Those wins assured us of two things; Ole has brought himself time and it proves the squad is fully behind him. The players would have been aware that the results were far below expectations and that Ole's job was on the line as a result. In response to that, they produced their best collective performances for several years. It was no coincidence.
Would you sack or keep Ole? (Poll reopened)
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Those wins assured us of two things; Ole has brought himself time and it proves the squad is fully behind him. The players would have been aware that the results were far below expectations and that Ole's job was on the line as a result. In response to that, they produced their best collective performances for several years. It was no coincidence.
I get the optimism & I hope he does do really really well here & get us to challenge again & win things.
I really feel though that there’s much better managers out there that’s all.
Also if the team are so behind him etc then what on Earth were they doing at the many many awful performances & results then..trying to get him sacked?
I see you are playing down the importance of these two games to make your point seems more valid. We beat the shit out of Spurs under Mourinho and Shitty under Pep FFS.
Honestly I'd rather lose against Sheffield, Bournemouth, West Ham but teach those Shitty that Manchester is Red than the other way around.
I dont mean to play it down. They were great performances & results against 2 teams I thought we had no chance against.
But being a big team & the biggest club in England shouldn’t mean we’re happy just to raise our game against rivals. If we want to be in the European Cup & being actual contenders again we need to do much much better & I still don’t think Ole is the best man for the job to take us to the top
I don't think Ole will take us to title winning status, but I really want to believe he can be a good transitional manager. I'm hopeful, but there's still a lot needing to be improved.
2 years from now, when Klopp is pulling his hair out and spitting in anger, unable to understand why teams set up so defensive against him, whilst the blue side of Manchester finally get their wish as the Pep Guardiola is my idol is finally sacked after being 10th in the table after scrapping top 4 the season before.
Meanwhile, a humble, smiling, baby faced tactician sits proudly at the helm of the Theatre of Dreams, charging a young and exicting United team to there first league title in almost 10 years after humbly collecting Uniteds second Europa trophy and maintaining a second successive season of champions league knockout football.
Then, we can look back at this thread fondly and all agree, United are special in DNA. Finally finding the right man with the right philosophy and applying a technique that seemed to be forbidden within the football community in present day..... Patience.
Meanwhile, a humble, smiling, baby faced tactician sits proudly at the helm of the Theatre of Dreams, charging a young and exicting United team to there first league title in almost 10 years after humbly collecting Uniteds second Europa trophy and maintaining a second successive season of champions league knockout football.
Then, we can look back at this thread fondly and all agree, United are special in DNA. Finally finding the right man with the right philosophy and applying a technique that seemed to be forbidden within the football community in present day..... Patience.
Oh my God
Please don't be offended but I just can't stop laughing after reading this
No offence. Not sure what you find funny and if that easily amused good luck to you.
Ok my bad.
I assume that you mean beating the smaller teams.
To beat the smaller teams with low defend line or even park the bus on a regular basis is basically impossible with our current attack imo. You can't do that with Lingard, Pereira or Mata as your main creative drive.
Let Ole bring in some midfielders or at least have Pogba back (and his head) then judge him I think.
Could you look into the PL table for the last ten years and tell me which not-a-good-team that ever made top 4 please?
PL is the hardest league in the world and to get into the top 4 you must have a good team. Bad teams will usually got relegated. Mediocre teams will be happy with just staying in the PL. Not good enough teams will play in the Europa League instead of CL next year (like us now).
Maybe your definition of a good team is just too high?
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Great week but for me this is just more data to analyze at the end of the year. You get three points for beating city - same as watford and at the end of the day it’s all about the point total. If we cannot get the points from mid table and lower table teams consistently then it’s not good enough.
It's really really not just about the point total, not for me anyway. I want to see a style, I want to be entertained, I want good football. Of course I want us to win and get points, but an identity is just as important for me.
We have a clear identity which is sit back, defend and counter attack using our pacy forwards.
Unfortunately this doesn't work against teams that 'park the bus' so we look a bit clueless against them.
I'd have us switching play a lot more than we currently do. Part of our issue against the smaller teams who defend deeep is we play in front of them with no real speed or attacking impetus. Our wide players should be going wide a lot more than they currently do and pull defenders out of position. We are a dream to defend against because we rarely do these things. This comes down to coaching, Solksjaer needs to instruct his players to make the pitch as wide as possible to leave spaces for the pace of our front three to run into. The reason we are better in the big games is that these teams naturally leave us space to run into as we concede possession for the majority of game.
The excuse of he doesn't have the players to implement a consistent, attacking style is bullshit. The coaches job is to make the squad play greater than the sum of its parts and over his 12 months in charge he's not shown he can do this consistently. The anomaly of his run was his first 10 games and looks more and more like it was simply the new manager effect.
Solksjaer has always claimed he had money available to make signings but he was happy with his squad. That then changed to him stating he didn't want to spend money on the "wrong signings" when it was clear the squad he chose to go into the season with was woefully thin. Nothing has suggested he was blocked in the market, in fact our moves for Dybala suggest the board were more than happy to sanction another big money move. We all agree Woodward is poor and needs to leave footballing decisions to people with real knowledge but one thing I wont accuse him of is not backing his managers (Jose's last season aside). We have spent poorly for the most part but we are being very active in the transfer market under Woodward.
I have conceded he's got the team to perform admirably in the last two games, but a lot if us havent really been concerned with our performances in the big games. We need to show we can perform like this more often than the 6-8 games a season.
For all the talk of his attacking mentality, our football has been dour in 90% of matches. Even with sub par players we should be seeing green shoots of progression. We still look no fitter than we did 12 months a go, despite all the talk of how much Solksjaer prioritises it. Injuries are as high as ever so training and game management need to be questioned.
Your top red analysis was simply to dismiss anyone with an opposing view as tactically naive and act like you're pirivy to some secret knowledge that makes your opinion more important than anyone elses. The narrative that people that disagree Ole is doing a good job and don't want to see him succeed is incredibly top reddy too. Ultimately we all want the Club to succeed and to lose all objectivity because of the history and allegiance to the manager could cost the club long term. A lot of the defence of Solksjaer is clearly emotionally charged and the ludicrous comparisons to Fergie's early years compound this further.
I'm sure the 51% of posters who have voted for him to be sacked would love to eat humble pie and see him make us a dominant force against, but rose tinted glasses aside we havent improved in his tenure and we actually look poorer in many respects. He talks a good game, in fact he talks exactly like we would in that position, and I'm sure in his heart of hearts he means everything he says, but this is a result based business. You can't just admire the view while the ship sinks.
Doesn't really do it for me if our supposed identify is completely useless against the majority of the teams we'll face.
This is kind of post that we mocked RAWK over for years.
That must be a troll, surely?
Nonsense revisionism. Our big game record especially away from home was abysmal under Jose. Actually we were quite adept at beating smaller teams under Jose especially in his second season. Ole's record against smaller teams shouldn't worry us as much as his record against the big teams should impress us. That will come with time, experience and more recruitment.
'Battered Pool' - 6 shots all game in a 2-1 win against 10 men for 45 mins.
First few games of 2nd season? Two tumescent 1-0s against Spurs and Villa, a 0-0 with Newcastle, a 2-1 loss to Swansea and a 3-1 win against a soon to be sacked Rodgers.
If you say so.
Excellent post. Agree completely, especially the part about wanting to eat humble pie. I'd much rather be wrong than see United fall further because of some irrational emotional attachment.
And this sort of mockery over supporters trying to bring optimism back to the forums that are over run with some over the top criticism, is what breeds the current culture of no patience, jumping on bandwagons, criticising without sufficient knowledge. I apologise for deep down, believing the club and Ole are on the right track forward, whilst enjoying the positives I have taken from his leadership.
But by all means, continue on with you negativity and posts with no substance except a quick jibe. I would rather stay on the positive side of the fence, so keep me out your negativity my guy.
Bravo my man! Bravo!
I’ll take your points in reverse.
The ship was sinking well before he came on board. Did you notice? He’s bailing water, and more importantly, he has a strategy. No issues with you pointing out his positivity. It’s what we need. The signings brought in are areas that desperately needed to be addressed: defence. You just need to look at our GA last year to see that was our biggest area of need.
The Top Red accusation: we all want what is best for the team. I do think that the Ole Out group lacks a bit of perspective and their go to comeback is “results”. Except when it doesn’t suit them. I think the Ole Out group doesn’t understand how difficult it is to turn around a club when the squad is subpar. If you think the squad is good enough to challenge for a title, then there is no point debating.
Regarding the signings... Ole can quickly see the downside of complaining that there haven’t been enough signings. First, he alienates his current players. Secondly, he makes the board and his acquisitions team look bad. Thirdly, he makes his current signings look bad and undermines confidence. There is very little upside, other than to make himself look better. If you believe he felt he had all the signings needed to reach the top 4, I feel for you, because that’s pretty naive. It was widely reported that Dybala didn’t want to join us, so...
Regarding tactics. A bit of a cop out to say it’s just bullshit that he can’t get them to attack more successfully with no consideration to squad quality. How far do we take this? Should Zidane be able to win CL with the Real Mardrid reserves? Does Pep win the league with 13 year olds? You are on shaky ground here.
Tactics. While switching play is useful on overloads, it doesn’t work great if the opposing team is playing a 4-4-2 with two banks of 4. Rashford is playing as an inverted winger, and since he’s our most prolific scoring forward, and a good finisher, you don’t really want him on the wing, but rather in the box. You need a creator in the 10 (we don’t have) Or a creator / winger that can put in quality balls into the box. The difference between us and City is that Silva and Bernardo are constantly working the wings and causing overloads. Mata and Lingard are not good enough to pull defenders out.
Emotional? Ole has produced the most exciting football since SAF. Moyes was dire, LvG was dire, Jose was good at the peaks, but once he started losing, he shut up shop and took no chances. It’s emotional to be swayed by the week to week results.
Sack, If Liverpool lose 7 games in a row and United win all theirs they will still be behind Liverpool, Unforgivable after 16 games.
The irony.
The rest of your post is drivel.
If we ignore what the manager is actually saying and how he's performing we lose objectivity. It is a fact that Ole stated he was happy with his squad, and with his minimum expectation to reach top four he must have thought at the start of August that we would be fine with what we have. Whether Dybala wanted to join us or not is moot, we were still willing to part with a significant amount of cash to secure him. Reports also said we bid for Eriksen late in the window too. Your argument falls down when the boss himself was happy with what he had. If he was insincere he should have either pushed harder for players or persued alternatives (we'll never get all our main targets, especially while we're out of Europe) or if as you seem to insinuating and he was restricted by a relatively small budget, he shouldn't have blown the lot on the area of the pitch we needed reinforcements the least.
A good manager should be able to make a team as good as the sum of its parts, not sure what your point was about Pep managing 13 year olds. A manager manages to the level he is working at, in this case PL, not a youth league. Ole seems to struggle to consistently coach and implement a tactical style based on his time in England. We're seeing newly promoted teams play more cohesively than we are, whether they are dealing with injuries or missing players. The evidence is available for all to see based on the majority of games. While its nice to sit there and tell us the plan is coming together after two wins, where was this bullishness 3 weeks a go? A lot of us need to see a sustained period of good results before we get giddy.
The state of the squad is in a worse state than it was last year. I agree Sanchez needed to go, but Solksjaer's decision to marginalize Lukaku seems to be very short sighted. While he was never going to be the main man for us he undoubtedly offered a proper goal threat and even a plan B. If the manager is such a great motivator he should have been able to convince Lukaku he was important to squad and would still get valuable playing time. The much maligned Fellaini would have at least provided better cover in midfield, and whether he was good on the eye or not, he always gave 100% and popped up with the occasional goal. I do believe the damage was done regarding Herrera before Solksjaer arrived so I don't blame him for that one, but he certainly should have bought cover in midfield after losing two experienced PL midfielders.
Taking a emotion out of it, Solksjaer has not been good enough. While he's talking a big game he really needs to start backing it up on the pitch. Two swallows does not make a summer, so let's give it until end of January and see if his plan still looks like it's coming together.
Ole cleared out the players who didn't fit the style he wanted to implement, or who had attitude issues, or who were not committed or good enough. Having Lukaku would be a backward step for Ole given his price tag and being on the bench most of the time. The board would not endorse a player of Lukaku's value to sit on the bench. Fellaini was not quick enough with his feet, and had to go. Selling Herrera was a mistake, but it was probably out of Ole's control.
Whatever you think of Ole, we are fifth and only five points off fourth, and this is amazing with the squad we've had to work with this season and injuries etc. The defence is massively improved, and players like Mctominay and Fred are coming good. James has done well, and Rashford is on fire. Add Pogba and we could be in the top 4 by new years day.
An entertaining 30 mins yes. But realistically the majority of the times City with a full squad come back and score 3-4 in the other 60 mins. There’s parking the bus and being in control, best example I can think of is SF vs Barcelona and there’s parking the bus and getting a bit lucky for various reasons.
He needs to learn a different tactic than just counter. Build a defense and kick the ball forward to superquick front players isnt rocket science.
Well we let Rashford loose on the teams that park the bus..He will always win a penalty and we score - we win. We don't score we draw. Simples.
Also Pogba back will help against them teams now that we have a bit of swagger back.
The arrogance in the post is unreal.
So being so tactically savvy has allowed you to ignore all the times Ole has been tactically wrong. These two games have been very encouraging, but let's not pretend that Ole is now some tactical genius. It's quite clear that his strengths lie in man management and not my outsmarting his opponents. His main tactic is simply to absorb pressure and hit fast and incisive counters, you don't need to be nostradamus to see that.
You harp on about him not having the right players for the job, but he chose to go into this season with this squad. You can claim hes been stitched up by Woodward but that's pure conjecture. If he had budget constraints he simply shouldn't have blown his budget on the defence when, RB aside, it wasn't the weakest part of our squad.
Despite your best top red impression, it does not make you a better supporter because you claim to see something many others are not seeing. Every single person on here wants what's best for the club, even if that means recognising our romantic idea of a club legend leading back to glory isn't working.
The arrogance In this post is even worse. He shipped out Fellaini,Lukaku,Sanchez, Smalling.All very crucial for our future spine to get time. I wonder what would have satisfied you given the situation that we were in. I mean we had the best tactician and what happened?? Tell me, why you chose to ignore the fact that Ole actually know a thing or two about football? You’re just a spoiled brat who can’t appreciate what Ole’s doing because in your dream world, we would hire Pochettino or Allegri right now, break the bank on top players in January and go straight back up to top! Right?
Thats why I thought Jose would have been perfect for that post-Fergie squad. Not with the ensalada squad he had. Life they say is about timing.
All the people involved in this discussion wants OGS to succeed and bring us back to our best. The people labelled Ole Out, myself included, wants him to succeed almost as much as people labelled Ole In.
There is not much one can judge OGS on and thus it makes for a relatively small foundation to give a verdict regarding his (and the rest of the coaches) suitability/competence/probability for bringing us back to the top.
Still, there are two intertwined elements that he can be judged on.
1. His assumed prefered style of play: Absorb pressure and counter (AKA Park the bus and counter). This is how we have played in the majority of our matches, and it seems likely that this is his main approach to how to play football. This assumption is also backed by the type of players he brought in. One big uncertainty here is the dilemma between "we play this way because of the players we have available" or "we play this way because this is the way we want to play regardless of players available".
Will this type of football make us competitive in the long run? Against better teams willing or interested to own the ball, this approach will be effective, as it has shown itself to be. But what about the 40 other matches we play during the season? Winning those games gives us as many points as winning the big games at the end of the day.
If you think that this type of football will make us competitive, then you should support OGS. If you think that it will not and that being able to control games through possession and try to develop a playbook on how to break down a "parked bus" is what will bring us success, then you should want a new manager.
2. The players brought in: This is tied up with 1. and the player's suitability for a presumed successful style of play. There are also some uncertainties to take into consideration here like "who decides the transfers", "Did OGS get who he wanted", "is he really satisfied with the squad", "what is the reason we did not replace Lukaku or buy any midfielders" etc.
What your opinions are regarding our recruitment and transfers this summer, and who at the club is responsible for this and that should influence your opinion on OGS. My opinion is that OGS most likely knew that he had a limited budget available and thus is the one to ultimately blame for deciding to spend that amount on defence despite having some bigger needs in midfield, but it should be said that I do not completely disregard the possibility that he was let down by certain people at the club.
Ultimately, my reasoning for why we should sack him is based on the style he wants ( i assume) us to play, and I can't see us being successful long term with this approach to football. And if he continues to increase the number of players in the squad, during this rebuild, that are not suited to play possessionbased and technical attacking football, then the longer it will take for the next coach to make the necassarily changes in the squad to play this type of football.
There is not much one can judge OGS on and thus it makes for a relatively small foundation to give a verdict regarding his (and the rest of the coaches) suitability/competence/probability for bringing us back to the top.
Still, there are two intertwined elements that he can be judged on.
1. His assumed prefered style of play: Absorb pressure and counter (AKA Park the bus and counter). This is how we have played in the majority of our matches, and it seems likely that this is his main approach to how to play football. This assumption is also backed by the type of players he brought in. One big uncertainty here is the dilemma between "we play this way because of the players we have available" or "we play this way because this is the way we want to play regardless of players available".
Will this type of football make us competitive in the long run? Against better teams willing or interested to own the ball, this approach will be effective, as it has shown itself to be. But what about the 40 other matches we play during the season? Winning those games gives us as many points as winning the big games at the end of the day.
If you think that this type of football will make us competitive, then you should support OGS. If you think that it will not and that being able to control games through possession and try to develop a playbook on how to break down a "parked bus" is what will bring us success, then you should want a new manager.
2. The players brought in: This is tied up with 1. and the player's suitability for a presumed successful style of play. There are also some uncertainties to take into consideration here like "who decides the transfers", "Did OGS get who he wanted", "is he really satisfied with the squad", "what is the reason we did not replace Lukaku or buy any midfielders" etc.
What your opinions are regarding our recruitment and transfers this summer, and who at the club is responsible for this and that should influence your opinion on OGS. My opinion is that OGS most likely knew that he had a limited budget available and thus is the one to ultimately blame for deciding to spend that amount on defence despite having some bigger needs in midfield, but it should be said that I do not completely disregard the possibility that he was let down by certain people at the club.
Ultimately, my reasoning for why we should sack him is based on the style he wants ( i assume) us to play, and I can't see us being successful long term with this approach to football. And if he continues to increase the number of players in the squad, during this rebuild, that are not suited to play possessionbased and technical attacking football, then the longer it will take for the next coach to make the necassarily changes in the squad to play this type of football.
excitement is an emotion hehe
Jose started out poorly in big games in his first half of his stay. In his final half or so he had a good record. That's a shallow aspect of the post because the point would stand even if I deleted that part.
The thrust is that our problems in small games are tactical and aren't even half guaranteed to get better because that's one of the toughest areas to improve in management. Ole has to level up that aspect quick and fast to add more facets to his tactical ideology beyond direct play. It's not just spending another 100m to start beating Southamptons of the world. This isn't fifa manager, the game is now about the Xs and Os
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(Point being is that we pick slithers of the game and criticise it when there is a more complex picture going on behind the scenes.)
You'll be waiting a long time if you want us to hire a Manager to get us back in the European Cup again
If we finish top four keep if we don't sack. Easiest way to assess the success of his managerial tenure.
Indeed. I've pointed this out fairly recently in a different thread.
It's also ridiculous to say Ole is doing worse than Moyes when if you look at total points, goals scored etc they're pretty much identical. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for Ole but at least he's capable of dispatching the best sides, something Moyes was incapable on (in fact we often got spanked by the best teams).
As for United, our form has got significantly better since Martial returned from injury (something I predicted). I mean no shit we were struggling before then as Rashford was our only goal threat. A point I keep raising and keeps getting ignored by posters who had made their mind up with Ole way back last season. It's laughable for some to suggest there hasn't been any signs of improvement when results, goals scored etc all point to a clear improvement.
There are two decent arguments against Ole in my opinion.
1 - We play on the counter and struggle against teams that sit back. I think thats due to us missing a technical creator in midfield who can find the runs of Martial/James/Rashford. Pogba would be the man to fill this void but he's been struck down by an illness with no cure it seems.
2 - His in game management at times is bad. Don't think you can really dispute this one, he's cost us points with some odd decisions. Lack of quality squad depth might be part of the problem here but I would prefer us to get in a tactical coach to help Ole with this weakness.
I call bullshit on this, there are some Ole Out fans (not all of them obviously) that are either lashing out because their precious Jose got sacked or Pochettino fan boys who are wetting themselves at the prospect of him managing us. Its this weird addition in modern football where some fans seem to prefer Managers or specific players over their support for the club.
Napoli have sacked Ancelotti... I know their 7th in the league but he just got them through to the CL ko stages. Anyone who follows serie A have any idea what was going on there?
Update. Not won league game in 9 matches. Also probably reason for vindictive nature of sacking is due to dispute between him and players versus the owner.
Update. Not won league game in 9 matches. Also probably reason for vindictive nature of sacking is due to dispute between him and players versus the owner.
Considering that some of the people on here are completely unable to be objective regarding an issue, you might have a point. Then again, the same could be said about the Ole In people as well where there are some fans that wear some fairly redthinted glasses and are equally unable to be objective regarding an issue.
I disagree. There are only 3 games in the league where we failed to score (West Ham, Newcastle and Bournemouth). Those were shite games no doubt, but even then we created some big chances that we should have put away. The main problem has been that when we go 1 goal up (which we have) we fail to capitalize on it and instead of going two up we end up drawing instead.
With Pogba being our for so long, we also lack a threat from central areas as no of our other midfielder or #10's have that ability. So we are constantly looking to create from out wide which means the opponent can just flood their box and defend with two people out wide. Villa and Sheffield for example did in no shape or form sit back and park the bus, but having Scott out hurt us badly since Pereira and Fred did not work out in CM
Tactics play a part yes, but i would say lack of tactical options (players with different skills) and mentality plays a bigger part. We seem to struggle to stay focused for the entire match and that has cost us a lot of points this season
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