The point is - I suppose - that if you genuinely think that he is tactically clueless, or the worst manager in the top flight (both of which has been claimed on here), you have to presuppose that the squad is actually brimming with individual quality: sit back and let them hit the opponent on the counter (with little or no coaching), and they will deliver against any opponent who leaves a bit of space to be exploited, including some of the best teams in Europe (coached by people who are frequently labeled geniuses on here).
Come up against any team that doesn't accommodate us - and we struggle immensely (in spite of having individual quality sufficient to punish top teams).
Does that make sense?
Not really, I would say. He may turn out to lack the nous, ultimately, to deal with teams of different descriptions (bus parkers, possession demons, gung-ho merchants - the whole spectrum) over the course of a season to a satisfactory degree (at the end of the day, as a United manager, "satisfactory degree" has to mean a proper challenge) - sure.
As it stands, though, he has clearly lacked at least two very important factors for most of the season: 1) a good (enough) midfield (a solid, at least, midfield combination). And 2) a distinct lack of creativity, individual players who are able to unlock defences (you absolutely need this - you can't balance that out, on the highest level, by "coaching" as such: if you don't have that player, or those players, you have to add him - or them - to your squad.)
You can put this on him as the primary decision maker (overrating his options), but the objective view would be that he simply hasn't had the required quality available on the whole, for whatever reason: naivety, Ed failing him in the market, calculated weakness (knew it wasn't great but it will be sorted by and by). But you can't say it has anything to do with an inherent tactical deficiency on his part: you don't overcome either the lack of a good enough midfield (in terms of sheer quality - Matic, Pereira) or the lack of a proper playmaker by "coaching". That would amount to either ignorance - or a downright disingenuous take on it, intentionally ignoring objective factors.
I won't say Ole is tactically clueless, but he is still far behind from other tactical masterclasses and big team managers to say the least. Shaw revealed Ole's philosophy during preseason, if you look deeper you would understand that it is reasonable for fans to question his tactical ability.
The first thing is the emphasis on playing out from the back and possession play. It is true that we see de Gea playing short to the centre backs, but after that we can't comfortably move the ball forward (especially without Pogba) due to a lack of team cohesion. More often than not we have to go long at last, which makes the whole idea meaningless. In the end, I'm pretty sure most of us would agree that we are more threatening on fast break than possession play.
The second emphasis is about pressing. We see Rashford, James run a lot to close down the opponents this season, but how often do we successfully win the possession back up front by high pressing? This is due to a contradiction between Ole's offensive and defensive gameplan. Offensively, Ole allows freedom and encourages players to swap positions. This provides a loophole for the opponents to break our high press as our players have not yet returned to their original position to form a defensive block. A successful high press requires the whole block to press and close down all opponents together, otherwise it's just a waste of energy. That's why the pressing looks better when we play in a more structured setup against bigger sides. Guardiola and Klopp understand this point very well, and you never see City and Liverpool switching wing in the middle of a play.
It's not the league position or point that worry me most, but the progress we have made since Ole's takeover.
The biggest mistake here is Ole was not responsible to handle both new/renew contracts negotiation but you guys make it like he was.
Ole's job was only to decide which players he want to keep or buy and then leave all financial matters to Ed & co. So if you want to moan about the players wages you should go directly to Ed (regardless of your moan is correct or not, it's another topic).
Therefore we should discuss only his decision of buy or keep is correct or not. I will go case by case:
- 3 new signings: needless to say I think? You may say Maguire has not been up to his 80 £m price tag yet but he's improving our defence for sure.
- Jones: bad decision imo. However at the time of his new contract Jones' form was quite ok if my memory serves me right so it was understandable at that moment. And even with his new contract he's on 75k a week so I think it's pretty ok to keep him for a while.
- Mata: this is a difficult one. Mata was clearly out of date however if we didn't he would leave for free. And now there'll be some who would blame that on Ole. His contract will expire by summer 2020 so it's another understandable decision imo.
- Pereira: he's on ~30-45 £k a week depending on sources. And the guy is clearly want to play for us, he's just not good enough yet. He's still young so who knows, even Fred looks decent now. 30 -45 £k a week is pretty ok to keep and see how this would turn out. If not we still can sell him, with his low salary and low transfer fee it won't be difficult to sell him. He's our academy product so no lost there even if he leave on a free.
- Rashford and Martial: needless to say. Rashford was on 25 £k a week and Martial had only two years left. We must keep those two.
- DDG: another difficult one. His form was pretty bad at that time but given how much he has done for us, his recent form and the fact we could lose him for free and would have to spend at least another 50 £m on a very sensitive and crucial position as GK I think it's actually a good decision. Remember how hard it was for SAF to find a new GK to replace Schmeichel and you'd see.
- Young: I know we all think he's shit but we had no cover for LB back then. Play Rojo or a not ready yet Williams for almost all the matches we've played is actually a pretty scary scenario. And it's only one season so it's ok imo.
Our wage bill is huge and we overpay many players, that we can't debate but blaming Ole on this is just ridiculous. He's the one who trying to fix this ffs. Offloading Sanchez was not only to reduce our wages as much as possible but to stop all other players to ask for more as well imo.
By next summer we'll reduce 240 £k a week from our wages bill as Matic's and Young's contracts will expire. Hopefully Sanchez would go as well as it's another 350 £k a week ffs. That's almost 600 £k or 20 % from our current ~3 £m a week total wages bill now.
In terms of transfer I think there are three major talking points worth mentioning.
First, it is the lack of depth in midfield, in terms of both quality and quantity. I agree that Maguire, Wan-Bissaka and James are good signings, but I have always thought that our midfield has a higher priority, and it is quite a disappointment that no signing was made in that position. With Fellaini and Herrera gone, we made no attempt to cover the loss. If Ole decided to play 4-2-3-1 this season, he should have known the limitation of Lingard and Mata (with their display in previous seasons) and brought in another option. Many argue that our players are not good enough, but it should be reminded that it is one of the manager's responsibilities to build a steady and sustainable squad.
Second, it is Smalling's loan switch to Roma. Although not comfortable with the ball at his feet, Smalling has been solid in defence in recent years. He is quick and athletic, and it is proven that he is good at dealing with top physical strikers like Kane, Suarez etc. He is a much more reliable defender than Lindelof (weak in the air), Jones (poor positioning), Rojo and Bailly (injury-prone). For me, it is definitely a wrong decision to let him go and keep these four instead.
Third, it is about squad rotation and the use of young players. It was claimed that Lukaku and Sanchez were abandoned so as to provide more opportunities to young players, similar to the situation in the van Gaal era. It is true that their performance was poor last season, but they were more than capable to be a rotation player for us. Now, whenever Martial, Rashford or James is injured, we run out of reliable options and have no choice but to switch formation or put Pereira there. Youth prospects like Greenwood, Chong and Garner never really get sufficient playing time in the league, while the first team suffers from a lack of rotation players. It is just an illusion that Ole trusts young players, what he does is just promoting them to the first team.