Would Ole have succeeded with a proper football structure?

Sir Erik ten Hag

Full Member
Joined
May 21, 2022
Messages
1,525
Everyone goes on about how the weak structure of our football club hampers the manager. A proper DOF and structure may have prevented the Ronaldo signing and gotten new midfielders for Ole instead.

In that case his tenure may have turned out differently?
 
Ole did OK 1st season but failed completely in 2nd (1st few months). Do you think a new structure would have prevented his failure?

Even ETH cannot blame the structure, because he did operate under a DOF structure under his rein, and the Club did invest considerable sum per his request.
 
He wouldn’t have even been on a 50 page long shortlist of managers for the job if we had proper footballing people making these decisions, just like we wouldn’t have hired Moyes or go from one completely different manager to the other like Van Gaal to Mourinho.
 
Proper structure meaning, hire the best coaches and tactitians to surround him? Given the man was loath to actually go out and train the players?
 
I believe that in a proper football structure, you don't necessarily need the best coach but the right one, so I wouldn't rule him out theoretically. In practical terms, of course he wouldn't have been successful partly because as someone mentioned here, he left the coaching to others. And coaching is something you'd expect him to do in that sort of structure.
 
No proper football structure can accommodate a figurehead whose only job is to talk in press conference and stare at his iPad at the games.
 
He was never good enough. This structure thing although important is starting to get really overrated among United fans, to the point it has become an excuse for everything. Recently saw somebody say Howe has been successful because he had proper, stable structure behind him.
 
Ole needed two proper CM's. If they'd had been added when things were going well it would have been interesting to see how far he could take us.

But he shouldn't have needed a structure to know that. The average fan knew it.
 
Maybe he can manage Brighton or Villa next and take them to glory
 
cyril C said:
Ole did OK 1st season but failed completely in 2nd (1st few months). Do you think a new structure would have prevented his failure?

Even ETH cannot blame the structure, because he did operate under a DOF structure under his rein, and the Club did invest considerable sum per his request.
Click to expand...
I know you put 1st few months in brackets. But finishing 3rd that season and 2nd the next playing decent football wasn't a failure. It was the best football we played since Fergie
 
No because he isn’t a good manager unfortunately. As much as I wish he was, he didn’t seemingly do enough on the training ground to impose whatever style he wanted.

If their was a proper structure in place we wouldn’t have hired Moyes and nosedived since then
 
No!

Whats with all the daft questions on here lately?

If you want an idea how to be successful simply look around Europe at how the successful clubs operate. It's not rocket science and it doesn't include hiring a mediocre manager from Cardiff and Molde
 
This is going to be an unpopular opinion, I don't think Ole was the clown most made out.

Yes, he ultimately wasn't up to the job of managing United but plenty of managers have achieved less than him at the same club and not been essentially black listed like he has.
 
Well, if he managed 2nd with our shambles of a structure, if he had the proper structure behind him, whose to say he wouldn't have gone that one step further.
 
Very hard to say. He could conjure up goals and comebacks to a degree even better managers than him couldn't, but the overall play wasn't very nice. I don't think that he could ever be very hands-on like Pep and Klopp, but I also don't think that this is necessary for success.

So yeah this is all very hypothetical. There are probably plenty of managers out there who never amounted to much who could have been successful under the right circumstances. Ole may or may not be one of them.
 
He would have won the title and the Champions league....no doubt about it.
 
He’d have had a better chance for sure.

Though he may never have been manager either.

If we had a proper footballing structure we’d sign a certain type of player to play a certain type of football and hire managers who fit with that.

Our conundrum is no manager appointed here at the moment can ever hit the ground running because theres about 5 players in the squad that they inherit that are any use to them yet they are expected to achieve almost instant results.

And i dont think managers in this day and age should be responsible for transfers as they are always going to end up signing obvious names or players they already know which will bypass any value in the market
 
Marwood said:
Ole needed two proper CM's. If they'd had been added when things were going well it would have been interesting to see how far he could take us.

But he shouldn't have needed a structure to know that. The average fan knew it.
Click to expand...

It's amazing that your average fan can see such a glaring hole and the people at the club can't see how to fix it. It's been a huge problem for over 10 years, even before SAF retired the midfield was being held together by Carrick.
 
All of our managers would have performed better if it wasn’t for the neglect above, Ole included.
 
Ole wasn't as bad as some make out, but he also wasn't good enough to be a success longer term. It wasn't just the transfers in and out of the club that were the issue, it was also the tactics and coaching. His one big strength seemed to be man-management, but even that seemed to only be a short-term lift rather than a longer-term development of a good mentality.

The thing I hold against Ole more than other is that when he joined we still had quite a lot of younger players with high potential, exactly the type of players that need the right type of coaching and man-management to take the next step up. By the time Ole left, those players were now in the middle or later parts of their career and hadn't really improved at all. Most of them had had their best ever performances in their first season under Ole when he came in and cut out the toxic atmosphere that Mourinho had left behind, but then instead of improving further they just got worse and worse as time wore on. That five and a half years at the most important stage of their career of Mourinho followed by Ole just did a number on them and gave them little chance of proper development. A number of them also became quite injury prone during that period, and it could be argued that Ole relying on them to play while they had injuries contributed to their long-term physical decline.
 
Does every big team in the world have a ‘proper structure’? Genuinely interested to know.
 
Maybe. Reportedly he wanted to switch to a 433 as main formation which would likely have given what he wanted - more control and less chaotic games. As mentioned before here that would have required proper CMs, instead Ronaldo came in. Who can work great in a 433, but if signing him means there is no money left to fix the midfield you will fail.

Considering that McKenna and Carrick seem to do well I don't think that the actual training was that bad (but I also don't think it was excellent), so probably the coaching setup was at least acceptable.

I think his biggest failure was that he had an idea but just failed to identify the right players, and that's something a good DOF and scouting department could definitely have helped him. Ronaldo was an issue, the Sancho saga was weird, such things should have been prevented.
 
stefan92 said:
Maybe. Reportedly he wanted to switch to a 433 as main formation which would likely have given what he wanted - more control and less chaotic games. As mentioned before here that would have required proper CMs, instead Ronaldo came in. Who can work great in a 433, but if signing him means there is no money left to fix the midfield you will fail.

Considering that McKenna and Carrick seem to do well I don't think that the actual training was that bad (but I also don't think it was excellent), so probably the coaching setup was at least acceptable.

I think his biggest failure was that he had an idea but just failed to identify the right players, and that's something a good DOF and scouting department could definitely have helped him. Ronaldo was an issue, the Sancho saga was weird, such things should have been prevented.
Click to expand...

So what was Solskjaer actually bringing go fbjs structure?

McKenna and Carrick are doing all the coaching, the DOF/"proper structure" is doing all the recruitment am- what the feck is Solskjaer bringing to the table?
 
Depends what you mean by “succeeded”. He didn’t seem particularly willing to learn from his mistakes, so maybe he wouldn’t.

If we’d had a capable DoF who shared Ole’s originally stated vision of front footed high pressing football and brought in the players capable of that rather than the likes of Maguire then surely there’s a good chance that things would have gone better? Phelan’s influence, which I’m not sure was a good thing, would have been less; we wouldn’t have brought in Sancho to play on the right without finding out he preferred the left, mentality issues aside; we wouldn’t have signed Ronaldo.

Zen86 said:
All of our managers would have performed better if it wasn’t for the neglect above, Ole included.
Click to expand...
Yes yes yes! People are so addicted to worshipping/hating individuals these days that they fail to see this.
 
I don't think he even understood that he needed midfielders. In fact this seems to be a common theme among the managers we hire.
 
Skills said:
So what was Solskjaer actually bringing go fbjs structure?

McKenna and Carrick are doing all the coaching, the DOF/"proper structure" is doing all the recruitment am- what the feck is Solskjaer bringing to the table?
Click to expand...
Laying out a plan how to play and man-management. I believe that was his biggest strength and the reason why he had immediate success when he took over.
 
noodlehair said:
I don't think he even understood that he needed midfielders. In fact this seems to be a common theme among the managers we hire.
Click to expand...

To be fair Ten Hag has signed 3 central midfielders in just a single year. 4 if we count Mount.
 
Of course not.

Our poor structure means top level managers level will fail here. But fixing it doesn't mean managers who aren't good enough for the top level will succeed. And Solskjaer has shown nothing in his career to suggest he's a top level manager.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.