Why are Man United playing worse than last season?

Ive said it before and I will say it again. It hasn't gone South until the moment the board notifies him. His job is still within his grasp but he needs results. The Tottenham game is absolutely the biggest game of his coaching career. An L at Wembley and we are circling the drain heading into a Champions League match we will not be ready for.
Barcelona pulled our card by firing their manager so its inevitable if he cant produce.
 
Zen86 said:
Again, I'm not saying all we've been is a counterattacking team, but our sweet spot under Ole have been counters and direct attacks against opposition who open up and allow us to play that way. Breaking down low blocks isn't something we've excelled at and we've always struggled with it. We finished second last season and yes you don't manage that if you're rubbish against the lower half of the table, but we've been far from convincing against these sorts of tactics and we've always been susceptible to conceding when coming up against it. We have never managed to get the balance right in this regard and it's something that's much more apparent this season as we seek to be more aggressive and imposing in our play.
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Yes, we're good at counters and seek to exploit that, but that doesn't mean either that it's what we primarily rely on, nor that we can't do it well in other ways. And we actually had a very good record breaking down low blocks last year, to such an extent it is in my opinion essentially a myth that this is a general shortcoming of ours. In fact, we did considerably better against lower-half teams (who pretty much invariably play low blocks) last season than Liverpool did, and also than Chelsea did after Tuchel took over. Where we struggled was to break down strong teams that played defensively.

In my view, stylistically last season was a transitional one. Where we took the step from the one-trick counterattack pony we were in 2019 to relying much more on possession, build-up and dominating the game, and where we also relied much more on scoring goals from established play in the opposition third, and did that much more successfully than before. The stats show that too I believe, but they also show that we were still not doing it as markedly as f.e. Liverpool, to say nothing of City.
 
L1nk said:
1. For the longest all we seemed to play was Counter Attacking football but it's just completely unsustainable when there's zero alternative and we cannot break low block teams down, we have good wins yes especially against teams that afford us space, but then we also have terrible losses against teams we shouldn't be losing against, we will not win anything this way. So I feel like now Ole thinks he has the players capable he's tried to switch to a more pro-active style, the problem is the implementation is sorely lacking and the players are at sixes and sevens having absolutely no idea what they are doing, this seems evident by what you saw on the pitch against Liverpool, the half assed pressing by random players, defenders woefully out of position all the time, you get the point.

2. His favouritism of players, he keeps picking his favourite players regardless of whether they're in shocking form for multiple games prior or have just come back from injury and are clearly not fully fit, see Harry Maguire for that one. His man management has been shown for what it really is, awful, and not this amazing thing that everyone thinks it is and it seems like the players have had enough of it. Everyone and their Nan can see the DVB situation is ridiculous, but now players like Lingard are being lumped into it to, I'm not even Lingard's biggest fan, but if you wanna keep him, play him? His clear favouritism is there for all to see and it's backfiring on him because the players who are his favourites are woefully underperforming in this system.

3. He has had his ass covered by some of his favourites though, see Bruno Fernandes last season, I firmly believe Bruno is solely the reason he's still in the job, how many times did he bail him out last season? Too many to count. Now Bruno is underperforming see how the whole thing is going

Most importantly..

4. It isn't just 'this season' if you've been paying attention to us on the pitch for seasons now, there are a lot of matches where it felt like a win was papering over the cracks, you can look at that initial PSG win that sealed him the job as an example, we were woeful and the 3 goals we scored we couldn't have begged for more luck if we tried. At any point during the time Solskjaer has been here can you say we've been on consistently great runs of form with the odd loss or two here, it's always been, some nice wins, then horrible losses, always 1 step forward and 2 steps back. How many times, on this forum alone, have we said "Oh whenever he needs a win he gets a win" like we've had a bad run of results then somehow he pulls a result out of his ass and we go on a good run, before slipping again and then just when it looks like his job may be in trouble, he pulls out a win again. This has happened multiple times since he's been here and is the reason people thought we would actually get a result against Liverpool this past weekend, because he just has that knack of doing it when his jobs been potentially called into question.

All in all, it's been seasons of crap from a legend, who should have never got the job on a permanent basis in the first place because he was not qualified for it in the slightest, woefully undercoaching players and playing them in a counter attack or nothing system with so many cracks in it that's had about a hundred rolls of paper used to constantly cover them, all sprinkled with a little DNA and Passion. Unfortunately the foundation is what's cracking now because it's completely unsustainable, infact i'm surprised it's taken this long for everyone to see. I supposed romatic blindness will do that to you.
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Great post!
 
L1nk said:
1. For the longest all we seemed to play was Counter Attacking football but it's just completely unsustainable when there's zero alternative and we cannot break low block teams down, we have good wins yes especially against teams that afford us space, but then we also have terrible losses against teams we shouldn't be losing against, we will not win anything this way. So I feel like now Ole thinks he has the players capable he's tried to switch to a more pro-active style, the problem is the implementation is sorely lacking and the players are at sixes and sevens having absolutely no idea what they are doing, this seems evident by what you saw on the pitch against Liverpool, the half assed pressing by random players, defenders woefully out of position all the time, you get the point.

2. His favouritism of players, he keeps picking his favourite players regardless of whether they're in shocking form for multiple games prior or have just come back from injury and are clearly not fully fit, see Harry Maguire for that one. His man management has been shown for what it really is, awful, and not this amazing thing that everyone thinks it is and it seems like the players have had enough of it. Everyone and their Nan can see the DVB situation is ridiculous, but now players like Lingard are being lumped into it to, I'm not even Lingard's biggest fan, but if you wanna keep him, play him? His clear favouritism is there for all to see and it's backfiring on him because the players who are his favourites are woefully underperforming in this system.

3. He has had his ass covered by some of his favourites though, see Bruno Fernandes last season, I firmly believe Bruno is solely the reason he's still in the job, how many times did he bail him out last season? Too many to count. Now Bruno is underperforming see how the whole thing is going

Most importantly..

4. It isn't just 'this season' if you've been paying attention to us on the pitch for seasons now, there are a lot of matches where it felt like a win was papering over the cracks, you can look at that initial PSG win that sealed him the job as an example, we were woeful and the 3 goals we scored we couldn't have begged for more luck if we tried. At any point during the time Solskjaer has been here can you say we've been on consistently great runs of form with the odd loss or two here, it's always been, some nice wins, then horrible losses, always 1 step forward and 2 steps back. How many times, on this forum alone, have we said "Oh whenever he needs a win he gets a win" like we've had a bad run of results then somehow he pulls a result out of his ass and we go on a good run, before slipping again and then just when it looks like his job may be in trouble, he pulls out a win again. This has happened multiple times since he's been here and is the reason people thought we would actually get a result against Liverpool this past weekend, because he just has that knack of doing it when his jobs been potentially called into question.

All in all, it's been seasons of crap from a legend, who should have never got the job on a permanent basis in the first place because he was not qualified for it in the slightest, woefully undercoaching players and playing them in a counter attack or nothing system with so many cracks in it that's had about a hundred rolls of paper used to constantly cover them, all sprinkled with a little DNA and Passion. Unfortunately the foundation is what's cracking now because it's completely unsustainable, infact i'm surprised it's taken this long for everyone to see. I supposed romatic blindness will do that to you.
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You need to check our record against low block teams last season. You might be surprised. We not only can break low block teams down, we usually break low block teams down. More usually actually than either Klopp or Tuchel did last season, when it comes to the lower table ones.

This is one of several myths that have entrenched themselves against better judgment, and which now distort chains of reasoning when trying to figure out why we're suddenly shit, which we are.
 
We haven't ever been that good under his tenure. We regularly had long periods of poor form with Ole, during which the team served up some truly abject performances. Sure, Liverpool didn't win 5-0 at Old Trafford last season - but they did win 4-2 and thoroughly outclassed us. Many of our wins were unconvincing affairs that were clearly papering over massive cracks.

Those cracks got brutally exposed by Leicester and Liverpool, perhaps partly because Solskjaer's starting to lose the dressing room, partly because he seems to have panicked as evidenced by the odd idea to adopt a half-baked pressing approach against Liverpool. But overall we're not playing significantly worse than we were during most of the last two and a half seasons; a pity that the results unfortunately caught up to the performances. However, we can still easily reach somewhere between 65-75 points which is Ole's normal level.
 
Midfield is the obvious answer.

It's obviously not good enough on an individual level. But it's also obvious that Ole and his coaches have failed rather badly at making the most of what they do have at their disposal.

The rest of the team is good enough, individually, to get away with a lot. But the middle just isn't - not over time, no chance in hell.
 
justsomebloke said:
Yes, we're good at counters and seek to exploit that, but that doesn't mean either that it's what we primarily rely on, nor that we can't do it well in other ways. And we actually had a very good record breaking down low blocks last year, to such an extent it is in my opinion essentially a myth that this is a general shortcoming of ours. In fact, we did considerably better against lower-half teams (who pretty much invariably play low blocks) last season than Liverpool did, and also than Chelsea did after Tuchel took over. Where we struggled was to break down strong teams that played defensively.

In my view, stylistically last season was a transitional one. Where we took the step from the one-trick counterattack pony we were in 2019 to relying much more on possession, build-up and dominating the game, and where we also relied much more on scoring goals from established play in the opposition third, and did that much more successfully than before. The stats show that too I believe, but they also show that we were still not doing it as markedly as f.e. Liverpool, to say nothing of City.
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I'm sure the stats are decent, we finished 2nd last season when the majority of teams we came up against shut up shop and packed the box, so we obviously did get results. However that doesn't tell us about the long periods of frustration, looking short of ideas for large majorities of games, and continually going down because we were unable to get the balance right between attack and defence. It's a matter of opinions here, but we looked far from convincing against defensive teams and much of the time we looked just as likely to concede as we were to score.
 
Loony BoB said:
A great recent example of this is Ronaldo, who when we didn't play him for ONE game, it spawned insane amounts of controversy in the press and amongst the fans. And now the same press and fans are saying Ronaldo should be thrown out because he's ruined the balance of the team. Catch 22, Ole is blamed no matter what he does. And that's the toxicity in action.
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Its crazy isn't it, the sky sports panel has farr too much influence over the way fans react. They have have spent the last 3 years slagging Pogba off but the second he isn't in the starting eleven they open the broadcast with how he has to play blah blah. Ronaldo doesn't start 1 game but comes on after an hour and every tom dick and harry is saying its criminal that a 36 year was rested for an hour.
 
justsomebloke said:
You need to check our record against low block teams last season. You might be surprised. We not only can break low block teams down, we usually break low block teams down. More usually actually than either Klopp or Tuchel did last season, when it comes to the lower table ones.

This is one of several myths that have entrenched themselves against better judgment, and which now distort chains of reasoning when trying to figure out why we're suddenly shit, which we are.
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I think the myth is borne out of some truth though. Yeah we've generally been good results wise against these lower table teams that sit deep, but watching us trying to break down Burnley and then watching Liverpool or City try to break them down is a totally different viewing experience. It's why Bruno has such incredible numbers with us, because the plan essentially comes down to him trying to score or assist with every touch he has and because of his talent eventually one or two would come off and we'd start winning. But the general principles and spacing and how our players operate against these low blocks was always disjointed and loose compared to top sides, and many times we'd have to pull a rabbit out of the hat to get results late in some of these games where our general execution was poor.

At first we could blame the players for not having the required quality, but with the lineups we can put out now that can't be an excuse anymore.
 
I think simply the addition of Ronaldo and the likes of Varane have prompted him to try and open up the team and take opposition on, Which has shown all the issues that were hidden by the counter attacking system we had before.
There is no semblance of any shape and we have a high risk player that leaves his position and turns over the ball a lot so we will constantly have a huge hole through the centre. It’s all simply poor tactics.

I don’t agree with this just putting everything on Carrick and McKenna, Ole is at the training ground and constantly watching over sessions. Just look at the United Youtibe and you’ll see him doing “coaching” it also has to be his ideas, his plans and maybe he then tells Carrick and McKenna to follow through on what he’s said. This idea he isn’t involved in training isn’t true.
 
L1nk said:
1. For the longest all we seemed to play was Counter Attacking football but it's just completely unsustainable when there's zero alternative and we cannot break low block teams down, we have good wins yes especially against teams that afford us space, but then we also have terrible losses against teams we shouldn't be losing against, we will not win anything this way. So I feel like now Ole thinks he has the players capable he's tried to switch to a more pro-active style, the problem is the implementation is sorely lacking and the players are at sixes and sevens having absolutely no idea what they are doing, this seems evident by what you saw on the pitch against Liverpool, the half assed pressing by random players, defenders woefully out of position all the time, you get the point.

2. His favouritism of players, he keeps picking his favourite players regardless of whether they're in shocking form for multiple games prior or have just come back from injury and are clearly not fully fit, see Harry Maguire for that one. His man management has been shown for what it really is, awful, and not this amazing thing that everyone thinks it is and it seems like the players have had enough of it. Everyone and their Nan can see the DVB situation is ridiculous, but now players like Lingard are being lumped into it to, I'm not even Lingard's biggest fan, but if you wanna keep him, play him? His clear favouritism is there for all to see and it's backfiring on him because the players who are his favourites are woefully underperforming in this system.

3. He has had his ass covered by some of his favourites though, see Bruno Fernandes last season, I firmly believe Bruno is solely the reason he's still in the job, how many times did he bail him out last season? Too many to count. Now Bruno is underperforming see how the whole thing is going

Most importantly..

4. It isn't just 'this season' if you've been paying attention to us on the pitch for seasons now, there are a lot of matches where it felt like a win was papering over the cracks, you can look at that initial PSG win that sealed him the job as an example, we were woeful and the 3 goals we scored we couldn't have begged for more luck if we tried. At any point during the time Solskjaer has been here can you say we've been on consistently great runs of form with the odd loss or two here, it's always been, some nice wins, then horrible losses, always 1 step forward and 2 steps back. How many times, on this forum alone, have we said "Oh whenever he needs a win he gets a win" like we've had a bad run of results then somehow he pulls a result out of his ass and we go on a good run, before slipping again and then just when it looks like his job may be in trouble, he pulls out a win again. This has happened multiple times since he's been here and is the reason people thought we would actually get a result against Liverpool this past weekend, because he just has that knack of doing it when his jobs been potentially called into question.

All in all, it's been seasons of crap from a legend, who should have never got the job on a permanent basis in the first place because he was not qualified for it in the slightest, woefully undercoaching players and playing them in a counter attack or nothing system with so many cracks in it that's had about a hundred rolls of paper used to constantly cover them, all sprinkled with a little DNA and Passion. Unfortunately the foundation is what's cracking now because it's completely unsustainable, infact i'm surprised it's taken this long for everyone to see. I supposed romatic blindness will do that to you.
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Well summed up. Agreed on all points
 
justsomebloke said:
I would agree that we emphasise and consistently try to exploit quick breaks in our attacking game. But to describe the result as reactive (which is what I assume you actually mean, rather than "reactionary") and defensive minded is in my opinion way overboard. We did play in that fashion after Ole took over in 2018/19, but in that case with very intensive high pressing. We also to some extent played in that way pre-Bruno during the following season. But we have not played that way since. In my view, the eye test should make that obvious. Stats even more so, but I must admit I lack the time and patience to piece together a proper expose of that. So I'll confine myself to a couple of observations:

- Most teams played exactly that style against us last season - even some of the top ones (Chelsea, notably, and also City to an extent). If you're faced with that and have a system that is defensive, reactive and relies on counter-attack, and doesn't feature intensive high pressing, you don't score the second most goals in the league. Because opponents that play a careful, deep, defensive posture will not give you the opportunities that approach relis on, and if you don't do an intensive high press you won't procure them for yourself.
- Relative to the other top 4 teams in 20/21, we were most effective playing against lower-half opponents (who themselves to the greatest extent play a deep, defensive, reactive approach, and against whom a reactive, defensive-oriented one from United would be least effective), and least effective against other top 4 sides (against whom such an approach would be most effective). Note that this was the exact opposite of the pre-Bruno period the preceding season, when we did play such a style and when we were least effective against bottom teams and most effective against top teams.
- We generally dominated both possession and shots, which is not associated with this kind of style
- The better part of our open play goals were scored off established play in the opposition third, not counters or quick breaks.
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Yes I meant reactive, not sure how I mixed those two up. You make solid arguments here, and it is possible that I've weighted certain performances too much in my evaluation of the style. It's been a shit few weeks, and its hard to maintain perspective to be honest. Liverpool was depressing as hell. I do want to note however that by defensive I do not mean direct - I consider those to be two separate tactical elements and I certainly agree that we were far more direct pre-Bruno. You make a good point about the high press though.

I do believe Ole wants to play an attacking style, he's made no secret about that, and it is possible that we are trying to play an attacking type of football but that we're simply not very good at it. We're really not good enough at controlling midfield and forcing the opposition into mistakes, but I guess that can be due to personell more than a tactical style - either way I agree completely that we are dysfunctional. That McFred midfield is also infuriating, not rigid enough for a defensive system and not creative enough for an attacking one.
 
When we refused to sack Ole and showed confidence in him. He should have been sacked in July and a new manager must have been appointed.
 
With Jordan Henderson and James Milner in midfield is how Liverpool played.
 
#07 said:
I disagree with this. Because I believe even if we had prime Roy Keane and Edgar Davids as a midfield two we'd get annihilated playing like this. Frankly, even if we played 4-5-1 we'd get annihilated playing like this.

Yes, we need better midfielders, but the reason everyone from Aston Villa to Liverpool is finding it easy against us is not the players or the formation. Its the tactics.

If I send my team out to play 5-4-1. But I have a swimming pool's length between the 5, the 4 and 1, I will get beaten. Why? Because I am leaving huge amounts of space for the opposition team to play in. Once they break one line, they can then have time to circulate the ball, pull my players out of position and create chances to score goals.

What United are doing with this half-press is letting the lines get massively stretched out. Our defenders, midfielders and attackers are all miles apart. It makes us easy to play through. A simple give and go will get you into space between the United midfield and defence. From there you're relying on people making last ditch tackles, racing around to cover gaps and DeGea rolling it back to 2018.

That's why I call it kamikaze football.

Even if we had bought Casimiro and Kante last summer we'd still be getting battered playing the way we are.

When you're defending you gotta be compact. Whether you drop off into your shape like Mourinho does it. Or you push your whole team into the opposition half to squeeze the space like Pep does it. You cannot be in a position where an opposition player can beat one of your attackers, have loads of space, play a one two around your midfield and still have loads of space.

We are playing suicidal football and we will only stop shipping goals if Ole makes the team compact defensively.
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Bingo. He may see it now, but I think it's far too late given how badly he has mismanaged players (playing unfit or out of form favourties vs the perennial benchwarmers).
 
Laurencio said:
Yes I meant reactive, not sure how I mixed those two up. You make solid arguments here, and it is possible that I've weighted certain performances too much in my evaluation of the style. It's been a shit few weeks, and its hard to maintain perspective to be honest. Liverpool was depressing as hell. I do want to note however that by defensive I do not mean direct - I consider those to be two separate tactical elements and I certainly agree that we were far more direct pre-Bruno. You make a good point about the high press though.

I do believe Ole wants to play an attacking style, he's made no secret about that, and it is possible that we are trying to play an attacking type of football but that we're simply not very good at it. We're really not good enough at controlling midfield and forcing the opposition into mistakes, but I guess that can be due to personell more than a tactical style - either way I agree completely that we are dysfunctional. That McFred midfield is also infuriating, not rigid enough for a defensive system and not creative enough for an attacking one.
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I agree, but also the attacking 4 are a problem here.

Vs both Leichester and Liverpool we saw them all push up high, but its wasnt a coordinated press and it seemed none of them made an actual effort to win the ball so it created a massive gap between our front 4 and midfield. When you also factor in their almost non existant backtracking we ended up 6 vs 8 in defense all game and we were outnumbered both on the flanks and through the middle

Its a tactical feck up of epic dimensions.
 
yipthatman said:
It was a mix of panic buying and nostalgia when a CDM was clearly the option needed. I also think his levels scare other players too. It might sound stupid but they only had to answer to Ole and co before and could relax and play their game. Now it's like everyone is scared to make a mistake, which causes mistakes. I'm not saying we were amazing last season but we were a lot better. Since that Euphoric Ronaldo return we have been abysmal.
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But we weren't getting a CDM. If wasn't a choice between Ronaldo or a CDM. It was Ronaldo or nothing. I agree he creates some problems tactically but with a remotely decent manager we could use him well, albeit not in every situation. We weren't linked with anyone after Sancho and varane. Our window was done there if we didn't sign Ronaldo anyways. And with how lost Sancho is its like he was a panic buy anyways. The manager has no clue how to utilize him despite wanting him for two years
 
The OP admonishes us to not write that Ole is shit, so let's not. But the evidence overwhelmingly points to the manager who was severely underprepared to cope with this squad and meet the expectations of the fan base. On a points basis, right now we're pretty much where we've been the last few seasons. Where we were in late October the last few seasons was always excused away with exigent circumstances, but the reality of it is that we have been poorly managed each of the three season he has been in charge. We all felt that because of the Mourinho hangover that we needed time, and we did need time, but the excuses have run out and here we are now, in the same place we've been the last few Octobers even though we have a stronger squad than ever since Ferguson left.

Several posters have already discussed tactical lapses. But the rot goes deeper than that. In the end what it comes down to is that the job is too big for Ole and too big for Woodward (who's excels at nabbing sponsorships and no joking that's important stuff). It's unlikely that all of us here could come up with the names of ten human beings on the planet who could come in to Old Trafford and within two seasons have us firing on all cylinders. It may well be, unlike the job at Liverpool and City, the job of managing Manchester United is just too big for any human being.
 
Mickeza said:
I’m not convinced it’s all that tactical. I mean we’ve tried to play a higher line and upped our ball possession which has left us vulnerable considering the number of turnovers Bruno et al do but I genuinely think Ronaldo has upset the Apple cart team spirit wise as opposed to playing style. Him coming in means Pogba has been shunted to the middle/bench again, Greenwood wide, sancho can’t get a game and Cavani is surplus to requirements after begging him to stay. Plus our squad is huge, so add all that to Donny, Lingard, martial, Bailey, Telles, Dalot and Henderson being pissed as they never play then a happy camp it is not anymore.
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Looking at your form you started the season strong, which game was he introduced?
 
Bobcat said:
Agreed. We had bad games last year, but never such a sustained run of poor. First full season we had trouble scoring before Bruno, but we at least showed some fight in most games.

Players have looked like they have lost all faith
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We have had sustain run of poor form every season since Ole took over. He was literally about to get sacked every time then suddenly start his run of great form out of nowhere.
 
I don't think we are worse than last season, if people can recall what happened against Spurs and the initial few weeks. Apart from League Cup progress, we are more or less than same. The problem is that, there is no more excuse on COVID, after substantial investment, including the recruitment of a set-piece coach, we have not progress, or at least returning to normal pacing, while Liverpool, City and Chelsea have.
 
Well for starters, we continue to play out from the back depsite being the worst team i've ever seen to do it, our defenders literally have NFI what they're doing when in possession. Doesn't help also that just about the whole squad at once is out of form.

Did Ronaldo's signing hurt us rather than improve us? i don't think so, he's not the problem, it's Ole which is the main problem with why we're playing so badly at the moment.
 
Flytan said:
But we weren't getting a CDM. If wasn't a choice between Ronaldo or a CDM. It was Ronaldo or nothing. I agree he creates some problems tactically but with a remotely decent manager we could use him well, albeit not in every situation. We weren't linked with anyone after Sancho and varane. Our window was done there if we didn't sign Ronaldo anyways. And with how lost Sancho is its like he was a panic buy anyways. The manager has no clue how to utilize him despite wanting him for two years
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It is definitely weird to pursue a top player for two years and then seemingly have no use for him after he arrives. But we should perhaps consider the possibility that the lack of a plan for Sancho has something to do with having had to rejig everything around Ronaldo? But it's hard to tell, of course.
 
Laurencio said:
Yes I meant reactive, not sure how I mixed those two up. You make solid arguments here, and it is possible that I've weighted certain performances too much in my evaluation of the style. It's been a shit few weeks, and its hard to maintain perspective to be honest. Liverpool was depressing as hell. I do want to note however that by defensive I do not mean direct - I consider those to be two separate tactical elements and I certainly agree that we were far more direct pre-Bruno. You make a good point about the high press though.

I do believe Ole wants to play an attacking style, he's made no secret about that, and it is possible that we are trying to play an attacking type of football but that we're simply not very good at it. We're really not good enough at controlling midfield and forcing the opposition into mistakes, but I guess that can be due to personell more than a tactical style - either way I agree completely that we are dysfunctional. That McFred midfield is also infuriating, not rigid enough for a defensive system and not creative enough for an attacking one.
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Amen to that. Bolded part especially. I'm hoping they've spent this week doing one of two things - either relentlessly drilling the press, or relentlessly drilling a new formation.
 
Lentwood said:
I agree that we haven't controlled games or been able to sustain attacks, but I maintain that's not for lack of trying. As you say, I think it's more that Ole has been very niave, and he seems to think you can control games just by asking players to press and hold higher positions.

Think back to last season, we got hammered 1-6 by Spurs. The entire team was written off, Maguire and Shaw were written-off, in fact, if you look back at the goals we conceded that day, some of them are almost identical. Plus, Bruno should have put us 1-0 up, just for an added (irrelevant) parallel!

Now, I maintain, that hammering was the result again of Ole trying to force us higher up the pitch and make us more aggressive. Again, he failed miserably, and abandoned the plan quickly. I think he thought just adding Varane would change everything overnight. Ridiculous really, more naive than I even thought possible.
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There's an element of truth to that, although I think you'd also have to consider the special circumstances of that time (lack of pre-season), and also the fact we played with 10 men for most of the game. But it's true that that game seems to have induced Ole to switch to a more control-oriented posture.
 
18/19 (2nd half of the season post Jose sacking):
After a good start and briefly looking like we would finish in the top 4, Ole got found out by managers in the league. Last 9 league games, won 2 and lost 5.

19/20
Terrible start. First 24 games, won 9, lost 8.
Signed Bruno, went on a run in empty stadiums without the pressure or possibility of winning anything.
Bottled semi-finals in multiple competitions.

20/21
Bad start but recovered well (again in empty stadiums). Top in January. Then bottled it and finished 12 points behind City.
Lost Europa League final by being chicken sh*t against the mighty Villareal.

21/22
Bought Varane, Sancho, Ronaldo. Doesn't know how to use two of them. Spanked 0-5 by Liverpool at OT. 8 points behind league leaders and it is not November yet.

So, basically, it hasn't really gone south this season. These wild swings in form is the norm under Ole. If given the chance, he might recover and finish in the top 4.
But he will never win any major honor for the club.
 
passtheball said:
18/19 (2nd half of the season post Jose sacking):
After a good start and briefly looking like we would finish in the top 4, Ole got found out by managers in the league. Last 9 league games, won 2 and lost 5.

19/20
Terrible start. First 24 games, won 9, lost 8.
Signed Bruno, went on a run in empty stadiums without the pressure or possibility of winning anything.
Bottled semi-finals in multiple competitions.

20/21
Bad start but recovered well (again in empty stadiums). Top in January. Then bottled it and finished 12 points behind City.
Lost Europa League final by being chicken sh*t against the mighty Villareal.

21/22
Bought Varane, Sancho, Ronaldo. Doesn't know how to use two of them. Spanked 0-5 by Liverpool at OT. 8 points behind league leaders and it is not November yet.

So, basically, it hasn't really gone south this season. These wild swings in form is the norm under Ole. If given the chance, he might recover and finish in the top 4.
But he will never win any major honor for the club.
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"Wild swings in form" is just a lazy, simplistic narrative to which far too many people have been prone. As if instability was somehow built into OGS management style, or it made sense to breezily assume that this observed result mirrors the same unidentified underlying shortcoming in the management.

It would make considerably more sense to look at the reasons for each of these patches. In his caretaker season, you could certainly argue that after a bit opposing teams got the hang of how United was playing and evolved countermeasures. But it was also a factor that the team was hith a rash of injuries at exactly that time, and also that the lack of conditioning started to take its toll on a style that demanded a very high work rate.

The subsequent season, there was every reason to expect the sort of instability we witnessed, given how weak the squad was and given further key injuries. Bruno was a brilliant acquisition who gave us exactly the piece we were missing, and the fact we went undefeated after he arrived if anything vindicates the basic soundness of what the team was attemting to implement, as well as the notion that their failure to do so was intimately connected with the shortcomings of the squad. After he arrived, we also quickly evolved stylistically into a team much more capable of controlling games than we had been before, and less reliant on counterattacks.

The weak patch at the beginning of last season obviously owes much to the virtual absence of a proper pre-season. The fact we were shit for the opening three games and then hit an impressive run of form after the following international break points rather more plausibly to that, than an assumption that this was somehow due to management no knowing what they were doing and then suddenly someone figured it out. We were then very good in the PL for a very protracted period - 28 games with only one defeat - although we could not match City, and the feeble end to the CL campaign mars the picture. We then finished the season weakly. In part because of the horror week in which we played 4 games in 8 days, which brought two PL defeats, but not only because of that.

Up to this summer, what that looks like to me was a crisis-ridden team that got an immediate boost out of a change in style and atmosphere that didn't prove sustainable for reasons that are clear and understandable, underwent a reboot the following summer and embarked on a transitional season that was always going to be difficult (I thought myself at the time that 5th place would be a realistic aim), then found itself and clicked stylistically and results-wise when Bruno arrived. A very satisfying journey for such a season. Then developed the following season into a very good team, albeit one still short of real title capacity and still wanting in key moments in big international tournaments. A good growth season.

This is development through clear phases and in the face of different and identifiable contextual factors impacting on results, not "wild instability".

Now, of course, the trajectory sadly seems to have come to an end. There is no question that what we have seen this year represents clear regression, and at worst even collapse. And there are no specific reasons that could account for such a sustained underperformance, that doesn't involve management coming up short in some way as a principal factor. Perhaps that also indicates a need to reassess if progress the last two seasons have been as real as it seemed, jury's still out on that for me. But regardless of that, I don't see a case for the "wild instability" angle. It's just superficial.
 
justsomebloke said:
It is definitely weird to pursue a top player for two years and then seemingly have no use for him after he arrives. But we should perhaps consider the possibility that the lack of a plan for Sancho has something to do with having had to rejig everything around Ronaldo? But it's hard to tell, of course.
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I would agree with that if ole wasn't constantly playing Ronaldo and greenwood despite it being obvious that they don't work well on the pitch yet. We bought Sancho to play rw and he doesn't play there despite two players not inteteracting well at all
 
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