We do need more players though. The squad is better than 10th, but not by much really. I think many of our players get vastly overrated just because they play for Man Utd. Just look how our academy players get hyped to no end and when they actually has to take the step up to the first team they fail badly. Our midfield especially is a fecking disaster zone. With Pogba out we have exactly one competent midfielder and hes only 22, he should not be a regular at CM at that age.
Take Leicester for example that people love to use as a comparison as a "small club". Tieleman, Maddison, Albrighton, Mendy and Ndidi would walk into our MF and improve us immensely. So no matter who is in charge, we do need 3-4 windows and billions of pounds because the squad was and still is in a dire state
And i firmly believe ending up 10th with Ole and sacking him in May would be much wiser than sacking him now, because the pressure on whoever takes over will be much less and he will know he is at least afforded some time to implement his ideas as well. Remember Klopps two first seasons in Liverpool? There were Klopp sack watches on here and we were all having a grand old time laughing at him and how much of a failure he apparently was. And no, i am not comparing Ole with Klopp as the latter is clearly a world class manager, but sacking him now would be a really bad idea imo. And even though the squad Klopp inherited was pretty mediocre, he could at least field a team that had actual fullbacks at FB and actual midfielders at midfield, not 34yo wingers at LB and non footballer like Lindgaard, Fred and Pereira at MF.
As i've said. Sack him now and the pressure on the next manager will be unreal. It will also send the wrong signals to the players. There have been numerous threads on here about questionable attitudes and weak mentalities among the players, so that would basically tell them they are in no way responsible for their own sub par performances, its all the managers fault
We do need more players, however:
1. There is no guarantee the new players will be successful buys. Even the best managers of all time have 50-50 rate when it comes transfers.
2. He can't coach the new players, nor bring in successful strategy based on what we have seen and on his track record.
3. There seems to be no plan B on the transfer market as well. For every top target we fail to identify a replacement and there is no chance all of our top targets agree to come and also be allowed to leave at a right price.
No doubt our academy grads are overrated, but that's also down on Ole starting the season like this and pinning our hopes on a long hard season with such an underwhelming midfield line and also backups.
As for Leicester - Tielemans was available at a very good price, we didn't entertain that. Mendi, Söyüncü, Ndidi - all excellent prospects were available at very good price at the time and there are many players that would be open to come and that would cost significantly less than Maddison and Maguire types - yet this doesn't seem to be our transfer strategy nor aligned with our "core values" and "United way".
Leicester have bought smart but were also very average under Puel and only when they got a very good manager in their results and overall game began improving. We also took one of their best players this Summer, who they replaced with a youngster and still look a ton lot better than us.
When the results aren't improving and our game also isn't improving you need to sack the manager. It's what every other club literally does. In terms of pressure - there absolutely have to have one. We're a big club and there is always pressure, if you can't handle it and you are the manager then you are not good enough, simple as.
Again, Klopp is not a valid example. Klopp was one of the best managers around and he came with those credentials. Klopp changed the way they played and that was visible from day one.
Compare it to Ole - we play significantly worse than under any other manager we had post Fergie and his results are significantly worse.
When the new manager comes in and if those players are not performing, he would show them the door. But the biggest difference to novice manager like Ole, is that most probably he will replace them.