If there is no new addition, then we will have to be extremely lucky with injuries and form to finish in the Top 4. The first XI has enough quality to challenge most teams apart from Liverpool. However, if you go beyond them, especially in the forward positions, you are looking at a huge drop off in quality. So essentially Martial, Rashford & Mason need to not just be fit, but also be on form through the season. The alternates are Mata, James, Lingard and Iglaho, and I would challenge anyone to get any sort of consistent results with any of these players in the team on a regular basis. Unless we get in a RW at a minimum, I dont care who the manager is, Top 4 is far from a certainty.
Would you sack or keep Ole? (Poll reopened)
- Thread starter MrSingh2002
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Where did I say I was?
Ancelotti might be current flavour of the month but you won't have found many shouting for him at the end of last season.
Of course we're a huge attraction. It's one of the highest paid jobs in football even ignoring anything else.
It's not and that's why Klopp turned it down. They earn millions from other top clubs and there is no need for them to come to United and lose their reputation. Not anymore. The owners are terrible as most people know now.
As many managers Ole has a preferred system and preferred tactics. The problem, he does not have the players and the ingame management skills to compete, or the flexibility. Ole talked about pressing, but after 1.5 years the team still has no plan. Compare the pressing to Salzburgs, which has talented players but no stars. They are able to press top teams, because everyone knows his role, they press as a team.
Ole is mismanaging the team more often then not.
Lingard is useless in his system, find a system where he can chase down the defense, he probably would be useful player.
We have more then enough CM, but only one dm in Matic. Still we play a system, which needs a good dm to protect the last line.
Our CBs are slow, still our defensive tactics are forcing them into sprints.
We do not have wingers, so we do not use the wings properly.
We play through the center, but have not enough men in the box far to often.
The list could be continued. Ole needs support or has to be replaced. He is just not good enough in too many areas.
Ole is mismanaging the team more often then not.
Lingard is useless in his system, find a system where he can chase down the defense, he probably would be useful player.
We have more then enough CM, but only one dm in Matic. Still we play a system, which needs a good dm to protect the last line.
Our CBs are slow, still our defensive tactics are forcing them into sprints.
We do not have wingers, so we do not use the wings properly.
We play through the center, but have not enough men in the box far to often.
The list could be continued. Ole needs support or has to be replaced. He is just not good enough in too many areas.
I think this experiment should end at the close of the season no matter what.
Its clear that Ole either has no effective system or his system is not being executed on the pitch. If it’s the latter he can’t sit on the bench just watching his TV and not be on the sidelines drilling it into his players. If it’s the former, then it’s simply unacceptable.
Whoever we get next needs to have experience in tactical coaching and getting the best out of their players without relying on new purchases. I don’t even care about trophies, but United have no methodology at the minute. I don’t know what our style is. I don’t See our players understanding what their role is.
That’s quite simply not the United way.
Its clear that Ole either has no effective system or his system is not being executed on the pitch. If it’s the latter he can’t sit on the bench just watching his TV and not be on the sidelines drilling it into his players. If it’s the former, then it’s simply unacceptable.
Whoever we get next needs to have experience in tactical coaching and getting the best out of their players without relying on new purchases. I don’t even care about trophies, but United have no methodology at the minute. I don’t know what our style is. I don’t See our players understanding what their role is.
That’s quite simply not the United way.
I’ve been a massive Ole in fan and I still am but surely we can all agree now that if he fails to get top 4 this season he should be let go. You can point to the lack of signings and I agree it’s been disappointing but Ole has form much of the hard work in building a good team. He now has to go out and prove that he can get them playing well, regularly and getting results. If we fail to get top 4 I don’t see how we can claim any further progress has been made. For what it’s worth though, I still think we will have an very good season overall and be closer to challenge than a top 4 battle.
Hey everyone, remember that third place we got in the Premier League 8 weeks ago?
Remember how every manager in the "top6" has been backed properly except for Ole (so far)?
Why are you people jumping over yourselves to blame the manager before the season has even gotten properly underway?
We just had a season where we reached (and exceeded) the amibition for that season, and team sack the manager is gorging themselves like I've never seen before.
WHY?
Remember how every manager in the "top6" has been backed properly except for Ole (so far)?
Why are you people jumping over yourselves to blame the manager before the season has even gotten properly underway?
We just had a season where we reached (and exceeded) the amibition for that season, and team sack the manager is gorging themselves like I've never seen before.
WHY?
Tactics! Pressing! Relegation form!
Comedy isn't it. Just off the back of a 3rd placed finish that the Ole outers claimed was impossible back in January, and now they're getting upset by a hypothetical worse-than-4th placed finish next May.
If it keeps going like this United and City will be relegated this season. You heard it here first
Vultures that were clearly waiting in the wings at the end of last season, its really poor form.
Klopp in the first half 2/3 of the season finished 8th; Ole 6th.
Klopp first full season 4th; Ole 3ed.
Klopp second season 4th; will Ole do better yet again?
Klopp first full season 4th; Ole 3ed.
Klopp second season 4th; will Ole do better yet again?
waddya mean “why” ?
we lost a fecking game last week! A manager is only as good as his last game, y’know
I must have missed the part where we got to a CL final.
Anyway, can't wait to get 90+ points this year and win the CL!
Neah, the bar is at 4th. I think we will do better though.
Uh, no, the bar is 2nd with 97 points and a CL win.
For once i agree with you. Not for last part, of course. He needs to go.
No. In Klopps 2ed full season he got 4th and 75points. It was the season after that Pool became title challengers and got the CL win.
Ah yeah you're right.
OK CL final this year, CL win next year, title the year after. Sounds good to me! Comparing Ole to Klopp is a great idea.
Don't care to much about finals unless you win them; see what good it did to Spurs. The progress is crucial though.
EL final and league cup final are not that important? I like to watch finals (not to lose them though).
Klopp has signed 18 players from 2015 Oct - 2020 totaling $544 million.
Ole has signed 5 players from 2018 Dec - 2020 totaling $254 million
Let's compare them again when Ole has at least half of the squad changed according to his plan.
Ole has signed 5 players from 2018 Dec - 2020 totaling $254 million
Let's compare them again when Ole has at least half of the squad changed according to his plan.
Positivity is a good thing but feck me, you're pushing the boat out with that one.
They are facts though not positivity. My point is that it takes 2 or 3 seasons at the best of times to fix a terrible situation with a squad. It's for perspective not to compare the 2 managers directly at this point. Just where the teams were in similar time frames of the rebuild. We are doing ok.
Jesus
I know your intentions are good but when you compare the 2 managers trajectories what you're saying is if Ole finishes higher than 4th this season he's done a better job than Klopp so therefore he must be the better manager and I really don't think anyone can say that.
Hey guys, remember when OGS took Molde to the Champions League final two years before he joined us?
It was a little trollish I admit.
Hey guys, I think we should hire Di Mateo because he took Chelsea to a CL win.
I think this is the key disagreement between Ole out and Ole inn camps, and i dont mean you specifically, but a lot of people in the former camp seem to ascribe any bad performance to coaching or lack thereof. It also seems that a lot of people gloss over any positives and solely focus on the negatives. We did in fact end up in 3rd place just a few months ago, beating City and Chelsea x3 along the way, but two bad matches at the start of the new season all that is forgotten and all the old criticisms pop up again right away. Some people claim 3rd was just par for the course because we have the 3rd best squad in the league, and i'd say thats highly debatable.
One thing is making a plan, another one is actually carrying it out on the pitch. I think everyone agrees we looked like a bunch of headless chickens both vs Brighton and Palace, but if you look at our last 20 games or so it becomes clear that is the exception rather than the rule. Regarding our system, its there, its just not what people (think) they want.
I read a lot on here about getting a "progressive" manager and i assume then people mean someone who plays high press, possession football like all the best teams. We have played high press at times though and it has worked very well. For example post lockdown we had several games where we pressed high with good results. So its not like Ole is completely opposed to it, its just that we dont do it all the time. For a high press/possession tactic to work though you need a couple of key ingredients
1) You need to be better than your opponent in possession: This is absolutely vital. If you attempt to press high, but only have 40% of the ball, you are going to be completely shattered by early second half since you would have spent way to much energy chasing shadows. With a couple of notable exceptions like Bruno and Martial, i'd say we dont really have the squad to be playing an out and out possession style. When Ole faced Klopp and Pep, he knew that trying to beat them at their own game would be suicide so he opted for a more counter attacking style instead. The results were not bad and what made it even better was the sour grapes from Klopp and Pep afterwards about us playing defensive football.
2) You need CM's with a great engine, good tackling ability and preferably a bit of pace as well. Imo, we have just one who fits the bill in Fred. Maybe McTomminay. Pogba in 2019 and 2020 has mostly been injured or a complete liability and i honestly dont think he has it in his locker either. Matic who i think was probably our best midfielder last year does not fit that system at all. Hes good on the ball and is great at reading the game, but if you are asking him to chase players down in a high press he will look like a fish out of water. If we bought someone like Ndidi and played him and Fred as CM/DM partners behind Bruno it could work, but again, right now we dont have the player profiles for it
3) You need a back four who is comfortable on the ball and decent passers. This is also vital because the alternatives are to hoof it and hope for the best or lose possession and get attack instead. Its clear that Ole wants us to play out from the back, but its a mixed bag as we all know. Maguire is alright at it on a good day, so is Shaw and AWB although they too can be pretty inconsistent. Lindelof, for allegedly being some kind of ball playing CB is absolutely terrible at it and regularly gets us into danger when hes put under pressure. Honestly i think Baily would be much better suited to the way we want to play, so maybe if he stays injury free and gets some game time to form a partnership with Maguire it could work
Brighton and Potter often gets used as an example of a relatively small team that plays high press/possession and yes they do, and on their day they are good to watch and its pretty refreshing to see a smaller team not parking the bus, so credit where its due. But: They ended up at 15th last season and only 7 points clear from relegation. Honestly i did not see a whole lot of Brigton games last year, but i saw a a few and every time they faced a side that was more comfortable at possession than them or great at counter attacking they ended up in a lot of trouble
Also its worth noting that Klopp who is seen as the master of this kind of philosophy took about three years + Van Dijk before it all clicked for them. Before that they were shipping goals left, right and center and the only reason they did not end up midtable in 16/17 and 17/18 was because they scored a lot of goals as well.
When we it comes to attacking play we do have "patterns", or signature moves but either people are not seeing them or they are ignoring them willfully.
1) Rashford/Greenwood makes a run into the box, Bruno then squares it to Martial who then hopefully has some space to operate in and can either pass it on or try to shoot
2) Martial pull back and Bruno makes a run, opens up space for Rashford/Greenwood who then receives the ball in a good position
3) Rashford/Greenwood takes it down to the byline and the hits a low cross for someone to get a toe on
Also, both Martial and Rashford have hugely improved under Ole compared to Jose so i hardly think its fair to say that we have no plan and are just making it up as we go along. Of course its not a cooking recipe and it will look slightly different from time to time, but there clearly is a plan, its not just as super structured as say Van Gaal would have it. Also, regarding Van Gaal: Hes living proof that extreme amounts of coaching and instructions does not necessarily produce results or even good football.
It also seems people have forgotten we are still in transition and right now the whole rebuild process has grinded to a complete halt because of the ineptitude of Ed and the board. Under Ole we have shifted a lot of deadwood, but somehow that process has stopped completely. Players like Jones, Rojo, Mata, Lindgard and Pereria should obviously have been shifted a long time ago, but the club has showed they are either completely unable and/or unwilling to find any buyers for them. Then you add the whole Sancho disaster and it very much feels like Ole has been hung out to dry by the board because it seems their ambition is merely securing a positive cash flow. Our first XI is good enough to get top 4, but our back ups can not be trusted at all in the league or the CL, which is pretty fecking disasterous in such a compact season as this one.
So regarding Ole, it seems to me no matter what he does hes never going to earn the trust or even the benefit of the doubt from some fans. So far hes got rid of deadwood, bought fairly well and ended up 3rd in his first full season in the midst of a transition. I'd say thats a passing grade. Still though, for some fans hes constantly one bad game away from the knives being out again and desperate calls for him to be replaced, even though these calls for other managers are utterly unrealistic and only based on "they did well in another club under completely different circumstances".
tl;dr: Maybe but Ole some slack
Rather you're Ole in or Ole out, which isn't as clear cut as it sounds, we're all fighting the same corner and want what's best for the club. Liverpool are looking like they're going to not only equal SAF's incredible work but surpass it if we don't get the right man in soon to challenge them. We can point to the board all we want but how many managers get license to spend £80m on a single CB? our board is shit but this idea that Ole isn't being backed at all has got to stop. Keane said recently that without further investment he expects us to finish outside the top four. Does that sound like a manager that's going to be able to deliver a title any time soon? Not to me, but time will tell.
Well, I think he just means talk of giving Ole the boot might be a tad premature.
No harm in positivity where its warranted but you know yourself if you put Ole in the same sentence as Klopp or SAF you're going to be rightfully shot down. Ole vs Lampard. Now that no one's got a problem with.
Well said
That's not how I read it. To me he was overly positive saying Ole is doing a good a job if not better in comparing the time frame between the 2 managers. Nothing about Ole getting the boot.
The comparison has to be made between where we are now and success stories with a similar trajectory (as success is what we want). As of yet, we are on course with how successful rebuilds looked like (SAF included), making it silly imo to be wanting the manager out. If the progress stops however, that is where any comparison becomes null and void.
I don't disagree but the original point I made is if we're going to compare don't compare with someone like Klopp because you're just setting yourself up for a fall. It's like comparing player x with player y. Nothing good comes out of it. All we can do is see how Ole carries on and evaluate on what we see at the end of the season.
You're allowed to compare a little bit when it comes down to people wanting to "get rid now because everything is horrible", and then show that actually the results are currently the same or better in the same time period as this other person you praise so highly.
So maybe we should have some patience and see where this keeps going instead of getting rid while it's still on an improving pattern.
I'm setting myself up for "lolz Ole fanboy red tinted glasses" type comment or thinking from the Ole out brigade but that's ok, I don't mind
I do think though that good does come from it because it's much more in line with reality to compare the teams results now to those that made successful rebuilds in a similar time frame. It shows you that we are on the right track and that's important. Obviously it doesn't guarantee that the progression continues in the same way going forward, that remains to be seen.
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