Nearly all managers eventually face the gallows, but finishing third when going into the season we would have all been pleased to have finished in the top four -- which we did -- so any talk of sacking Ole right now is pretty ridiculous.
Would you sack or keep Ole? (Poll reopened)
- Thread starter MrSingh2002
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You realise Ole has less power regarding transfers now than our previous managers right?
Seriously?
You're making that point after those embarrassing point totals and amount of money managers were allowed to spend here?
The team has been consistently poor.
How do United fans, of all fans out there downplay the manager's ability to improve when we had SAF for so long? It's mind-boggling.
Note: I'm not saying we go out and get a new manager now, but let's not downplay just how a manager can change things.
I mean just look at what Klopp did to Liverpool. And before someone counters with Mane-Salah, no one batted an eye for those 2 when they were signed. Heck, there were posters on here(perhaps me included) who didn't want Mane from Southampton when we were linked it.
There is nothing that supports this.
Jose wanted Maguire. Woodward said no.
Ole wanted Maguire. Woodward said yes.
He has the same power regarding transfers as Moyes, Van Gaal and Jose.
SAF? What makes you think that? I don't think SAF has any role other than picking up the phone when Ole wants a chat.
By all accounts Phelan has been working as a de facto DOF despite not having the title. My understanding was that he didnt take the position because Ole wanted him in a kind of dual role between DOF and coach until McKenna and Carrick got fully up to speed but now he's been acting in a more DOF role.
This is why he's never involved in training or in the dug out anymore. I think the board believe in Oles vision for the club and can see the that his decisions are for the clubs benefit. So instead of having a DOF that tries to control the vision I think they would try to have one that generally tries to assist Ole in carrying out what he wants to do. You won't see a situation where Ole gets curtailed by a DOF with a different vision.
The DOF will generally be someone who does his bidding regarding transfers, dealing with the board etc while Ole focuses on winning games.
Woodward himself confirmed that United has changed how we do transfers in an interview with a fanzine. It's also been reported that we now have a transfer committee with people other than the manager and CEO making the decisions on who we target. Multiple sources have stated this. We no longer go by what the manager alone says.
Better qs would be when did this transfer committee started?
I think season 17/18, late months 2017, many transfers later on support that theory. It definitely had strongest influence starting 18/19 onwards.
Looking at the committee members though, I would say Ole have stronger influence than Mou there. No way they will ignore his input.
We've never done that anyway. Even under Ferguson there was always a committee of some description.
Could we close this thread? It’s embarrassing.
also, I always backed ole!
also, I always backed ole!
It should be closed. It has about as much relevance now as a thread called 'should we stick with Bruno as our no.10?'
Hell yes I am.
I don't quite get the prevalent notion that one factor matters more than the other. They BOTH matter. The manager can only do so much, the game is actually played by the players.
A football manager isn't some real life version of FM2020 where you can set a fixed amount of variables and they will execute your willful command. You need the right players that can do it.
OR to use a lazy example: Pep Guardiola isn't qualifying for the Europa League with Norwich. Why is that? Becuause the players aren't good enough. Perhaps if he can BUY the RIGHT players like say.. Klopp has done with Liverpool. If you remember, Liverpool didn't exactly do great in his first season either.
But if you want to point to Klopp. Let me remind you EXACTLY what Klopp did.
He built a team with the right players. His first season (30 games in 2015/2016) actually mimmicked the 18/19 campaign for Manchester United in many many ways, but they did even worse, finishing in 8th.
In 2016/2017 he added the following players to the squad: Gini Wijnaldum, Joel Matip, Loris Karius and Sadio Mane. Mané gave Liverpools offensive a penetrative threat through speed they did not have with Firminho or Coutinho. There was no Europa League at Anfield that season, and they went out of both cups early'ish. The team however improved a LOT with Mané - Scoring 13 with 6 assists. With no external cups to draw focus they had the luxury of focusing entirely on the league, and squeezed through to the Champions League.
Does Jürgen Klopp win the Premier League with the 2016/2017 squad? Of course he doesn't. Neither does Sir Alex.
2017/2018 - Hmmm who did Klopp buy that is noteworthy... oh yes: Andy Robertson, Mohamed Salah and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. Bonus squad player from the academy: Trent Alexander-Arnold. And a casual Virgil Van Dijk in January of the same year.
Will these players thrive in a back 5 system? Well no, but they weren't bought to play in defensive teams, they are playing in a team that plays a very spesific brand of football, and THAT is why they work. Still though, defense wasn't entirely fixed yet, lacked a couple components to mount a title challenge. Liverpool comes 4th again in 17/18
2018/2019: Signs Alisson Becker and Fabinho. Last pieces of a 3 year long puzzle.
So at this point: Klopp has the players he needs to challenge for a title. It took Jürgen Klopp 3 years to build a football team that could win a majori title. And he got lucky. All signings don't work out the way you want, Keita has been underwhelming compared to what the hype indicated, Karius forced the signing of Alisson. But largely the players he brought in are the right people for the job. And that is honestly the only takeaway i want from this post: Put the right man in the job and he will succeed. Employ the coaches that will help the players develop their game and he will succeed better.
Employ the manager that will use the players at hand to the best of their ability, and you might win a title.
Ole is not going to get sacked before November/December at earliest. That would only happen if everything turns to shit directly from kickoff of next season, which would surprise me a lot if it did.
If we have a squad with good rotation options that can consistantly pick the lesser teams apart, like we showed we can on several occasions since Bruno came in, and keep or close to keep our trackrecord against the top teams we should be able to challenge again. The entire squad, minus Matic and DDG, has their peak years in front of them. We are just three to four quality players away from being back, ladies and gents. Time to think positive!
I personally don't think we will sign three of four quality players in this window, so I don't think we will challenge for PL or CL this season (20/21), but after that there will be no excuses.
We will probably run out of steam for short periods next season (with a heavy schedule), but we'll be a lot closer to City and LFC than we were this season. Chelsea should also be a lot closer to the other two, so I think battling for 3rd with them, at 10-15 points more than this season, is what we should aim at next season. Unless of course we rocket out of the blocks....
There is no evidence against Ole having what it takes to win big titles with us, none. The 20/21 season will give us a good idea though, after that we'll see if he is a good or a great manager.
All arrows are pointing upwards and unless we fall off a cliff the first 1/3 of the season there is no reason why he should not get 100% backing from fans and club going in to the next season. Get the F in!
If we have a squad with good rotation options that can consistantly pick the lesser teams apart, like we showed we can on several occasions since Bruno came in, and keep or close to keep our trackrecord against the top teams we should be able to challenge again. The entire squad, minus Matic and DDG, has their peak years in front of them. We are just three to four quality players away from being back, ladies and gents. Time to think positive!
I personally don't think we will sign three of four quality players in this window, so I don't think we will challenge for PL or CL this season (20/21), but after that there will be no excuses.
We will probably run out of steam for short periods next season (with a heavy schedule), but we'll be a lot closer to City and LFC than we were this season. Chelsea should also be a lot closer to the other two, so I think battling for 3rd with them, at 10-15 points more than this season, is what we should aim at next season. Unless of course we rocket out of the blocks....
There is no evidence against Ole having what it takes to win big titles with us, none. The 20/21 season will give us a good idea though, after that we'll see if he is a good or a great manager.
All arrows are pointing upwards and unless we fall off a cliff the first 1/3 of the season there is no reason why he should not get 100% backing from fans and club going in to the next season. Get the F in!
Exactly, as Johnny Giles often says 90% of a manager's job is getting the right players in to fit their vision of how the game should be played.
He might be over-simplifying if being from a bygone age but successful managers generally have to be a good judge of player.
If we ever needed evidence that the previous system was better, this is it. The state of this... FML...
Not to forget their market leading analysis and recruitment team. Klopp didn't singlehandedly pick out the likes of Salah and Robertson as transfer bargains as many seem to think.
Ah yes the famous British manager i.e the likes of Wenger, Mourinho, Benitez, Ancelloti, Mancini whom Fergie took on and defeated them in league titles. What a stupid post.
Funny thing is, if Klopp's supposedly awesome "tactics" of this season were played with a team of, oh I don't know, Fellani, Valencia and Young for example, we'd be talking about how they were dumping 80+ aimless crosses into the box without actually having a goal threat...
Think a slightly harder line should be taken on posts now. I mean, I'm all for freedom of expression, but it's hard for me to accept that we should refrain from making "personal attacks" (read: question the intellectual capacity of the poster) when in the past two pages we've read:
1. Jose's 81 point team > the treble winners
2. SAF would not beat Pep and Klopp
These really are depths I didn't think we'd plumb...
Think a slightly harder line should be taken on posts now. I mean, I'm all for freedom of expression, but it's hard for me to accept that we should refrain from making "personal attacks" (read: question the intellectual capacity of the poster) when in the past two pages we've read:
1. Jose's 81 point team > the treble winners
2. SAF would not beat Pep and Klopp
These really are depths I didn't think we'd plumb...
Ask Watford what changing manager 3 times a season does for you.
what rubbish.Ferguson was able to ward offthe likes of prime wenger mourinho anceotti and many others over 25 years and you think he’d struggle vs klopp and pep?
Maybe you should stop being so triggered against people that just have a different view point against yours. True or not we don’t actually know do we. Hence why Liverpool fans feel justified in rating this current team so highly.
No one's saying that they aren't a really good side. But to say a team that won just the league (and did not set any points record nor did they go through the season unbeaten) is the best English team ever is preposterous.
I have nothing against people saying Klopp or Jose or even Allardyce or McClaren are better managers than Ole or that this Liverpool team is a better team etc. etc. But when people start saying Jose's team in his second season was better than the treble winners or that Fergie would not beat Klopp, that's ridiculous. That's the Jose that SAF ran out of the PL despite only one of them having unlimited funds and the other a stifling amount of debt to service. That's the Klopp that compared meeting Fergie to meeting the Pope and has won the PL a grand total of once. This Liverpool team crashed out of every Cup before even the SFs. To compare Pep or Klopp with a man who is acknowledge even by these two as quite likely the greatest ever is beyond preposterous.
If we played like this and Ole's position was safe, Haaland would have joined us for sure. Wondering if he can bring in Odegaard and Haaland to us now as he is building something good here.
Having Scandinavian manager, we should be in a good position to tap into any great players coming from that area.
Having Scandinavian manager, we should be in a good position to tap into any great players coming from that area.
Just say hence.
Hence and why serve the same function so using them in tandem is tautologous.
Well if that's the case Ole is a genius. He's been absolutely fantastic.
To much if buts maybes and not trues. I’ll tell you what is true though. That 99 side was better than Jose’s second side. Tell you what also is true. If Pep wasn’t Manchester United manager Jose’s team would have won that Premier league and we’d remember it like his last Chelsea league champions. Boring but did the job.
Now let it go.
@bleedred painted himself into a corner with his claims about points being the only metric by which to compare teams, and because he's completely unwilling to admit to being wrong, is now in a forced marriage with the idea that Jose's 2nd place team was better than Ferguson's treble winners.
You have a better one?. I have agreed its nonsensical to compare teams from different eras. But, if we are going to do it, how would you though?
Here's a controversial theory, what about trophies?
I am just talking about just the league one its own.
Manchester United have never been about just the league, so why set that constraint. Back then we would save certain players in the league matches to focus on cups, especially as long as we were sufficiently ahead of the others in the league. You never had to get close to 100 points to win the league. Now it seems you do, the game has changed. Same as records in all sports improve over the years with improved technology and techniques. (For football this would be football scientists, gps tracking and so on.)
You play differently when you are playing for certain results. You play safer if you just need the draw to achieve the goal if losing could be an issue.
The trophy is for the winners. So again, how about the trophies? The treble winners did win the league you know...
Pep wasn’t Manchester United manager. And if he’d not been City’s Manager, someone else would have. You don’t know what that someone else could or would have achieved. Bottom line - that team played crap, overachieved like crazy and was ultimately fortunate to cling on to second.
Let it go now.
I think the Europa League will give us a fair idea of Ole's abilities in crucial cup ties. Without having to worry about the Madrids, Barcas, and Bayerns of Europe, there's no reason why Manchester United should not mount a serious title challenge. At least on paper, we have the best starting-eleven among all remaining teams the EL.
I will change my vote if Ole wins this trophy.
I will change my vote if Ole wins this trophy.
Thank Christ for that
Comparing points in different seasons, especially if there is a 19 years gap between them is more than just pointless.
In 1998/99 for example there were only 2 teams from the PL in the CL. In Jose’s time with us there were at least 4. It does make a difference if only you (and another PL team - in our case initially Arsenal who went out in the group stages in 1998/99) have to play PL games after difficult European midweek games or if at least 3 other teams face the same challenge.
A lot of people were discussing fatigue of our players in the last few weeks and how team x had a whole week to rest and team z had two days more rest. Now imagine how that fatigue would look like if you are actually the only PL team with such a tight schedule and playing an important match every 3-4 days.
In 1998/99 the team was already in the 1st half of the season in the group of death with Barcelona and Bayern. Everyone knows how exciting but also difficult those midweek games were. And after the group stages we were the only PL team left in the CL until the very end. Arsenal didn’t survive the group stages and weren’t even competing in other European competitions. Despite having played many more games we still won the PL ahead of them. Chelsea were at least still competing in the cup winners cup - albeit against weaker teams than the CL and fewer games than we had to play.
In 2017/18 we were in a relatively easy CL group and went out in the 1st knock-out phase. Not a great achievement really that Jose managed to get us 2 more points in that season than we got in 1998/99 under completely different circumstances.
In the end if you win the PL + CL in the same season it means you are a great team as you won the CL and managed to win one of Europe’s top leagues at the same time. To top it by winning the FA Cup in the same season is huge!
This is a greater season than winning the league with 100 or whatever points but being nothing special in Europe at the same time.
And definitely better than what we achieved in 2017/18.
There’s no way you can compare seasons without taking into consideration the amount of games played and the level of opposition overcome in the seasons you are comparing.
In 1998/99 for example there were only 2 teams from the PL in the CL. In Jose’s time with us there were at least 4. It does make a difference if only you (and another PL team - in our case initially Arsenal who went out in the group stages in 1998/99) have to play PL games after difficult European midweek games or if at least 3 other teams face the same challenge.
A lot of people were discussing fatigue of our players in the last few weeks and how team x had a whole week to rest and team z had two days more rest. Now imagine how that fatigue would look like if you are actually the only PL team with such a tight schedule and playing an important match every 3-4 days.
In 1998/99 the team was already in the 1st half of the season in the group of death with Barcelona and Bayern. Everyone knows how exciting but also difficult those midweek games were. And after the group stages we were the only PL team left in the CL until the very end. Arsenal didn’t survive the group stages and weren’t even competing in other European competitions. Despite having played many more games we still won the PL ahead of them. Chelsea were at least still competing in the cup winners cup - albeit against weaker teams than the CL and fewer games than we had to play.
In 2017/18 we were in a relatively easy CL group and went out in the 1st knock-out phase. Not a great achievement really that Jose managed to get us 2 more points in that season than we got in 1998/99 under completely different circumstances.
In the end if you win the PL + CL in the same season it means you are a great team as you won the CL and managed to win one of Europe’s top leagues at the same time. To top it by winning the FA Cup in the same season is huge!
This is a greater season than winning the league with 100 or whatever points but being nothing special in Europe at the same time.
And definitely better than what we achieved in 2017/18.
There’s no way you can compare seasons without taking into consideration the amount of games played and the level of opposition overcome in the seasons you are comparing.
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