He was one missed penalty away from winning us a trophy.
Would Ole have succeeded with a proper football structure?
- Thread starter Sir Erik ten Hag
- Start date
No, he wasn't good enough and it was the lack of structure that allowed someone so inexperienced and unproven to become United manager. You only have to look at the list of big clubs lining up to hire him after he left to see this.
20/21 is our strongest post-Ferguson team. The two teams that come close are the 17/18 and 22/23 iterations, and it's miles ahead of anything LVG and Moyes produced.
The football was way more watchable than last season or any season under José...but he won trophies and Ole didn't and according to a lot of people one-off finals decide the quality of the manager and his team, completely ignoring performances over the other 50+ games that season.
When Dortmund studied our 2-0 win at the Etihad in preparation for their upcoming CL tie vs City, the only 2 words their notes contained were "PE teacher"!
Aye, one finished with a Europa League trophy, a league cup and an 84 point finish, our best since Fergie.
His reign ended on 26 points after with his biggest defeats that season being a 3-0 loss to Spurs and 3-1 loss to Liverpool. (1.52 pts /game)
The other finished with zero trophies and a 74 point finish.
His reign ended on with his biggest defeats being a 5-0 loss to Liverpool & a 4-1 loss to Watford. (1.41 pts /game).
Imagine having such a horrendous standards that a happy face and legendary status makes you think the second did a better job.
How did it go for them?
You are right. Trophies are overrated. Only for ego.
Answer on this topic is a big NO. Solskjaer is atrocious manager who would fail even with having best football structure and unlimited transfer funds. Guy is just championship quality manager. Nothing more and nothing less.
Didn’t Moyes beat leverkeusen 5-0?
Ole was a couple of top CM's away from having a proper team. He shouldn't need a structure around him to know that.
Don't think he was that bad. We played our best football post Fergie under Ole, and we looked to be on the right track. I think Ole failed mainly in building the squad properly. The squad he left was devoid of character, and crumbled completely under pressure. With the right structure above him Ole could've been successful, maybe not Pep successful because I don't think he was an elite manager, but maybe successful enough to put the club on the right path. You could probably say that for all the managers post Fergie. The reason people thought Ole was clueless is because the collapse was horrific, none of the previous managers were humiliated like this, but that was more of a reflection on the type of players we had back then.
If the structure:
1. Helped him to push for Haaland (even for a transfer fee record) and make the signing happen before Dortmund
2. Stopped him from signing Ronaldo (age and dressing room issues) and Sancho (too similar to Mata based on statistics), while finding a decent RW alternative to sign instead
3. Helped him find a CM, maybe Casemiro (?)
Then yeah we could have been a title challenger. That transfer window fecked everything up.
1. Helped him to push for Haaland (even for a transfer fee record) and make the signing happen before Dortmund
2. Stopped him from signing Ronaldo (age and dressing room issues) and Sancho (too similar to Mata based on statistics), while finding a decent RW alternative to sign instead
3. Helped him find a CM, maybe Casemiro (?)
Then yeah we could have been a title challenger. That transfer window fecked everything up.
not for me, our Zlatan/first Pogba season was easily our best football. Proper mentality too.
Shit finishing meant we drew waaaay too many games but we played some really good stuff and looked a genuine threat against anyone.
No surprise it was our most successful season by far also.
You don't score goals, you won't have a chance to be in a position to win anything. All this talk about modern managers etc -- what's the point if you cant score?
Ole has the best record against pep than any manager at United including Fergie.
I'm slowly coming round to the opinion that he'd have succeeded if he hadn't re-signed Ronaldo.
The 'spirit' was better. which translated into commitment, but people go overboard with the beating City. The set-up was basically soak and counter-punch, fairly rudimentary tactics reliant upon City overcommitting and not being able to break down an obstinate deep backline, then a quick transition to split strikers. It's partly his fault that the gap between the two teams in terms of quality was so big. As a comparison, Arsenal under Arteta have been able to go tie to toe with City, even when they lost to them, in ways we haven't been able to do for years in footballing terms, with the exception of the 2nd half last season at OT when we beat them.
Ole had good coaches - McKenna for instance - but we've heard from them that he would essentially have the final say over approaches to games and even what to focus on in training; if he'd kept himself to being a motivator and farmed out the technical and tactical stuff to good assistants, it might have worked better. As it was, despite the fact that he was obviously a smart player, there didn't seem to be much 'reading' of games in-play; Emery (a genuinely skilful coach and in-game manager) schooled him with a comparatively weaker side to take it to penalties. With that difference in quality, in a final, Mourinho (for all his faults) would have ground out the win rather than letting it go to pens: ETH, maybe - the evidence is inconclusive.
He was right early on about Haaland though and it was the height of incompetence and hubris respectively that we didnt sign EH on either occasion (from Molde; then from Salzburg respectively).
Ole had good coaches - McKenna for instance - but we've heard from them that he would essentially have the final say over approaches to games and even what to focus on in training; if he'd kept himself to being a motivator and farmed out the technical and tactical stuff to good assistants, it might have worked better. As it was, despite the fact that he was obviously a smart player, there didn't seem to be much 'reading' of games in-play; Emery (a genuinely skilful coach and in-game manager) schooled him with a comparatively weaker side to take it to penalties. With that difference in quality, in a final, Mourinho (for all his faults) would have ground out the win rather than letting it go to pens: ETH, maybe - the evidence is inconclusive.
He was right early on about Haaland though and it was the height of incompetence and hubris respectively that we didnt sign EH on either occasion (from Molde; then from Salzburg respectively).
The guy in his best United season out scored Mourinho’s best United season by 5 measly goals, though Mourinho stuck 8 more points on the board. Probably because Ole’s team let in fecking 44 goals. Brighton finished 16 and only let in 46
So let’s not make out his team was putting up Klopp or Pep goal scoring numbers here.
In his other full season, Ole managed to outscore the dull feck that was LvG’s first season, by 4 goals.
And actually, our two Dutch managers who have played the most dull football in terms of goals scored, both won a trophy, whilst Ole didn’t so not sure you’re on the right track here.
True. And imagine watching us play now and think we’ve come any further. Based on a league cup. None of the past or present are any messiah. But as a “fan”, he dug himself a hole there, and should stay there..
Ole was aware that he wasn't going to be able to do everything so he had the likes of McKenna do the technical work and have help with the tactics with Carrick. I thought he was too soft with moving players on. The dynamics at the end were shocking. Players were just not performing. Every player was just doing the minimum they could get away with. The manager can be friendly with the players but he needs to be the one with the power.
I think that is a simplistic conclusion. Actually Ole was pretty ruthless moving players on, but still had some way to go building quality. Saying players did bare minimum is simply not true. They where very much fighting the two first years. We could beat any team on the day, and always come back from being behind. There is something wrong at our club, and we have seen it this year also with ETH. Somehow the energy is gone, the tempo is gone and players look like they are doing the bare minimum. But I don’t think either Ole or ETH can be blamed for this. They just has to fix it. Energy circles are pretty complicated. And there are many factors who effect them.
Dunno but would Moyes, LVG or Mourinho succeed under a proper football structure? Ole was known for not being very tactical or come up with plans.
A proper football structure would look at the best coaches and he wasnt one, so no he wouldnt have been considered.
The players loved him so much they stopped running for him in his final months.
Ronaldo definitely helped with that.
He wasn't tactically imept. He was tactically limited. He could set a team up to defend and counter, and it was fine for the odd big game, but we needed to develop something else and that's where we were stuck.
Doesn't matter who the manager was. The collapse was inevitable.
Signing Ronaldo was a mistake, and leaving that midfield to completely lack quality the way it did was also never going to be sustainable.
Signing Ronaldo was a mistake, and leaving that midfield to completely lack quality the way it did was also never going to be sustainable.
Unfortunately, the collapse was too great at the end. However, Ole did produce some excellent football during that lockdown period of 2020. Yes, he had limitations but he took so much criticism as did Carrick and McKenna.
I recall after the Rangnick interim disaster. I listened to an episode of the Manchester Is Red podcast (that represents the Manchester Evening News) and they said our current players had "no coaching for 2-3 years." What a load absolute crap. how they call themselves journalists is beggars belief.
I would have liked Ole to be in charge whilst the process of the investment/sale was occurring. So for example, if Ratcliffe was coming in, Ole would probably not have lasted beyond this season, but he would have been the perfect bridge manager to someone else coming.
So if this was the 20/21 season Ole would have gone in on good terms and by a mutual consensus. But he would have been able to pass on Ratcliffe and Lancaster some knowledge about the clubs shortcomings in how they conduct their transfer business, facilities etc..
INEOS would then have the thoughts of a manager who only wants the club's best interests at heart in addition to their own findings.
I recall after the Rangnick interim disaster. I listened to an episode of the Manchester Is Red podcast (that represents the Manchester Evening News) and they said our current players had "no coaching for 2-3 years." What a load absolute crap. how they call themselves journalists is beggars belief.
I would have liked Ole to be in charge whilst the process of the investment/sale was occurring. So for example, if Ratcliffe was coming in, Ole would probably not have lasted beyond this season, but he would have been the perfect bridge manager to someone else coming.
So if this was the 20/21 season Ole would have gone in on good terms and by a mutual consensus. But he would have been able to pass on Ratcliffe and Lancaster some knowledge about the clubs shortcomings in how they conduct their transfer business, facilities etc..
INEOS would then have the thoughts of a manager who only wants the club's best interests at heart in addition to their own findings.
Things he’ll need to succeed.
- Someone else to handle scouting
- Someone else to handle coaching players
- Someone to motivate players against ‘lesser’ clubs
- Someone to handle fitness training
- Someone to handle discipline in the squad
No. He became out of his depth eventually, and was flailing around like a hobo in a dustbin.
What is "succeed"? Survive and not get fired? Probably could.
Win EPL? No, Ole would never, could never
Win EPL? No, Ole would never, could never
No. If he was remotely good enough he wouldn't have had to wait 2 years to get a managerial offer after getting sacked.
he was only really any good at sitting back against the bigger teams and hitting them on the break
you can't succeed as United manager if that's your wheel-house
you can't succeed as United manager if that's your wheel-house
Really? Source? And how did we manage to beat City 2-0?
That's kind of a myth too. His best season, 20/21, was nothing like this. During that season we did not set up to defend and counter against the top teams, though the cost of that was that we also mostly did not get those big team wins that we got the previous year. But we were in fact very effective against the rest of the league, where we certainly did not play anything remotely like defend and counter. So Ole proved very able to build a team that could dominate if not control games and reliably beat weaker sides who set up to defend, and who could at least usually hold their own against the best opposition, if not beat them (the number of draws we had that season against big clubs..) - without ceding the initiative to the opposition. What he could not was take the next step from that. We'll never know if that was down to his approach, tactically and otherwise, having reached its terminal point, or if the transfer mistakes of that last summer (both what was brought in and what wasn't) killed it.
This tread 
A proper football structure would never have hired ole in the first place.
A proper football structure would never have hired ole in the first place.
If we’re defining success as winning the league then probably not as I can’t see him beating Pep + City resources but I think he would have done a lot better ie, legit title challenge, a couple of trophies.
Exactly.This tread
A proper football structure would never have hired ole in the first place.
Maybe with a good right-hand man and a "proper structure" to run the transfer and scouting side of things, Ole would have done well
Let's be honest here, he won a lottery managing us. Never experience enough to take the helm at Man Utd. His biggest achievement was getting Cardiff relegated. No, Norwegian league doesn't count, it's way below PL level.
Good thing is the other lottery winner is rumoured to be leaving soon, none other than our DoF Murtough.
Good thing is the other lottery winner is rumoured to be leaving soon, none other than our DoF Murtough.
By vibes and luck, what else?