Would you sack or keep Ole? (Poll reopened)

[Matriac]

Flip reverse we didn’t speak about him as he wasn’t on the cards until injuries. You literally posted above the reason why we probably didn’t get him in the summer. Pogba and funds being one of them. Yes Haaland ended up going for cheap but clearly 70£m was just readily available for us to use hence why negotiations took so long.

Just because we didn't speak about Bruno in the media in December doesn't mean we weren't already planning on going in for him?

The factors I mentioned in my post above was tackled from August to January by having more time to scout him, having seen Pogba be out for half the season and how we missed a creative player, and that we got such a good deal for Bruno in the end.

Haaland was tied up before the window opened so it made sense for media then to ask us about players we could still sign. But Ole never spoke about Bruno like he did Haaland until it was confirmed we got him.

 

[Revan]

I don't see why Mourinho's second season was deemed a failure at the time. Was it the brand of football? It was the first time we showed even a modicum of stability and consistency since Sir Alex. We'd been dismal before that, so I'm not sure if people suddenly expected us to win the league?
Saying we finished 20 odd points behind City makes it sound worse than it is. We finished with 81 points, which, before City and Liverpool's utter dominance, would have run a title winner closer in terms of a challenge.
But we were dealing with what arguably was the most dominant League win in the last decade, against what is probably still the greatest Premier League squad of the last decade.
Finishing second was a marked improvement on what we were before. We all know how dismal it feels to finish 6th.


As to the present day and the point of Ole, he deserves the full 3 years he wanted for what he's done so far. He's brought stability to the transfers(which still appear suspect but not as much), and he's got the players on board and potentially got us back in the CL. He's shown potential. I think CL next season will show if he can hack it at the top level with the very best and do it consistently. He's still very tactically odd and lacking sometimes, so I'm hoping he improves in a major way because I want him to be a massive success while silencing any doubts anybody has.

What he did at Cardiff or Molde is largely irrelevant at this stage. He's not a potential Manchester United managerial candidate, he IS the Manchester United manager. So, it's just best to back him and see how he goes. If we sack him now, we're back to square one again with a new manager undoing all the stability we've redeveloped.

It needs to be understood that we're a top club in name but not in quality as much as we once were, and building back to that takes time.

He was not a failure back then, no one said so. People were pissed off by the European performance, but in general we’re happy with the league form (81 points in a more competitive league that this one).

Then he touched the self-destruct button during the next season and was rightly fired.

 

[MalcolmTucker]

You really have to be a special level of demented to be arguing about some fantasy scenario where Ole didn't sign Bruno because we signed Haaland and using it as a stick to beat our current manager with

What is wrong with you people?

 

[Paul_Scholes18]

Now is a big test for our team . I hope he do no bottle everything this season too.
I still would give him one more season, but would look for someone to replace him once things get back to normal with a full pre season.

 

[mu4c_20le]

He was not a failure back then, no one said so. People were pissed off by the European performance, but in general we’re happy with the league form (81 points in a more competitive league that this one).

Then he touched the self-destruct button during the next season and was rightly fired.

Just the performance... ?

If it was a successful season, he wouldn't have lost his shit in front of the media. Literally the only thing you could be happy about was the league position.

 

[Foxbatt]

I was an Ole out now guy. But I have changed my mind. I would like to give him an extra season now to see what he can do.
The players he has now would be acceptable to most managers. I am talking about his starting 11. Yes we need a CB and a DM too but unlike when Jose or LVG took over no mass replacement is needed even if a new manager takes over.
I don't think Ole is going to be sacked unless he self destruct the way Jose did.
I remember that we created a lot more chances in Jose's first year compared to his second year when we were 2nd.
Who do we replace Ole with? Not too many around available anyway. I never thought Poch as his replacement.

 

[roonster09]

You really have to be a special level of demented to be arguing about some fantasy scenario where Ole didn't sign Bruno because we signed Haaland and using it as a stick to beat our current manager with

What is wrong with you people?

Did it really happen?

 

[He'sRaldo]

It is one of his flaws but I think that he is improving with time, in 2020 with better player at his disposal I think that he is changing.

Unfortunately I still don't see a change, especially with the adaptation. Bruno is currently being played every minute because we have to play with a no.10 (who are some of the worst players at the club). That to me doesn't seem like learning.

I need to see him use the backups better to be convinced it's not just player quality creating this illusion.

 

[EwanI Ted]

Unfortunately I still don't see a change, especially with the adaptation. Bruno is currently being played every minute because we have to play with a no.10 (who are some of the worst players at the club). That to me doesn't seem like learning.

I need to see him use the backups better to be convinced it's not just player quality creating this illusion.

Given the thinness of the squad and lack of quality on the bench, I'm not sure what the alternative is right now. What options does Ole have for resting Bruno without a major drop off in the quality of the team?

 

[MalcolmTucker]

Did it really happen?

Yep

Even scarier he was willing to snub Bruno again to get a striker (Halland) can you imagine that midfield trying to play football for Halland.

 

[He'sRaldo]

Given the thinness of the squad and lack of quality on the bench, I'm not sure what the alternative is right now. What options does Ole have for resting Bruno without a major drop off in the quality of the team?

Play without a no.10. That would make it so much easier.

 

[roonster09]

Yep

Now it's not that surprising

 

[Withnail]

Unfortunately I still don't see a change, especially with the adaptation. Bruno is currently being played every minute because we have to play with a no.10 (who are some of the worst players at the club). That to me doesn't seem like learning.

I need to see him use the backups better to be convinced it's not just player quality creating this illusion.

The back-ups need to go and be replaced because they aren't good enough as you say.

You want him to prove he's good enough by using 'some of the worst players at the club' better?

 

[He'sRaldo]

The back-ups need to go and be replaced because they aren't good enough as you say.

You want him to prove he's good enough by using 'some of the worst players at the club' better?

No, adapt the formation to the better players like a normal manager would.

Pogba deeper and Lingard/ Pereira higher was madness, and it would have continued had we not gotten Bruno. That's why I'm still skeptical about the point of him maximizing the players' abilities.

 

[EwanI Ted]

He was not a failure back then, no one said so. People were pissed off by the European performance, but in general we’re happy with the league form (81 points in a more competitive league that this one).

Then he touched the self-destruct button during the next season and was rightly fired.

I certainly wasn't happy. I thought that Jose had earned his right to another season for sure, you can't get rid of a manager in those circumstances. But nothing I saw in the second half of that season made me think we were going to get better the following seasons. The players weren't happy, the football was risk averse and tough to watch, Jose was getting tetchy, all the danger signs were there.

Play without a no.10. That would make it so much easier.

What kind of formation/line up you thinking of?

 

[Withnail]

No, adapt the formation to the better players like a normal manager would.

Pogba deeper and Lingard/ Pereira higher was madness, and it would have continued had we not gotten Bruno. That's why I'm still skeptical about the point of him maximizing the players' abilities.

You're speaking as if Bruno just fell into his lap and wasn't his target.

I'm not sure you can call it madness. Pogba hardly played this season until Bruno came in.

Lingard's form, unfortunately, fell off a cliff, whatever is wrong with him and Pereira has proven he isn't going to make it.

If he gets another creative player who can play AM/RW as we believe is on the cards then it won't be an issue.

 

[SAFMUTD]

I'll answer each part

We tried going down the route of hiring great managers. Mourinho managed a 2nd spot but 18 points behind the leader. He should’ve ended worse off but he managed to make them perform ‘better than the sum of their parts’.

I read this to often, "we've tried Van Gaal/Mourinho and id didnt worked out, having a proven manager is not the way" if we applied the same logic with players then we shouldnt buy anyone, need a new cb? No man we bought Jones, Smalling, Lindelof, etc it didnt worked out, how does that sound? Of course Mourinho and Van Gaal were not the right managers, but that doesnt mean hiring good managers is a mistake, we should keep hiring and firing until we find the perfect one for us.

Ole did that too. We somehow managed to remain a fighting distance off top 4 this season despite losing our best players to injury for long periods.

Firstly I must mention that everyteam has injuries, theres no excuse to say "we were plagged by injuries so let the manager have a free ride" second you speak as remaining a fighting distance as if it was down to Ole? Because I think it was because, as I mentioned in my post earlier, this season has been exceptionally poor for the top 4. In the first round we were 4 points off top 4 with 28 points in 19 matches. Totally unaceptable results points wise, however the other teams being so poor helped us.

Secondly we shouldnt evaluate Ole just for the second part of the season, the postBruno era. We should evaluate him for the whole season. My opinion? If we only look at the whole season he should be fired, his start was awful we were lucky Leicester had such a masive drop otherwise our top 4 chances would be slim.

Of course the thing to evaluate is do we think Ole can sustain the team performing consistently like the second part of the season? If you do, then I understand you wanting him to continue.

Then, as soon as he got to January and was able to bring in Bruno, his system was evident to see for everyone because he finally had players coming around to his philosophies and Bruno literally fitted right into the system from the get go.

Hence I think injuries and lack of depth have been the main reasons we suffered this season. Not Ole or his potential or his system/style.

Finally had players coming around to his philosophies? I dont know but that doesnt sound right. Magically a bunch of players clicked into his system after a whole year? I think its more about Bruno changing completely our system, as I said in my previous post, I dont think this is a system based performances I think its players naturally performing because of their qualities.

When a system works you can have good or bad results, but the style of play is there. An example of this is Norwich, they get awful results but the style is clear for everyone to see, no matter which players are on the field.

When we dont have the full XI available our performances drop massively, and more importantly our style dissapears. We are not playing tiki taka or anything like that so we shouldnt rely on one or two players to develop our whole game.

I know the gap quality between the starters and the squad players is considerable, but thats the managers job to implement a system that hides the players weaknesses and functions with different variants. If not then your only setting yourself for failure, theres no way a team can sustain the same starting XI for all the season or have the same quality on the bench to replace a player, it doesnt work that way.

Even against Chelsea, he only took the risk of dropping Martial & Pogba from our main starting 11. Plus Shaw, but he was unavailable due to injury. This only indicates that he doesn’t trust our fringe players one bit and was more contempt playing our starters, some of whom might have benefitted from a break.

Thats on Ole, as I said he shouldnt rely so much on the same players. I mean how a system can be so fraguile that if you take a couple of players it all breaks down? I think its more about Ole being impressed on how those XI perform together and dont want to change a thing rather than a system actually clicking.

Also that about dont trusting his players, well he should. I agree there are some that are not up to the level required like Lingard, Pereira, etc but the rest of the squad such as McTominay, Fred, Williams, etc are reasonably good players to have in the bench. Unless we are contemplating having a team full of superstars he will have to trust those players. Is not sustainable to play with the same players every single match.

Until we have a full squad, no offence, but none of us have enough knowledge to judge Ole factually and completely, as yet. Too early.

You also mentioned that Ole doesn’t have the potential to beat Pep or Klopp. I find that to be subjectively unreasonable. Firstly, Ole showed enough tactical acumen to have us play good games against these managers when given the chances. Most of these games resulted in wins (3 against city and a huge draw against Liverpool when nobody else seemed to be able to slow them down). Secondly, we got these results while our best players were injured.

So again I’d like to repeat my point, we can not judge Ole until we give him a proper squad to go and tackle the league with, for an entire season. In my opinion, he’s already done really well for a rookie manager, that too in the PL, with the injuries we’ve dealt with, which led us to playing incompetent players (who are barely good enough for any of the other top 10 teams, let alone a club of our stature).

He has beat them in matches against them, I didnt mean beat them in a single match. I meant beat them to a 100 point season, I know you can know for sure factualy and completely anything until it happens, but there are indications that make you think he can or cant make it. Otherwise if we apply that logic we dont know if playing without a manager will be good or bad, at least not completely and factualy so we should give it a try.

"Proper squad" is a very subjective term, I hate to bring Klopp in to this but were Salah, Mane, Firminho, Virgil, Allison, Robertson, TAA a "proper squad" when he arrived/bought them? Players are as good as they perform. You cant expect patience eternally for a manager to perform until he completely changes the whole squad and fills it out with already made superstars.

The manager should be given time as he gives results, of course there are short, medium and long term goals and should be judged accordingly but theres no such thing as being not judged until having a "complete proper squad".

 

[Bebestation]

The thing about Ole is that he has gotten the best of nearly every individual players improvement (Rashford, Martial, Shaw, Fred, Mctomminay etc) but the team hasn't gotten better or consistent until the restart (or couple games before) of the coronavirus break.

I'm okay without having to win trophies aslong as we continue to balance out the squad with top players as the worse players go away. I feel like it's happened so far: and whilst that continues I'm more than happy to wait. When the time is right where the quality of player deserves a better manager - that will feel obvious.

It seems too soon to chuck him out when we are just starting to get the right type of player ability and balance within the team. I feel like this is same at Chelsea where that team seems to be in a rebuilding phase under Lampard which Abrahmovic seems to be backing up with money for the first time in a good era.

I don't agree exactly with alot of his tactics - but there is a positivity within the United squad that I have not seen in some time - some say that Ole is a bit blindsided and doesnt have a clear way of particularly playing his football like Pep, Klopp or Jose do - but to me theres a benefit in that where due to Ole's simpler hard working system we could end up with a group of players that are good enough for United and are capable of playing for many different managers of the future.

I was tired of seeing Moyes build a team for his own tactics (Fellaini, Mata) , then LVG build his team trying to accommodate his possesion tactics (Blind, Memphis,Martial) only for Jose to RIP that apart to start again on his tactics (Lukaku, Zlatan, Sanchez).

These managers have strict tactics they follow that they implement in to a squad rather than being flexible to adapt their tactics to the players at their disposal. I think that's wrong and it will only continue if we scrap this rebuilding of a 'United Squad' to build a Pochettino squad or whoever the next manager should be in peoples eyes.

People forget that SAF wasnt some out of this world tactical manager and he usually adapted his tactics with his assistant managers and coaches whilst SAF was focusing on things like man management. SAF's biggest mistake (understandably due to his age) however was leaving a weak and ageing squad that needed to be grown and rebalanced where it would feel that most managers would only have to make few tweaks to adjust the team to their standard or tactics. I feel like its happening at United under Ole - he is rebuilding a fresh young squad where even if it doesnt work out for him - it's only few changes that need to be made to work out for someone else.

I can wait for that.

 

[He'sRaldo]

What kind of formation/line up you thinking of?

The obvious choice would be a 4-3-3, it's the best of many worlds. A few advantages of it:

i) It gets rid of the need to play Lingard/ Pereira at no.10, however if they need to be deputized they could be the less attacking of the 2 box to box mids, meaning they could still be useful.

ii) It plays our best players at the time in their best positions. Pogba as an attacking 8, Rashford as a wide forward instead of winger, and Martial as a playmaking 9.

iii) Offers more coverage for our less mobile but better DM, as well as providing a much better fitting role for Scott. Matic at the base with McTominay doing the running (similar to Hererra) is preferrable to Scott at the base trying to emulate Matic.

iv) It gives our energetic but sometimes lost positionally CM's a much more fitting role.

That's just a few advantages on the players' end, there's a lot more with regards to buildup play and the like. And that's just one of a few advantageous formations, it's not the only one.

 

[SAFMUTD]

If we win both our games, we'd finish only ten points behind the treble winners of 1999. Should Fergie have been sacked for not keeping up with standards? Points totals in individual seasons are irrelevant when taken without context. And the context for us and Ole has been that we had by far the weakest Manchester United squad since the PL's formation in 1992, arguably weaker than any since Fergie joined in 1986, even.

Of course you are comparing a season from 20 years ago with the current one, that doesnt makes sense. Im comparing it with the last 2-3 seasons.

Ole having by far the weakest squad? Well that would be on him, he has spent 200M and ended up with by far the weakest squad? Even weaker than the one he inherited by Mourinho. That only speaks bad about Ole.

On the "players, not the manager" aspect of your argument, Pep came to City with the strongest squad in the league already at his disposal. He then proceeded to spend £180m+ further strengthening said squad, the end result was a pitiful 4th, no improvement on Pellegrini and an embarrassing CL exit. Is the resultant improvement down to Pep or is it because he bought better players? No one will get a tune out of players like Lingard and Pereira. Heck, 95% of our fans used to think the same of Fred and McTominay, yet Ole has been able to get them to play consistently and consistently well. So if that isn't a sign of good management, I don't know what is.

I agree, Pep first season was a disaster. But Pep due to his manager career can afford that kind of patience without a flinch. Its not the same with Ole, I think youll agree.

Also having Fred and McTominay playing consistently well, well thats highly debatable Fred without a doubt has performed better than he used to. But to be fair he was shit, so is not that hard to improve from that ground, and even now when changing Matic or Pogba with Fred or McTominay the team suffers like hell and performances drop massively so I dont know about the "playing consistently well" that you mention.

And speaking of Ole's potential, he's tracking on par with Klopp at Liverpool at the same stage, with a comparably weak squad. He will be strengthening it further with at least one likely world class addition in the form of Sancho, and is clearing out even more of the deadwood in the process. No sane person is expecting a title challenge next season, but the hope and expectation is that we will be there or thereabouts by the season after.

Lest we forget, this is the youngest squad in the league. By its very nature it will improve and become more consistent as time progresses. The only way is up for this team and Ole, and I genuinely find it surprising that supposed fans of a club whose whole essence is built on youth and attacking football is wanting to sack the only manager who has stuck to that ethos consistently and all the way through.

First Liverpool squad at that time and our current squad are nothing a like. They were full of deadwood I dont think anyone neutral would call them and us a "comparably weak squad". Secondly Kloop, not as much as Pep but also, had fair manager historial from what he did on Dortmund, so again you cant expect the same patience given to Ole when he has done nothing relevant before arriving.

Finally using the Klopp example to justify Ole its like using Vardy to justify any striker. "Well when he was 25 he was playing in the second division so you never know" well yeah, of course there are some exceptions but you cant justify by comparing to a manager that started similarly bad and eventually got good as if its an indication that we're on the right track.

 

[90 + 5min]

Quick few points because you keep dancing around the one question I asked you multiple times so there's no point really in going further.

- There's a big difference between openly supporting the leeches that own our football club and 'hating' on them publicly. Calling them your family is not 'best' for Man Utd. Lying that they invested money when they took more than 2 billion out of the club is not best for Utd. Spending Utd's own money and investing are worlds apart.

- I do know about coaching and what Ole's doing isn't it.

- I did use context. I compared two most recent Man Utd managers and ONLY Utd's point totals over the years, not other teams which is what you're doing. Even if we ignore the points total Ole is still win%-wise the worst United manager in PL history. Kind of an art form when you consider he's had two big unbeaten runs in 20 months and still manages to be the worst. He's also Cardiff's worst manager ever. And his main assistant is also the worst for Hull and another club, can't remember of the top of my head. Entire coaching staff consists of failed Cardiff coaches and guys from Australian league.

Those are the people that are supposed to take us back to the top hahahaha

- Mourinho got backed somewhat until the 2nd place. Then most certainly wasn't.

- There's no time limit on coaches. There's no limit on how many you hire and fire. The standard for Man Utd is winning titles. Stop putting Ole in this group that 'needs time'. Pep, Klopp or Allegri ca

What question are you talking about that I'm dancing around? Instead of hating Solskjaer that much, please write down the question.

Once again. Glazer owns the club. It is his money that he invest. Would it have been better with a club owned by fans? Absolutly. But it is not and Glazer is the owner. It means that every time we spend, we spend his money. Borrowed or not.

If you do know about coaching then you wouldn't type like you do because your dislike for him affects the correct judgement of him.

You are aware that Phelan have the same position as he had when Ferguson were our manager. If he was good then, why is he suddenly bad? So according to you Solskjaer is Cardiff worst manager. I can say that you don't even know who their manager is now without googleing it. How would you then know all managers who have been at that club. So he is our worse manager in history? You know you can check facts before wrinting stuff like that.

How hard is it to understand. Mourinho wasn't sacked for his 2nd place. It was because he went to war against everyone in his last year. The club had no option but to sack him.

So when you say no limit you are for sacking manager every half year / year if you don't win the title? Instant success, right? Tell me how many trophies Guardiola won at ManCIty in his first year? Tell me how many trophies Klopp won in Liverpool his first 3 years? If we go by your thinking those guys wouldn't be there more then one season.

 

[He'sRaldo]

You're speaking as if Bruno just fell into his lap and wasn't his target.

I'm not sure you can call it madness. Pogba hardly played this season until Bruno came in.

Lingard's form, unfortunately, fell off a cliff, whatever is wrong with him and Pereira has proven he isn't going to make it.

If he gets another creative player who can play AM/RW as we believe is on the cards then it won't be an issue.

I think there's a bit of lost context here.

The post I replied to initially was talking about maximizing our best players. I don't think he's done that this season because his preferred formation had to use at least one of the backups he couldn't get a tune out of, in a key position. This in turn affected the productivity of the main players, and as a consequence we struggled badly.

 

[rotherham_red]

Of course you are comparing a season from 20 years ago with the current one, that doesnt makes sense. Im comparing it with the last 2-3 seasons.

Ole having by far the weakest squad? Well that would be on him, he has spent 200M and ended up with by far the weakest squad? Even weaker than the one he inherited by Mourinho. That only speaks bad about Ole.



I agree, Pep first season was a disaster. But Pep due to his manager career can afford that kind of patience without a flinch. Its not the same with Ole, I think youll agree.

Also having Fred and McTominay playing consistently well, well thats highly debatable Fred without a doubt has performed better than he used to. But to be fair he was shit, so is not that hard to improve from that ground, and even now when changing Matic or Pogba with Fred or McTominay the team suffers like hell and performances drop massively so I dont know about the "playing consistently well" that you mention.



First Liverpool squad at that time and our current squad are nothing a like. They were full of deadwood I dont think anyone neutral would call them and us a "comparably weak squad". Secondly Kloop, not as much as Pep but also, had fair manager historial from what he did on Dortmund, so again you cant expect the same patience given to Ole when he has done nothing relevant before arriving.

Finally using the Klopp example to justify Ole its like using Vardy to justify any striker. "Well when he was 25 he was playing in the second division so you never know" well yeah, of course there are some exceptions but you cant justify by comparing to a manager that started similarly bad and eventually got good as if its an indication that we're on the right track.

On your first point - It's equally irrelevant from 2-3 years ago also. The league now is not the same as it was then. My use of the comparison was to show how frankly stupid your use of points totals was. We are a totally different team with a totally different make-up.

Also, there were mitigating circumstances for the weakness of the squad, as you well know... Unless you think keeping overpriced and overpaid donkeys like Lukaku and Sanchez, or the frankly chronically inept like Darmian, were going to be a benefit for us this season? He spent the bulk of that £200m on our defence which has gone from barely midtable-level to the joint-second best in the league and only 6 behind Liverpool's who as they incessantly like to remind us, have the best CB and GK in the world... His next big chunk of that £200m was spent on Bruno Fernandes - do you think he has added no benefit to the club? And then also, let's not forget the outgoings, which meant that in the summer we spent under £60m in net terms (if we count Fellaini who was sold in January with no replacement forthcoming for him - £68m if you don't want to count him).

No, I don't agree. What Ole has done for the club and the decisions he's made as manager, by putting the club ahead of himself and his career, means he can be afforded that patience with, as you say, out a flinch. Otherwise, the deadwood who had outstayed their welcomes half a decade ago, would still be here. This was a constant under Moyes, under LvG, and under Jose. The only person who had the brass bollocks to change this, was Ole.

Put it this way, if those players you described negatively were not performing well consistently, we would be battling midtable mediocrity. As much as you don't like them, they were the bedrock upon which our season was transformed and are a big part of why we got those massive results against the likes of City, Spurs, and Chelsea. Without their crucial work, we'd be nowhere near 4th. Don't believe me? Feel free to check their player performance threads and their quantitative average ratings which are/were consistently the highest in the whole team.

And if that doesn't work for you, how about the fact he's transformed Martial from a lazy sulk, to one of the hardest working strikers in the league, or again, transforming Rashford - with both having their best ever scoring seasons? After both were in danger of severely plateauing? Or how about his unselfish development of Greenwood? I could go on and on about this, but I think I've made my point well enough.

No, that analogy doesn't work here, because they are managers and have been working under similar constraints. Klopp was afforded the time to rebuild the club from essentially the ground up and from the outside looking in, so has Ole. Lest we forget, Klopp was close to relegating Dortmund in his final season there, which would have been the second relegation on his ledger after Mainz. Ole has likewise had his mixture of good and bad achievements. In Norway he rebuilt Molde twice, with two distinctly different profiles and ways of playing. He broke Rosenburg's dominance in that league and consistently had them punching above their weight. If it wasn't for Utd, he'd have won his third title there this season, after narrowly missing out the last - that too, with a team that he built, based on young, attacking talent, does that sound familiar to you?

The fact that you think our squad when Ole came in was strong enough says it all tbh, and makes me wonder if I have wasted my time in typing this considered reply to you. The fact that other than Lukaku and Smalling, the rest are wallowing in relative obscurity should be setting off alarm bells for you, but alas, I don't think it will.

 

[Foxbatt]

He also accepts his mistakes at Cardiff and also at United. He said he is always learning.
He said he set up his teams to play 2v2 against his defense. He then realised that he can't do that just because Stam and Ronny can play like that.
We can see the positives and the negatives. Right now to me the positives outweigh the negatives.
I am all for letting him start next season as the manager. That said I still don't like some of his tactics. Basic tactics. I wonder if coaching staff is good enough?

 

[Rash Decision]

The obvious choice would be a 4-3-3, it's the best of many worlds. A few advantages of it:

i) It gets rid of the need to play Lingard/ Pereira at no.10, however if they need to be deputized they could be the less attacking of the 2 box to box mids, meaning they could still be useful.

ii) It plays our best players at the time in their best positions. Pogba as an attacking 8, Rashford as a wide forward instead of winger, and Martial as a playmaking 9.

iii) Offers more coverage for our less mobile but better DM, as well as providing a much better fitting role for Scott. Matic at the base with McTominay doing the running (similar to Hererra) is preferrable to Scott at the base trying to emulate Matic.

iv) It gives our energetic but sometimes lost positionally CM's a much more fitting role.

That's just a few advantages on the players' end, there's a lot more with regards to buildup play and the like. And that's just one of a few advantageous formations, it's not the only one.

Interesting post. Actually I seem to recall one of the Norwegian league watchers on here mentioning, years ago, that Ole was successful with his 4-3-3, but things would start to fall apart once he started experimenting with other formations. Might be misremembering though. Anyone recall this?

 

[lysglimt]

I am not surprised that there are a bunch of people (including some morons) who want the manager gone when we are doing poorly - fine. But it's really puzzling that there are people who want the manager gone when are doing good ... this place really is something special

 

[He'sRaldo]

Interesting post. Actually I seem to recall one of the Norwegian league watchers on here mentioning, years ago, that Ole was successful with his 4-3-3, but things would start to fall apart once he started experimenting with other formations. Might be misremembering though. Anyone recall this?

That's interesting info. The thing with Ole is he didn't come with a popular CV and most of us only had knowledge of his time at Cardiff, so to us he really is being judged from game to game and period to period, as there isn't much more to go on.

The Norwegian posters will know about his managerial career better than the rest of us, but the problem is they might be biased towards him which would make their analysis less objective.

 

[SAFMUTD]

On your first point - It's equally irrelevant from 2-3 years ago also. The league now is not the same as it was then. My use of the comparison was to show how frankly stupid your use of points totals was. We are a totally different team with a totally different make-up.

No need to use offensive words, we can differ but respect before anything please. I dont think comparing points is a bad indicator, of course at the end of the day the position on the table is what will speak, but we are talking about improvement here and point wise we havent improved at all.

Also, there were mitigating circumstances for the weakness of the squad, as you well know... Unless you think keeping overpriced and overpaid donkeys like Lukaku and Sanchez, or the frankly chronically inept like Darmian, were going to be a benefit for us this season? He spent the bulk of that £200m on our defence which has gone from barely midtable-level to the joint-second best in the league and only 6 behind Liverpool's who as they incessantly like to remind us, have the best CB and GK in the world... His next big chunk of that £200m was spent on Bruno Fernandes - do you think he has added no benefit to the club? And then also, let's not forget the outgoings, which meant that in the summer we spent under £60m in net terms (if we count Fellaini who was sold in January with no replacement forthcoming for him - £68m if you don't want to count him).

You cant eat your cake and have it too, they were either valuable members that we lost which ultimately end up weakening the squad or they were overpriced overpaid donkeys and were rightly shifted. If they were so useless they the fact of them leaving didnt affect us. Now regarding our midtable level defence which he now converted into the second best, I agree our defence has improved a lot even with De Gea's mistakes we have a much better record. But again you cant eat your cake and have it too. We got better because the players he bought improved us so he doesnt have a weaker squad does he?

Fair enough we can use net spend, 87M on Maguire, 55M on AWB, 55M on Bruno, 17M on James, grand total of 214M. Players sold: Lukaku 65M, Darmian 2.5M, 1.5M Ashley Young, 7.2M Fallaini. Thats a net spend of 137.8M. From where do you take the net spend is 60M? I you think the squad was weakened I ask you, do you think we have a weaker squad today than what we used to have under Mourinho? if so thats Ole's fault he weakened himself.

No, I don't agree. What Ole has done for the club and the decisions he's made as manager, by putting the club ahead of himself and his career, means he can be afforded that patience with, as you say, out a flinch. Otherwise, the deadwood who had outstayed their welcomes half a decade ago, would still be here. This was a constant under Moyes, under LvG, and under Jose. The only person who had the brass bollocks to change this, was Ole.

What are you talking about, you describe Ole as if he was a martir who has sacrifed himself for the good of the club. All the managers clear deadwood from previous managers, there's nothing special in what Ole did. There just has been a narrative around Ole that he is tansforming the mentality and philosophy, etc etc. At the end of the day this is the comparison:

For the point sake I will include all the players shifted because being valuable or deadwood is highly debatable on some cases.

Ole: Lukaku, Smalling, Darmian, Young, Valencia, Herrera, Alexis, Rojo, Fellaini
Mourinho: Blind, Johnstone, Mhikitaryan, Januzaj, Rooney, Zlatan, Varela, Schneiderlin, Depay, McNair, Blackett, Schweinsteiger, Victor Valdes
LVG: Di Maria, Chicharito, Evans, RVP, Nani, Rafael, Angelo Henriquez, Welbeck, Kawaga, Buttner, Zaha, Bebe, Keane, Evra, Ferdinand, Macheda, Vidic, Anderson

I think we can agree that all managers have shifted out deadwood players, and no one had the narrative that Ole has suffering, sacrificing his own future for the clubs sake, thats fanatisim. Each manager clears the players he doesnt like and bring players they like, its no different with Ole.

Put it this way, if those players you described negatively were not performing well consistently, we would be battling midtable mediocrity. As much as you don't like them, they were the bedrock upon which our season was transformed and are a big part of why we got those massive results against the likes of City, Spurs, and Chelsea. Without their crucial work, we'd be nowhere near 4th. Don't believe me? Feel free to check their player performance threads and their quantitative average ratings which are/were consistently the highest in the whole team.

And if that doesn't work for you, how about the fact he's transformed Martial from a lazy sulk, to one of the hardest working strikers in the league, or again, transforming Rashford - with both having their best ever scoring seasons? After both were in danger of severely plateauing? Or how about his unselfish development of Greenwood? I could go on and on about this, but I think I've made my point well enough.

I agree we got important results against the top teams, impressive but that doesnt change the fact that before Bruno arrived we were on our way to having our worst season in premier league history, with those players without Bruno we were going straight into battling midtable mediocrity as you say. You can't take a few matches to justify performances, we need to take all the performances to make a fair judgment.

Totally agree on improving Rashford and Martial. Greenwood its hard to say weather Ole has impacted his performances or not since he was already highly rated but all credit to Ole to have trusted him and giving him minutes. No disagreement there.

No, that analogy doesn't work here, because they are managers and have been working under similar constraints. Klopp was afforded the time to rebuild the club from essentially the ground up and from the outside looking in, so has Ole. Lest we forget, Klopp was close to relegating Dortmund in his final season there, which would have been the second relegation on his ledger after Mainz. Ole has likewise had his mixture of good and bad achievements. In Norway he rebuilt Molde twice, with two distinctly different profiles and ways of playing. He broke Rosenburg's dominance in that league and consistently had them punching above their weight. If it wasn't for Utd, he'd have won his third title there this season, after narrowly missing out the last - that too, with a team that he built, based on young, attacking talent, does that sound familiar to you?

The fact that you think our squad when Ole came in was strong enough says it all tbh, and makes me wonder if I have wasted my time in typing this considered reply to you. The fact that other than Lukaku and Smalling, the rest are wallowing in relative obscurity should be setting off alarm bells for you, but alas, I don't think it will.

Are you seriously going to compare Klopp career at Dortmund UCL finalist, Bundeliga winner, Pokal winner with Ole who's merit was "rebuilding Molde twice" come on man, theres a limit. Lets be serious. Klopp was wanted by a lot of clubs at the time, Ole wasnt even on the map. Even today if Ole was to lose his job here I dont think he would find many doors open from teams in top leagues.

Lastly I dont think the team was strong enough to be champions of course, but for sure was strong enough to achieve more than what we had, I think we have a decent squad at the moment and with three-four key additions we should be able to compete for the title just not with Ole though.

At the end is not about black or white, me not wanting to stay with Ole doesnt mean he is a failure as a manager what it means is I dont think he's talented enough to compete with Klopp and Pep who are the very best at the moment. He may be a decent/good manager, but decent/good is not enough today, we need special. We need a worldclass revolutionary coach, we are facing the very best.

 

[Woziak]

And OGS has a great chance of achieving top-4 in his first full season - your point being ?

My pint is his PL win rate will be less than 50% not acceptable in any year as a united Boss!

 

[Woziak]

So now that Spurs squad was average? And here's me thinking it was good enough to win the PL the year Leicester won but they bottled it.

With the exception of 4 or 5 very good players and 1 world class player , he made players like Ben Davies and many others over achieve !!!

 

[Withnail]

With the exception of 4 or 5 very good players and 1 world class player , he made players like Ben Davies and many others over achieve !!!

That's a different point altogether but I think overall he under-achieved.

He really should have won something with that group.

 

[Withnail]

My pint is his PL win rate will be less than 50% not acceptable in any year as a united Boss!

Its been increasing for months and is above 50% at the moment as posted earlier.

Why do you expect it to go down?

 

[UnofficialDevil]

And OGS has a great chance of achieving top-4 in his first full season - your point being ?

If he wins our remaining two games he will have basically done nothing more than when Mourinho ended up 6th, 68 points and 19 wins vs 66 points and 19 wins 6th. Still, accomplishing 4th should grant him another season. I still dont rate him as a good enough to manage a club of our stature though.

 

[Maluco]

He needs to finish this job and get top 4. I said that at the time and am sticking with it. After a really poor start, he needed to show that he was capable of something special. There needed to be a clear indication of progress after the collapse last year and poor start.

If he loses to west ham and can’t beat Leicester, that would be another massive blow and it would be very difficult to fully trust him with the squad going forward. It would be the biggest indication yet that he doesn’t know how to use and manage it.

I am pulling for him now, I want him to complete this fantastic comeback and lead us into next season full of confidence. But make no mistake about it, he needed this. It is Manchester United after all. He needed to prove he could produce when it counted and hopefully, he is a few days away from doing just that.

 

[pav1790]

If he wins our remaining two games he will have basically done nothing more than when Mourinho ended up 6th, 68 points and 19 wins vs 66 points and 19 wins 6th. Still, accomplishing 4th should grant him another season. I still dont rate him as a good enough to manage a club of our stature though.

Let’s say he gets third next season playing attractive football, we slip up a bit, but we are Not too far off the top until about April, we go deep into cups and may be nick one. Would you say he’d have a right to go once more? Just trying to see if you will see your opinion of him changing as the results improve towards Silverware but without attaining them.

 

[Tony247]

I am supporting him to finish the rebuild, but I am not sure he is a long term solution. We will need to look at other options after a year or so.

 

[EwanI Ted]

[

The obvious choice would be a 4-3-3, it's the best of many worlds. A few advantages of it:

i) It gets rid of the need to play Lingard/ Pereira at no.10, however if they need to be deputized they could be the less attacking of the 2 box to box mids, meaning they could still be useful.

ii) It plays our best players at the time in their best positions. Pogba as an attacking 8, Rashford as a wide forward instead of winger, and Martial as a playmaking 9.

iii) Offers more coverage for our less mobile but better DM, as well as providing a much better fitting role for Scott. Matic at the base with McTominay doing the running (similar to Hererra) is preferrable to Scott at the base trying to emulate Matic.

iv) It gives our energetic but sometimes lost positionally CM's a much more fitting role.

That's just a few advantages on the players' end, there's a lot more with regards to buildup play and the like. And that's just one of a few advantageous formations, it's not the only one.

That’s a perfectly valid formation, but has the same problem as when we played a 4-4-2 diamond vs Everton, it leaves AWB and Shaw as your wide attackers, which is not their strengths. Without a decent threat from out wide, it became very easy to defend against us that day, so it’s feels a bit more situational than the basic 4231 we’ve been playing.

Its fine for some games then, but I really don’t think it’s such an obvious slam dunk that it’s fair to criticise a manager for not using it.

 

[ILC]

I really hope you stay a newbie for a long time

Allergic to facts and high standards are you pal?

You seem a little angry and more than a little irrational.

I don't see any understanding of nuance and little sense of perspective in your analysis and I can tell I'm not going to change your mind.

I'm also not in the business of making excuses for things that haven't happened yet and I'm not sure why you would expect me to do that.

Good luck.

So exactly nothing, as I expected. Good.

I'm not angry at all, but I'm especially not irrational. I only use facts and coherent arguments and logic. No conjecture, no lies about what happened etc. If anyone's irrational it's Ole fanboys like you who can't find absolutely nothing wrong with what people like me say but the fact it bothers you that not everyone is a puppet and can't 'feel' the difference.

Time will do it's thing, as always.

Don't worry I didn't say you were one. Look at the comment from that newbie, still defending Jose's tenure and getting angry that people abused Jose for finishing 2nd. No people abused jose for his stupid rant after sevilla, people abused Jose for alienating our talented players but protecting the likes of fellaini. People abuse Jose for his 18-19 season where he had a chance to learn from his past mistakes and take this club forward. Honestly if he acted like a sane guy without making everything about himself he would have still remained here and we would have even finished in top 4 last season.

Ole may also be regarded as a failure but he could also be a success. No one knows, which is why people bringing Jose in their argument are just making a fool of themselves. He is gone, get over with it.

You'd struggle to find a single word of my mine that defends Jose. In fact, I said multiple times it's not about justifying Mourinho or regretting his sacking or whatever. I said he was rightly sacked in fact.

People did actually abuse him for his words, and they were actually right. I'm not saying anything about Jose here to shame anyone for saying it. I'm pointing to a time when our fanbase had standards and were right in calling him out and demanding more. That's my whole point.

I don't want Mourinho back, I don't condone any of his tantrums, but I'm also not delusional not to see that Ole is even worse than him. There's no 'may or may not' with Ole, he's already a failure with his results, but especially with his words.

Even if he does qualify for top 4, that's below us and that's not a success. There's a 15 year track record with Glazers spending significantly less when in CL than out of it. I have no reason to believe that won't continue based on everything that's come out of the club, in the media, or from Ole and Woodward. So even if it may seem as a success if we go top 4 this season (and in vacuum for a similar team it is) it's damaging for the long term future of the club when you take context and history in account.

You sound a bit unhinged. Calm down

Jose did not get sacked because he finished 2nd. He got sacked because he had a complete meltdown. And IMO, 2nd was the best that squad could deliver

Clearing of deadwood left us thin yes, but it was the right thing to do and i am assuming the board wanted to lighten the wage bill a bit before we bought in new players. Our wage bill is only slightly less than Citys, which is eye watering when you consider the disrepancy in quality and the fact that we pay rubbish like Lindgard 100k/week to sit on his arse

People are happy because we are looking to moving in the right direction. We have a young first XI, tranfers have been really good

PS: Oles PPG is better than Moyes and better than Van Gaal if you include his games as caretaker.

And you really think he wilfully and with internt had two of his best players injured? Thats insane

Being upset that your favorite football club is being run as a nursery with no standards is now unhinged. OK. Whatever makes you feel better.

Didn't say he was sacked because he came 2nd. I said fans had standards then and rightfully demanded more than a second place. He was rightfully sacked.

Our turnover to wage ratio is among the lowest in the league. That's not enough and we should be spending more. Not on Lingard and the like, but on proven winners like Bruno and Pogba. The path we're currently on will exactly lead us to having more Lingards in the team because Ole's approval will excuse Glazers to spend less and promote more and more youngsters and soon you'll have Williams, Laird, Garner and the others on those same wages.

That's the thing, we're not moving in the right direction. Don't let the runs against weak opposition fool you. Transfers other than Bruno have been dreadful. Otherwise we wouldn't be in the position we are, we wouldn't break records in games without clean sheets after spending 150m on defenders etc. Other teams are having their worst seasons and we're still struggling to be better than them. Good transfers and the right direction don't pan out this way.

PS: I'm not including his games as caretaker because that's not the same job he has now. There were no expectations on him, players were trying to prove themselves to the new manager etc. As soon as he got the permanent job things went downhill. Bruno signing was a positive shock, soon that'll wear off and we'll be back where we were.

I don't think that. I think he knew the pressure was on him, he knew the squad wasn't as good as he was saying and he was willing to take the risk in order to save his job. A seasoned manager who demands more players and doesn't let his squad get this thin doesn't make that mistake.

Not sure it matters too much, he only seems to come on here when things aren't going well. Hopefully, we can beat West Ham and bin this thread.

Dec 3rd 2019 (Just before we beat Tottenham and City):



Nothing at all to say during our decent run.

14th July 2020 (Day after we drop pts to Southampton):

Imagine trying to slide this in as proof of anything. Especially as a positive. I was gone almost 8 months and United are still in the same shit as before. But we're heading in the right direction riiight....

And no, the wins vs Spurs and City in December didn't have anything to do with my absence. We had a very bad January and I still wasn't here. But thanks for proving I'm consistent in my opinion and argumentation. Last year didn't sway me, this run didn't sway me and even if we qualify for CL it won't sway me for the reasons stated above. I've heard and seen enough from Ole to know he's bad for Manchester United.

We could lose tomorrow or win. We could qualify for CL or not. I may be here the whole time or come again in 10 months or whatever. None of that has anything to do with what we're talking about here. The fact you have nothing else to say in his favor but personal attempts on me only proves how thin your case for him is. Cheers.

But those are not actual facts. None of your cries will turn your lies to facts.

Ole's actual win % (50,8%) in the EPL is better than Moyes (50%), and if we win tomorrow it will be 51,7%, which is better than Van Gaal (51,3%).
He also has a better win % than both in all competitions already.

Win % all competitions:
David Moyes: 52.94
Louis Van Gaal: 52.43
José Mourinho: 58.33
Ole Gunnar Solskjær: 54.12

He also has more goals scored per game than all of Mourinho, Moyes and Van gaal.
This, to me, is a sign of playing more attacking football.

Goals scored per game in all competitions:
David Moyes: 1.686
Louis Van Gaal: 1.533
José Mourinho: 1.694
Ole Gunnar Solskjær: 1.788

He has let in more goals per game than Mourinho and Van Gaal (slightly), though, but I guess that's not really surprising.

Goals conceded per game in all competitions:
David Moyes: 1.058
Louis Van Gaal: 0.951
José Mourinho: 0.84
Ole Gunnar Solskjær: 0.964

Yes they are actual facts. I'm talking about his jobs as permanent manager in the Premier League. Ole has 50.8, Moyes 52.94.

I could care less about goals. We could be scoring 1 goal per game I wouldn't care if we were winning.

" Even if we ignore the points total Ole is still win%-wise the worst United manager in PL history. Kind of an art form when you consider he's had two big unbeaten runs in 20 months and still manages to be the worst. He's also Cardiff's worst manager ever. And his main assistant is also the worst for Hull and another club, can't remember of the top of my head. Entire coaching staff consists of failed Cardiff coaches and guys from Australian league. "

Factual error 1: Ole is still win%-wise the worst United manager in PL history.
Moyes has a worse win % in PL. If we include all competitions, his win% is better than LVG as well

Factual error 2: He's also Cardiff's worst manager ever
Not even close
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cardiff_City_F.C._managers

Factual error 3: his main assistant is also the worst for Hull
Phelan had a win% of 25% which is better than a fair few managers, and this despite Phelan guiding Hull in PL, while most others managed Hull in Championship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hull_City_A.F.C._managers

Factual Error 4: and another club, can't remember of the top of my head
Phelan has managed just Hull, our reserves and was caretaker of Norwich, so not sure what you're on about

Factual Error 5: Entire coaching staff consists of failed Cardiff coaches and guys from Australian league.
Bringing 2-3 staff from Cardiff and A-league isn't equivalent to entire coaching staff. His assistant is Phelan, who was Fergie's assistant as well. The 2 guys who run the training are McKenna and Carrick!

And I just picked out one point here

1. No he doesn't. Moyes has 52.94, Ole 50.8. Permanent managers, caretaker is irrelevant. Different jobs, different roles, different pressure and expectations. But even if we do take caretaker into account, being a couple percentage points above Moyes is still not a fecking positive. We're still talking about one of the worst ever, but that's supposed to be the man taking us in the right direction. Laughable.

2. Umm, yeah he is. As permanent manager of Cardiff, in EPL he has 16.67% which is the worst ever for Cardiff in EPL.

3. Phelan as permanent manager of Hull has a 15.00%, the worst ever for Hull in EPL. I got confused about the other job, that was in Australia, also a failure.

4. Five actually, but you're saying 2-3 as if it's a positive. One is too much. Dempsey, Clegg, Pert, Hartis and Leng. None of them were picked on their qualifications because they have none other than being Ole's buddies and ex-teammate(s). Others are Carrick, McKenna with no experience at this level and failed manager from Hull Phelan. He fired DDG's longtime coach for Hartis too.

Pick more please, can't wait.

What question are you talking about that I'm dancing around? Instead of hating Solskjaer that much, please write down the question.

Once again. Glazer owns the club. It is his money that he invest. Would it have been better with a club owned by fans? Absolutly. But it is not and Glazer is the owner. It means that every time we spend, we spend his money. Borrowed or not.

If you do know about coaching then you wouldn't type like you do because your dislike for him affects the correct judgement of him.

You are aware that Phelan have the same position as he had when Ferguson were our manager. If he was good then, why is he suddenly bad? So according to you Solskjaer is Cardiff worst manager. I can say that you don't even know who their manager is now without googleing it. How would you then know all managers who have been at that club. So he is our worse manager in history? You know you can check facts before wrinting stuff like that.

How hard is it to understand. Mourinho wasn't sacked for his 2nd place. It was because he went to war against everyone in his last year. The club had no option but to sack him.

So when you say no limit you are for sacking manager every half year / year if you don't win the title? Instant success, right? Tell me how many trophies Guardiola won at ManCIty in his first year? Tell me how many trophies Klopp won in Liverpool his first 3 years? If we go by your thinking those guys wouldn't be there more then one season.

Because according to our fans we got rid of a toxic manager, we got a club legend who has developed the best team spirit in years, our new manager recruited excellently and got rid of deadwood from the previous toxic manager. Following logic and thinking of our fans we have a better manager and a better squad than 20 months ago and better atmosphere than we've ever had since SAF left and we STILL have the worst season in 30 years. How is that possible, explain please? It's not because other teams are better, we had more pts with Mourinho at 6th couple years ago.

Umm, no that's not how it works. United is a company that generates it's own money from sales, sponsorships, tv rights etc. Glazers haven't invested a cent of their own money into the club. But they did take more than 2 billion out. That's not how it should go.

He was 'good' then because he had the goat manager next to him ffs. He then went on to be the worst ever PL manager Hull ever had and failed in freaking Australian league. That's why he's not good enough.

I don't need to know every Cardiff manager ever. There are statistics that show Ole and Phelan hold the worst win % ever in PL for three clubs: Manchester United, Cardiff and Hull.

For the 100th time - you can't compare Ole with Pep, Klopp or SAF. Those managers earned the right to get time and patience. Ole has done nothing but failed for the past 7 years at every level. He doesn't get that chance, not at Manchester United.

 

[roonster09]

We really have MikeLuhg here,

Hope this helps.

 

[AneRu]

Even if he failed to get us CL football I'd still keep. He has shown, in two occasions over sustained periods, that he has something about him. He gets the club and we are currently in a better state than we were when we had Mourinho.

However I'd hope that he brings someone else to help him tactically because I think we are still not good enough with the ball. Maybe it's a squad issue but we really don't have the ability to take and maintain control of a tight game, sometimes we find it difficult to close out tight games against decent opposition. I think our game in possession has to improve massively.