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And dont give me that but we already tried experienced managers and that got us nowhere excuse, you tried the best and they didnt work? you go for even better not Ole.
 
Rhyme Animal said:
Pochettino turned up to the PL and succeeded at a lower club in order to earn a shot at a bigger club...

Solskjaer turned up to the PL and failed at a lower club, got them relegated, and then was seemingly never in demand by any other PL or Championship level club, and was then given the biggest job in English footy...

You'd think even Ole at the Wheel agenda posters would have to acknowledge the vast difference here.
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UnofficialDevil said:
Exactly. I cant believe we hired a manager from the Norwegian league. From relegating Cardif and managing in the bloody Tipitepia or whatever its called to the toughest most demanding managers job in the world.
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United hired two of the biggest names in world football at the time....and they both sucked ass big time. So what's your point??
 
golden_blunder said:
Explain.
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The message was for the players to go out and express themselves, let the opposition worry about our attacking strengths instead of us worrying too much about theirs, that Manchester United should always play attacking football.

The style was to stand high up the pitch with our team and play with a mobile attacking trio that would press together high up the pitch in order to either win the ball or force the opposition to either pass to a midfielder under pressure or just boot the ball up the pitch. Which is similar to how he set up Molde and how Liverpool try to force the opposition to make a mistake. Leave the attacking trio up front in order to be able to attack with more players. Our stats for ball retention, average position, sprints etc in the early days was very different to those under Mourinho.

Not sure why anyone would portrait it as if the fecker just said "Go out and play football and enjoy yourselves"
 
UnofficialDevil said:
No whats your point? That because 2 experienced managers didn't work out we should go with a totally inexperienced one?
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What's your point? That just because a manager failed at one club he can't be a success at another. Very convenient to dismiss the LvG and Mourinho appointments to fit your narrative. You'll just have to get used to it. Solskjaer is staying at United and Poch is staying at his beloved Spurs.
 
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