We'll just have to agree to disagree on that point. If that's the way you see it then nobody will convince you otherwise.
Would you sack or keep Ole? (Poll reopened)
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We'll just have to agree to disagree on that point. If that's the way you see it then nobody will convince you otherwise.
Sorry I need to rephrase, the concept that he struggled because of a makeshift team is overcooked.
I mean you can disagree but I literally gave a range of games where our performances and results were bad and we actually had combinations of Rashford / Martial involved, some even had Pogba.
I didn't realise having better players automatically means they should win. We should give the UCL at the start of the season to the team that has the best squad then?
City have better players than Liverpool yet finished 20 odd points behind them? Football is not an exact science.
Manutd had Martial, Pogba, Shaw, McTominay all injured at the start of last season, so I am not sure how you say injuries didn't hamstring us.
Every team has bad performances too. Liverpool yesterday were better team than Atalanta on paper and didnt have a shot on target.
Comparisons to Klopp and Pep, whether to praise another manager or to use it as a stick to beat him with, are never stupid IMO. To "compare" is after all not the same as to "equate", and those two managers are in many ways the current benchmarks of what successful managers, their teams and their time scales look like. So to compare with them is not just smart, it's the natural thing to do. Granted, it's a high bar to set if anything below that is to be considered "failure", but it absolutely works as something tangible to compare with.
I'd say the same for comparisons to SAF's tenure, btw. That's also the natural thing to do, a benchmark of what unbelievable success looks like. And again, it doesn't mean that a manager is equated to SAF - or "in that conversation" - when comparisons are made. If everything is relative - which competitive sports certainly are - it has to be relative to something else. So we set benchmarks for what success looks like, what failure looks like, what average looks like etc. You can compare Solskjaer to Moyes as well, without it meaning that you equate the two.
If I literally gave a range of games where our performances and results were good would that change anything for you? Of course not. You've made up your mind.
Thats fair enough. I guess a better way of phrasing it would be to say that comparisons in the context of this thread are stupid. It just encourages tangents and accusations that people think he is better than those two - which I don't believe is the intention.
To steal the table posted earlier in this thread the numbers are actually encouraging, but also fruitless because those guys went on to trophies and we haven't yet, so it will be taken in whatever way the reader wants to. Personally I see this as something to support the notion that it takes even the very best time to build a team to win titles, and so far Ole is on the right track. Then you'll get someone saying 'yeah, but you could see what Klopp was trying to do' or some such and theres no point continuing
| Manager | Games (All Comps) | W | D | L | CS | Win % | GF | GA | GD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pep | 104 | 72 | 18 | 14 | 41 | 69% | 246 | 95 | +151 |
| Ole | 104 | 59 | 20 | 25 | 39 | 57% | 190 | 104 | +86 |
| Klopp | 104 | 55 | 28 | 21 | 37 | 53% | 193 | 111 | +82 |
| Poch | 104 | 53 | 26 | 25 | 29 | 51% | 174 | 114 | +60 |
I'd love to go just start quoting the posts by these guys when they were 100 odd games into their tenure. I remember posting a lot of those quotes earlier, but regret having just posted the text instead of tagging the members as well. Literally every one of us was laughing at them and mocking them because we all saw that they had reduced their pressing intensity and thought that he won't take them to PL championship
Oh its true. My general reaction to seeing posts like 'you could see back then what he was trying to do' is to cringe and then usually put on ignore. I can sit here now and say, even going back to the start of last season, that I can see what Ole is trying to do here, and its true - I can. A lot of people can. It doesn't mean that its guaranteed to work out, but I think its always been obvious what the club are aiming for with this team.
You give this squad to even Moyes and he would have us where we are. Any current PL manager would get us the same. But it's not good enough for us. We need to win the PL or the CL.
We gave a much better squad to Moyes , the team that won the title and he left us at 7th and without a doubt our worst season since the great one retired. People may not rate Ole but he has outperformed moyes easily. So no there is no guarantee Moyes would have taken us to 3rd.
I've not seen this at all. I think the general acceptance among both Ole in vs out is he achieved the minimum target last season. The fact he did so on the last day is testament to how close he was to the sack in my opinion but, he achieved the minimum and so I think most people were 'ok' for him to continue, even if big question marks remained. It's probably the same for Chelsea fans with Lampard, they appreciated he had a transfer ban but they would have hoped for top 4 given their squad and how relatively weak the PL was last season, the fact he scraped it as well probably meant they were similar to us going into the new season (popular ex player, minimal top level managerial experience, acceptable but not successful 19/20 season).
And yet many media outlets named lampard as one of the nominations for Manager of the year but Ole is still considered as a PE teacher.
Having better players than the opposition means you shouldn't chronically drop silly points against them. Which Ole did in the first half of the season.
Disagree, Liverpool have a lot of very talented players who happen to be coached better. Funny what good coaching can do, isn't it?
You haven't really been following the posts have you? I pointed to games where we dropped silly points with combinations of these players fit.
Go for it please - it will net out to the 66 point total which is underwhelming, and the fact that we go on long stretches good form, and then bad form. Because as I said we look to be a confidence team.
But please don't suggest our bad results are down to injury when we had most of our main players available. And don't just pick form that makes Ole look good. You take him since he started, you look at the period as a whole and you evaluate from there. That's how this whole sub debate started, because some guy thought we can mark from when Bruno came and ignore the tripe we had before that. No manager gets a pass to write off an entire year - he should be judged from when he joined to when he leaves with all the context that goes with it.
I saw he was shortlisted but I didn't think he won anything? He had a transfer ban and got top 4 with one final. Hardly amazing but I guess, in fairness, probably better than us/similar (if you value is getting to semi finals) with the caveat that we spent heavily last season. I think one thing that goes in his favour is he's a rookie manager whereas Ole started in management only a year or so after Pep so the media are less forgiving. Add in the ABU agenda and easy to see why Lampard was viewed more favourably.
2nd best team in the country since Bruno joined. This doesn't suit the Ole outers agenda very much does it?
That's because it doesn't happen. The Cardiff stint just points to not having had good prior experience but those doubting Ole have more than enough to critique during his time as the United manager. Of some posters prefer to ignore and cherry pick periods of form to make him look better than he's been.
Don't think so - but there are posters angry at the media that Arteta was "given praise" when Ole is critiqued. Even though Arteta was never "praised" as such just now, they just said he needs to be given time (and the same was said about Ole).
People will look for any conspiracy that fits.
There's no agenda, and it's post like these that need revising because it's almost like you're trying to start a childish civil war. I doubt Ole is the man to lead us to titles, and in my own posts I don't think we should sack him tomorrow because he's earned the minimum requirement last year and deserves the chance to build on momentum. However failure to build on consistency by having a strong season for 20/21 will be a sack. There's no agenda driven nature behind that, I'm evaluating like how I'd evaluate any manager.
So Pep must be a rubbish manager? he has dropped alot of points this season?
Chelsea had better players than most last season and finished same points as us? Better players is an opinion.
Barca have the best players yet still fail to win CL in the last few years getting knocked out by teams with lesser players.
No one is arguing about coaching, a well coached team can be very good, look at Leeds, they done very well against teams with better players.
I know you are a stern Ole out but to say we haven't been impacted by injuries last season? Pogba was out most of the season, Martial missed 3 months, Shaw missed 2 months. Did we not drop points when those players were out? We played Perreira as a CM in one game and he wouldnt get in any PL team.
You don’t know what you are talking about and blindly use transfer fees to make lazy argument. They were last season Turkey Super league title winner and it’s a league that better than Scottish league as they have very well known clubs like Galatasary, Fenerbache, Besiktas.
They are actually better team than West Brom, they are not championship level. They are very well capable team that can cause trouble not just to us, how? Look at these facts:
They had more possession vs RB Leipzig which very unusual for for Leipzig:
And they had 16 shots which only 2 less than PSG (18), PSG needed to score their first goal in 64th min. I remember watching the match in first half and I thought Istanbul were the better team than PSG.
You could have added this:
The last 4 seasons they have ended : 2, 3, 2 and 1 in Turkey. They have lost a total of 18 league games over 4 years. But since they dont have the same name as Besiktas, Fenerbache and Galatasaray - they are considered crap. I watched Bristol City play Watford last night - they are 2 of the best teams in the Championship. This guys would have steamrolled both of those sides.
This nonsense must stop at some time.
Pep is overrated but the man has won titles in every country and he won a title for City with record points, so there is an element of goodwill that he's bought at the club to allow him to re-build.
Of course if he continues playing like City have now, for the rest of the season - he might well be sacked. And no one would complain to be honest, that's form that can get you kicked out of top 4.
Chelsea missed Pulisic for chunks of the season, Kante for chunks the season and I think a couple others. Their injuries were quite bad like ours but they were also transfer banned and it was Lampard's first year in charge. Ole had 6 months of settling in and a summer window to spend his £200m. Lampard has now spent his similar amounts so I'd say the comparison between the two managers is probably a fair barometer from this season onwards.
Barca are quite shit now and Messi is the only player capable of bailing them out of games. This has been long discussed in other threads, about their inevitable decline - I'm not sure how this is relevant.
I'm not "stern" because I absolutely adore the man but I'm trying to separate "art" from "artist" (for lack of a better term). I did think he proved me wrong post lock-down. My qualm now is that he started the season poorly with 8 games in and it's all too familiar with the first 18 months. After you're 2 years in you get less of these excuses. I said today - I don't think he should be sacked tomorrow but he needs to pick up consistency for this season quick or he will probably get a sack.
And I do doubt his coaching because I don't see anything hes looking to acheive on the pitch, I don't think he knows his first XI and it's been well reported that the players have been doubting his credentials on top. I don't think this makes me a stern Ole outer, I'm just evaluating what I see on the pitch and what reputable sources report. The absolute best case scenario for me is Ole turns it around wins titles and proves people like me wrong - because that would be a long term manager for a club right there and that beats some dick comparing competition on a football forum. I just don't see it happening.
I don't think we haven't been impacted - we have. Just like Chelsea have and Leicester have. But the narrative is overcooked - I named many matches above where we had key players available and underperformed and either lost or drew.
Essentially, those who supported him (to various degrees) before Christmas argued that we lacked creativity and that it wasn't much he could do about that given the players he had at his disposal - AND that adding some creativity would see a clear improvement in performances.
Enter Bruno - and presto, those people were proven 100% correct. But he won't get any credit for it - of course. It was all down to Bruno (who either isn't all that OR should have been signed earlier OR...whatever).
A positive spin on that season would be that he initially went with a thin squad, as a calculated risk (so to speak) - but then managed to secure a crucial piece in January, after which our performances improved dramatically and we ended up in a respectable position. If you consider all this in the context of a "rebuild" scenario, in which he simply wasn't meant to mount a challenge on all fronts - well, it looks pretty decent.
What happened next, though? We don't know, too early to say. But we do know that whatever he's doing at the moment is done in the context of a fecked-up overall situation (which some people - the same who refuse to give him any credit - completely ignore whenever it suits them).
Their is no narrative with me. Ole done a good job. Hes hit his targets.
It's like Moyes didnt have control of a title winning squad, the show what he can do.
Ole has done a lot better with us than Moyes would have to be fair. Whilst I don't think Ole is a top manager, he's certainly not going down in history books like a David Moyes. That man was an Ali Dia equivalent appointment.
Annoyingly, my browser doesnt let me quote parts of the message so I am having to do a reply...
Re Pep - fair enough, if he doesnt get top 4 sack.
Ole didnt have £200m in the summer though, we spent £150 and sold Lukaku. If you take the transfer ban, wasn't Pulisic a new player?
Re the coaching, I agree with you on that, it does not seem his coaching methods are getting the most out of players
Chelsea have a very big squad with quality compare to us, we had Lingard and Perreira playing alot of games for us last season.
I dont know what happened to the rest of my post there seems cut out, damn phone
Your opinion is fair enough and you give reasons for why you dont think he be the man in the long run.
Guess its just a waiting game. I'm quite confident about the season. We know more after December.
You are 100% on moyes being like ali Dia.
It them sort of comments that create the toxic vibe at the moment. I mean we already had moyes managing is to 7th with a title winning team. Have to put it down to a troll comment.
It certainly makes the constant moaning after every so-and-so or meh performance seem rather peevish and obstinate. There's good discussion to be held about what we do well and what not as a team, about what the manager has done well and what not but, unfortunately, it all gets lost in the noise both extremes make. And yeah, i'll agree with you there. Even as someone who doesn't have much faith in Solskjaer, the negativity on here after each and every bad performance is close to unbearable.
Where i probably won't agree is if you want me to take that statement of yours literally. Because we have not been the second best team in the country for quite a while now, even with Bruno's stint included. In terms of the quality of the football produced and titles won, Liverpool and City are way ahead of the rest. We're among a pack of teams that tries to play catch-up. The way you wrote it, it reminded me of some Spurs fans who were claiming that theirs was the best team in the country between 2015 and 2017 because, if we combined the points of all teams from the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons, Spurs were leading that imaginary table.
Similarly, i understand the stats with Klopp and Pep's first 90, 100, 105 or whatever games in charge when they are used to pointing out that you can't build a truly great side with a snap of the fingers. It takes time and there are several aspects of the club that have improved under Solskjaer. But it should not be used as an argument to simply dismiss and snub all concerns about the future. If what you're really trying to tell me that everything is okey-dokey and there should be no concerns whatsoever because "Pep and Klopp didn't have better stats in their first 104 games", then you should also include their next 105, 155, 205 games as a measure of what we should expect from Solskjaer in the near future.
Anyway, i believe he's earned the right to get the full season, unless the wheels come off, and i repeat that there's unnecessary panic, right now, whenever we lose a game or drop points.
On the other hand, his win percentage in the PL seems dangerously stuck to 50%: 12/21 in 2018-19, 18/38 in 2019-20 and 4/8 thus far in 2020-21. So, i'd argue that the shouts about the lack of consistency are pretty much valid and not as someone suggested a few pages back unwarranted.
Pulisic came when Hazard left so it's net net the same (it's actually worse because Hazard was so instrumental for Chelsea, all their play went through him). I think Pulisic only started in 19 games too, such was his season of injuries/settling in. Kante had 20 starts so yeah they both failed to feature in a fair chunk of the season.
And yeah you an look at the money out but Lukaku was never a player in Ole's plans and he was frozen out the first XI. You can ignore the hard sums because we ourselves concentrated much of that on Maguire for example. But my point is, Ole had 6 months to settle in + a summer window to fix his defence before Lampard could do the same a year on. The barometer for comparison with these managers for me would make sense to start from this season onwards.
Also Chelsea had Mount who just came from the Championship, Tammy Abraham who also came form the Championship - these are players that had to make a step up. It's all well and good turning on Lingard/Pereira on hindsight but Lingard himself proved a valuable asset many times for Jose and this caf was once upon a time begging for Pereira to play games. Moreover Ole chose to buy Dan James and start him from the get-go. Chelsea had a much worse defence than us on paper too + they had Kepa who is an absolute liability. They conceded more goals than Brighton in the league last year
For everything they gave in attack, they certainly leaked more in defence. Part is because Lampard probably didn't organize them well enough but a material amount is based on them having a shit defence. They look better this season with better players, which is what Ole had from the start of last year in defence.Back to the crux of my point though - you can point to times where Ole was rampant (post Bruno) and you can point to times he was not (first half of last season). The issue he has now is building consistency from here. Can't keep going up and down like a yo-yo.
Yes. Completely agree
The problem I have with the staunch Ole-in crowd is they just look at Ole's 'achivements' in a bubble and that's why they don't seem to grasp the criticism.
Yes, Ole has improved the team but that's only a portion of the goal. What we really need to do, is improve more than the other teams around us and be in a position to eventually catch Liverpool. I don't believe Ole has the ability to do this which is why I want a new manager at the end of the season. I think Ole if given time will continue to do a decent job but decent isn't quite good enough.
Criticism is part of being a manager and when you deliver consistent results it goes away. Towards the end of last season Jose and Lampard faced the same negativity from sections of their fans. This season, both managers have sorted out their main weaknesses and find themselves where they want to be both in Europe and in the PL. Their fans are happy right now and have a more positive outlook on the future of their team.
Yes, Ole has improved the team but that's only a portion of the goal. What we really need to do, is improve more than the other teams around us and be in a position to eventually catch Liverpool. I don't believe Ole has the ability to do this which is why I want a new manager at the end of the season. I think Ole if given time will continue to do a decent job but decent isn't quite good enough.
Criticism is part of being a manager and when you deliver consistent results it goes away. Towards the end of last season Jose and Lampard faced the same negativity from sections of their fans. This season, both managers have sorted out their main weaknesses and find themselves where they want to be both in Europe and in the PL. Their fans are happy right now and have a more positive outlook on the future of their team.
I agree with what you are saying, my point is that we need to give Ole credit for what he has done along with criticism.
It can't be all one way, he has shown glimpses which is why I thought, lets see what he can do this season but again its the same thing as last.
I agree that we cannot keep on hoping for better when every other game we play well and lose games after. I too want to see consistency in performances.
I also do think the excuses are drying up and becoming boring now, finishing 3rd was good but it means feck all if we dont progress from there which is why I do not think top 4 is his target this season, it should be closing the gap to less than 10 points otherwise its not progress.
We did a little better than the minimum, at least in my view anyway
Re chelsea and spurs, it is too soon to say that those two have progressed and we have stagnated. Let us not forget we are only 5 points behind chelsea with a game in hand. With all due respect Chelsea's fixtures so far has also been very kind. Spurs I will give you that they are looking better than end of last season but again the sample of games to be judged is not that much. We have had a horrid start to the season but even then we have recovered well and have done reasonably well. Top of a very tough CL group containing CL finalist and semifinalist. In the QF of carabao cup and 7 points behind the top of PL having played a game less. It's not amazing but neither is a disaster like some Ole doubters have made it to be.
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There is no reason why Chelsea and Tottenham fans should be happier and have a more positive outlook than United fans right now. That's on you.
The problem I have with staunch Ole outers is that they keep comparing to teams that have been successful in recent times.
Chelsea still have a few title winners in their squad, they have had a good run of fixtures too.
When Ole got the job, the brief to the fans was we are going to start from scratch with a 3 year plan. 1 year in and every game is Ole out regardless of the result.
Yes, we have been inconsistent, but some fans act as if we are in a relegation battle.
They are playing with more conviction and consistency in the league, in fairness. Of course their mood and outlook would be more positive as things stand. Of course it's a long season and things can sway. Post lockdown I'm sure they were envious of us.
We'll just pretend that the transfer window that just went didn't happen and that the league table doesn't exist. Definitely on me.
I do agree that it's too early to give golden stars to Lampard or Mourinho, but my general point was they've seemed to close the gap with us compared to last season and that consistent results leads to positivity.
Like I said, Ole has been decent, I'm not one who thinks he's been terrible but I just feel regular top 4 finishes is the best he can manage here.
This is a perfect example of a post that describes how standards have dropped with some fans. Chelsea won the league in 2017 and Mourinho got us finishing above them the following year. City won the league in 2018, 25 points ahead of Liverpool, the next season Liverpool cut the gap to a single point.
You clearly haven't watched Tottenham this season. I watch all of their games. They are not playing well at all
On the one hand you call people out for selecting an 'achievement bubble', but also argue that Chelsea and Spurs fans are rightfully happier than we are because of, what, a few points after 8 PL games. Is that not a small achievement bubble too?
I've watched all their games too. They do let games drift by such as Burnley and they were probably a fortunate vs WBA. But they were terribly unlucky against Newcastle, they missed out on 3 points because of a Fornals screamer vs West Ham + they were absolutely outstanding against Southampton, City and ourselves. They are playing a lot better than we are lets be frank.
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