Did he? Sanchez is still ours and the clearing of deadwood left us dangerously light over the winter.
Yes, he did. No manager can get rid of
every bit of deadwood around a club in a single summer & winter transfer window, it's not a realistic expectation to have of any manager.
Big calls were made however and he was fully vindicated in making them!
Just for clarity Ole got rid of: Fellaini, Herrera, Valencia, Darmian, Lukaku & Young and loaned out Rojo, Smalling & Sanchez.
I'm not sure what your cheap little dig is about the Sanchez loan... many top European clubs use loans like Real, Dortmund, Bayern and Juve. The latter have done some super business with loans.
The risk had to be taken in leaving us light, it afforded young players mins this season. It was short term pain, for long term gain. It's because of these risks and long term vision Ole brought to the club he would be afforded time.
For years we had Young and Valencia in their 30s stinking up the club with support from Darmian also hitting 30, now we have AWB (22) & Shaw (25) and support from Dalot (21) & Williams (19).Where we had overweight and bad attitude Lukaku and ageing, injury prone Sanchez we now have 3 forwards with an avg age of 21 that gave us 88 goal involvements in their full debut season together.
IMO would have broken through regardless, but credit where its due for Williams. Still not enough to keep him if he didn't get CL.
Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't, it really depends on the manager at the club. Simply put it is clear to see Ole's plan here when we look at the avg age of our team from last season to this, youth is the goal here and again to repeat myself long term vision. Our avg age from last season was 26 years old I believe and now it is the leagues youngest at 24.
What I would say is, even if he debuted with another manager would we of seen the same results? Before you fire off and think absolutely we would. Didn't ring true for Jose with his handling of Martial & Rashford did it. The latter went 26 games without a goal if memory serves right.
You seem to take this as a singular sentiment for him keeping his job, it isn't... its everything, altogether that would keep him in the job, not simply for debuting some young lads.
I strongly disagree with this assessment. We are breathtaking at times but we have no defined style and many of the complaints about Ole's tactics have been justified.
Not sure why you would disagree, unless you've forgotten just how utterly terrible we were previously under Jose? At no point this season did I feel in despair and even in games where we might not of been at our absolute best, I still felt we were deserving of 3pts more often then not. I can see that we can retain possession now very well whereas previously Jose had no desire to have the ball. I can see we counter on teams beautifully, something I don't think I ever saw consistently under Jose.
Again, to address these issues takes time. It doesn't happen over night and you need the necessary players for it to work something close to flawlessly and consistently but if you read up the right resources and take on board valid, objective information it shows otherwise.
Here's a twitter page I follow often and as early as Oct he had us as performing as 3rd best team in the league, that's with an injured Martial and Pogba bear in mind
Bullshit. Do you not remember how mang injuries we had during the winter?
There's no BS about it at all. Those numbers were still down on the previous year when at the back end of last season and right after being named full time manager of United he had 13 players injured at one point and do you know what followed? Horrendous form and performances, hardly surprising.
https://www.90min.com/posts/6389205...-each-club-suffered-during-the-2018-19-season
We did suffer some bad injuries, but it should give you an indication how bad last year was and previous years when this is still an improvement.
Nope. Still looked gassed after 70 mins in most games and we really have stumbled over the libe due to fatigue.
Absolutely we've stumbled across the line and you know why, I've explained it above. Lack of quality in the squad. Read the thread that Gandalf Greyhame posted.
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/the-most-promising-side-post-saf-and-also-some-stats.456375/
A brilliant thread full of factual info that explains the issues Ole has faced and over come quite often, this one section hits the nail on the head and why Ole had to get every last drop out of the starting XI.
Sheffield United (A) : James, Fred, Williams, Pereira, Phil Jones start : 3-3 Draw
Bournemouth (A): James, Fred, McTominay, Pereira start : 1-0 loss
Villa (H): James, Pereira, Fred, Mata, Williams start: 2-2 Draw
Southampton (A): Mata, Pereira, James, McTominay start: 1-1 Draw
Palace (H) : Lingard, James, McTominay start: 1-2 Loss
West Ham (A): Mata, James, Pereira, McTominary start: 2-0 loss.
3/18 points before restart and 14/18 points now.
Some have improved, some have regressed.
Don't just say they've regressed without name dropping. The only player who has is De Gea, but...that regression was already in place with Jose there. I don't attribute that to Ole's handling of him at all.
Outside of that, I'm genuinely struggling to think of players who previously were consistent and now are not.
Agreed, but I don't think that's down to Ole.
Soooo basically like the Greenwood point you just don't want to give credit where it is due.
There really isn't much objectivity within your sentiments again sadly.
