Would you sack or keep Ole? (Poll reopened)

[VP89]

That fall precipitated Ole. It's not because of Ole that it has occurred. We were on our knees when he came in, and it genuinely looked and felt like the club was breaking apart at the seams. I was there at every game, home and away, so I have a good grasp of the fan feeling at the time as well. I'd never seen the atmosphere be as toxic as it was during the latter stages of Jose. Never.

What we are doing now, is building ourselves back up but it will take time. He's improved a lot of the players he's inherited, which predominantly wasn't the case with LvG and Jose (and the less said about Moyes the better), he's also been the first post-SAF manager who is actually doing a rebuild and not just tacking on his players to an already bloated squad. All of these measures take time, and they take even longer when you have one of the youngest squads and teams in the league and when you have to deal with a board like ours and Covid on top of everything else.

The players are also still very early in their development. There will be inconsistency issues, which is what we're dealing with right now but the stats bear it out that we're improving on this front also. The window for leeway on this front however, is closing, and by the end of this season and the start of next, it needs to be accomplished. Though, that is also dependent on Ole being given the players that he needs, and for two consecutive summers now, he's not really been given all that he's asked for and needed. The first summer, we went without a striker to replace Lukaku and a proper midfield presence for the first 6 months. The second summer, needs no mention (Sancho, Grealish and a CB + LB were sought - only one of these came in).

With that in mind, Ole did a tremendous job last year and essentially condensed two seasons' worth of transition into one. The danger this season is that the progress might be stalled, but it seems this Covid season is going to be a bit of a leveller for every team. However, if he can get 4th or better this season, then he deserves to see out the next season as well (provided we aren't totally cut adrift by next Christmas) but more importantly, is finally given the players he wants and needs. So that means a new DM, a new CB, a new RW (if Diallo still needs to settle) and then if funds allow, a new ST. All of these guys need to be starters also.

None of the above was ever given as a counter to the points raised in the video. A proper balanced debate, would.

It's not about those guys being opposition fans, it's that the likes of TG, Rory, Laurence are prone to hyperbole and sensationalism (it's their raison detre after all), and they're more than a little clueless (just look at this weekend just gone's show where Rory was saying that Kane has revolutionised CF play because he does more than just score goals - describing the archetypal false 9, something which has been common parlance for at least a decade and in the modern era, was first utilised by Spalletti at Roma with Totti in 2007, and then SAF briefly at Utd with Saha and most famously Barca with Messi). For example, in that video we have Spencer FC saying something along the lines that no PL team would hire Ole, and that they are nailed on for midtable. Yet, in his preseason predictions, he actually had us down for 3rd. Which just shows why I can't take these clowns seriously.

The only person on the Kick Off I actually rate and respect is Hugh, who is legit neutral on everything, even his own club. The Kick Off as a show, is better when McKola is on as at least he provides some of that balance to counteract the BS that comes from the others (even if he himself isn't any great shakes on the football knowledge side of things), but generally speaking the people they have on the show don't really know their stuff.

That's a good character assessment of the show, because I haven't seen much of their videos. Re. the personelle on the channel, I agree that fans can be prone to hyperbole in general, although in that specific segment I did not see much wrong with the assessment.

On your evaluation of Ole, I don't think there is any discounting that he's taken a squad in disarray and united the dressing room, improved the ethos and mentality of the players, got in the right kind of players that fit the United picture (i.e. VDB and Bruno rather than Lukaku), etc. I think the crux of it is, would another manager with pedigree come in and done better than Ole did. They seem to discount Ole on that basis, that he's a manager that is only capable of patches of form. As I said in the original post (I think when I posted the video), the way to change that perception would be to prove to be in the mix with the title pack for longer patches. He might well do it this season - but as it stands they have their doubts and its tough to argue against it when Ole doesn't have the CV to back him up.

I doubt Ole as a top manager but I think he's improved us in his time here and completed lots of good things. Now whether he can take us from strength to strength is another matter, and one I might be proved wrong in (would be a good day, because that means our club would have finally found the right man). But as it stands, if fans generally guilty of hyperbole point out that the expectations of the club seem to have fallen, and that another manager with pedigree might do better, it's not exactly an outlandish evaluation from outsiders looking in.

On a side note, I do really dislike McKola (+ Howson). I think he talks a lot of garbage generally. But I suppose we each interpret youtube views differently too.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

That's my last exchange on the topic with you.

And yeah, this will be my last post debating it with you also.

Since you continue with this, I'll spell it out step by step.

...
You’ve honestly bored me to death, same nonsense again and again. Stick to your word and like me, let’s both shut the feck up and stop boring every other poor soul unfortunate enough to be in here.

 

[lysglimt]

feck me little Britain.

It should be added - Wenger would not have been accepted either with the current rules.

 

[lysglimt]

Hence why I posted:



And:



Let me phrase this better:

• Lack of pre-season was no excuse for having only 7 points after 6 games. An excuse for performing below usual standards, yeah I'll buy that.

• If we beat WHU and posters want to argue that "we're doing incredibly well after 10 games, despite having no real pre-season", there is absolutely zero doubt that they are correct and that plenty of us jumped the gun. Hell, I'll admit to jumping the gun even if we don't beat WHU. The win percentage posted by George is good enough.

It's a combination of many things. I have no doubt in my mind .. NO DOUBT ... that the performances in those 2 matches against Palace and Brighton were down to a combination of Pogbas covid-19, AWBs vacation, Greenwood in Iceland and Maguire in Greece. The Spurs games was most likely a total collapse as a result of what had gone wrong in the first 2 games. Players were nervous because they felt they had performed horribly.

But Arsenal and Chelsea - that was of course something else. That was a case of having one average, and one really poor day - which wasn't good enough.

So we should have had 2-3 points more after those games - but after the horrible start we had - we have done incredibly well if we beat West Ham and claw our way near the top of the table. But we are still in a position where we need a few more wins to really be up there.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

It's a combination of many things. I have no doubt in my mind .. NO DOUBT ... that the performances in those 2 matches against Palace and Brighton were down to a combination of Pogbas covid-19, AWBs vacation, Greenwood in Iceland and Maguire in Greece. The Spurs games was most likely a total collapse as a result of what had gone wrong in the first 2 games. Players were nervous because they felt they had performed horribly.

But Arsenal and Chelsea - that was of course something else. That was a case of having one average, and one really poor day - which wasn't good enough.

So we should have had 2-3 points more after those games - but after the horrible start we had - we have done incredibly well if we beat West Ham and claw our way near the top of the table. But we are still in a position where we need a few more wins to really be up there.

That’s a more than fair stance on our start, considered. Can’t argue with that.
Let’s hope you’re bang on and that this form continues.

 

[Strelok]

I always knew that I wasn’t the only one who said the same words when talking to the guy. Trust me, you are wasting your time. He doesn’t read long post and tends to miss the purpose of the discussion. He also likes to use a random silly example to suit his argument and making it out like it’s a fair example, if you disagree and still use fact to prove your point and making counter argument he will call them bollocks.

Yep I've realised that after a few recent discussions with him.

So I tend to walk away when I think the discussion start to get pointless.

Generally he's quite a nice poster, definitely not the worst I've come across here. At least he seems to be able to think logically. Just a bit stubborn sometime but it's fine I think.

 

[Withnail]

Still an absolute shit show in here I see.

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

But it's smart to evaluate a manager based on what other rivals fans think ? I can promise you one thing - in the winter of 1989/1990 - our opponents fans thought exactly the same about Ferguson.

If I was a fan - I would be a bit concerned about how quickly United have turned a team considered their worst in the P.L-era into a team that on paper scares our opponents.

Spot on. Using what other rival fans think to evaluate our manager is very stupid thing to do. It’s nothing but lazy just to suit the Ole’s out argument. Oppositions fans don’t watch us week in week out, they don’t follow anything that related to us so how is it fair to use their reason for wanting Ole to stay or getting new contract as valid reason.

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

Yep I've realised that after a few recent discussions with him.

So I tend to walk away when I think the discussion start to get pointless.

Generally he's quite a nice poster, definitely not the worst I've come across here. At least he seems to be able to think logically. Just a bit stubborn sometime but it's fine I think.

Everyone are nice poster until they forgot what was the original argument, decide to drag a discussion too long and turn into pointless argument. The issue always been whether poster can accept different things and just be agree and disagree.

 

[Volumiza]

Still an absolute shit show in here I see.

 

[Karlos PFC]

Why didn’t Mourinho do it at United though?

For a number of reasons that I'm in no position of knowing exactly why. But in his defence(pun intended), I remember when he was asking about a CB either Maguire or Alderweireld or someone. I remember wanting to sell Pogba and Martial (both of whom I'd booted out of the club as well. Pogba because of his behaviour and form and Martial, though he has a lot of talent is inconsistent and lazy).

I think that he knew where the team needed strengthening and we still see it 2 years after. But because Ed wanted to protect the club's assets and not sell them he brought Ole.

 

[hobbers]

Why didn’t Mourinho do it at United though?

To be fair, who knows what would have happened if he'd been allowed to get rid of Pogba and Martial when he wanted to, replace them with players he liked and bring in the likes of Perisic and an Alderweireld or whoever.

 

[VP89]

Yep I've realised that after a few recent discussions with him.

So I tend to walk away when I think the discussion start to get pointless.

Generally he's quite a nice poster, definitely not the worst I've come across here. At least he seems to be able to think logically. Just a bit stubborn sometime but it's fine I think.

As this is referenced to me, I will remind you my posts were related to what rival fans think about us. I wasn't the first to mention rival fans in the first place. Rather, I was explaining to a poster what the rival opinion was of Ole actually was, since he seemed to be misled on the matter.

I don't think that has any relevance to Klopp or what our view of Klopp is. And as such I don't think it's to do with stubbornness but rather what the actual debate was related to (i.e. what rival fans thought of Ole, a comment first made by someone else, not me).

You quoted me on something that I wasn't ever discussing.

 

[roonster09]

To be fair, who knows what would have happened if he'd been allowed to get rid of Pogba and Martial when he wanted to, replace them with players he liked and bring in the likes of Perisic and an Alderweireld or whoever.

He would have moaned about other players and not signing few more players, like infinite loop.

 

[hobbers]

He would have moaned about other players and not signing few more players, like infinite loop.

I dunno, he was proven right about Pogba and about us needing to sign an established CB.

A couple of small changes to the 2017 squad could have had a really profound impact. Probably the biggest mistake of all on Mourinho's part was allowing/encouraging Woodward to sign Sanchez.

Imagine the wages of Pogba and Sanchez going on three or four other players of Mourinho's choosing.

 

[anant]

To be fair, who knows what would have happened if he'd been allowed to get rid of Pogba and Martial when he wanted to, replace them with players he liked and bring in the likes of Perisic and an Alderweireld or whoever.

Think about these players 2 -3 years down the line. We'd have had Young, Perisic, Boateng, valencia, Matic, Mata, Herrera, Sanchez, Darmian(?) all who'd have been needed to be replaced in a couple of years. Add to that, we wuldn't have had any younger player at the club - I don't think Rashford would have stayed as I don't think he'd have been a regular.

It's easy to look back and say that he wasn't backed, but that side would have gone nowhere, and he'd have left a squad where the preferred XI are all in their late 20s or early 30s

 

[roonster09]

I dunno, he was proven right about Pogba and about us needing to sign an established CB.

A couple of small changes to the 2017 squad could have had a really profound impact. Probably the biggest mistake of all on Mourinho's part was allowing/encouraging Woodward to sign Sanchez.

Imagine the wages of Pogba and Sanchez going on three or four other players of Mourinho's choosing.

So many on caf said we needed CB, better LB, better CM. Stating the obvious problem is one thing, coming up with solution was the hardest part.

We spent so much money, both in fee and wages with not much return. Jose is only tolerable if his team is challenging for league titles, otherwise there is no point in appointing him. No league challenge, very boring football and almost 0 effort in developing players.

 

[Strelok]

As this is referenced to me, I will remind you my posts were related to what rival fans think about us. I wasn't the first to mention rival fans in the first place. Rather, I was explaining to a poster what the rival opinion was of Ole actually was, since he seemed to be misled on the matter.

I don't think that has any relevance to Klopp or what our view of Klopp is. And as such I don't think it's to do with stubbornness but rather what the actual debate was related to (i.e. what rival fans thought of Ole, a comment first made by someone else, not me).

You quoted me on something that I wasn't ever discussing.

My apologizes if I've offended you. I just say what I really think. Really sorry again.

 

[RedSky]

He would have moaned about other players and not signing few more players, like infinite loop.

He'd have demanded another 250million to spend on players. His transfer record here was abysmal, his best transfer was probably Ibra on a free and Fred who didn't even feature much under Jose. His squad building here was shit.

Why do we have to keep talking about Jose in here anyway, he tanked at United in his 3rd season. People are moaning about United being inconsistent this season and yet we're only 2 wins away from equaling the total Jose had in 18/19 when he was sacked on 26 points after 17 games and that was a normal season with none of this Covid shite. We got knocked out by Derby in the EFL cup 3rd round, we won 3 of the 6 CL fixtures, twice against Young Boys and once against Juventus.

The excuses made for Jose is honestly astonishing.

 

[VP89]

I agree that Jose was a wrong appointment for our time in question. We needed to build a squad and get our identity back. Looking back, that didn't fit to Jose's style. He's better suited to Spurs where they will also look up to his CV more. It suits him and the club to be a tough underdog.

 

[VP89]

My apologizes if I've offended you. I just say what I really think. Really sorry again.

I'm not offended at all, no need to apologize. I just think you might have misconstrued what I had said - i.e. what the rival fans view was vs whether we should use their view as basis to judge. I don't actually think we should hold it into account generally speaking, because we can evaluate our own manager ourselves.

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

For a number of reasons that I'm in no position of knowing exactly why. But in his defence(pun intended), I remember when he was asking about a CB either Maguire or Alderweireld or someone. I remember wanting to sell Pogba and Martial (both of whom I'd booted out of the club as well. Pogba because of his behaviour and form and Martial, though he has a lot of talent is inconsistent and lazy).

I think that he knew where the team needed strengthening and we still see it 2 years after. But because Ed wanted to protect the club's assets and not sell them he brought Ole.

The problem is that Mourinho has 360m budget to spend for 3 years. That’s more than enough get you centre back, striker, wide attackers and set of midfielders. And he got 2 centre backs. The board has the right thing to question Mourinho’s ability in recruitment players and his man management in using those money and building the squad because why he still wants another centre back. I don’t think the board will give Ole a new regular right back after signing Bissaka.

And Pogba is his signing. Again poor spending & recruitment. Which sums up the problem of Mourinho but not under Ole. It’s easy to just splash big money and realised you did wrong so you want to fix.

However 360m it’s lot of money for us (not for City since they had Arab owner) to spend and it should be enough to make you at least challenging because Klopp did it and won trophies with the same amount of spending.

 

[romufc]

Think about these players 2 -3 years down the line. We'd have had Young, Perisic, Boateng, valencia, Matic, Mata, Herrera, Sanchez, Darmian(?) all who'd have been needed to be replaced in a couple of years. Add to that, we wuldn't have had any younger player at the club - I don't think Rashford would have stayed as I don't think he'd have been a regular.

It's easy to look back and say that he wasn't backed, but that side would have gone nowhere, and he'd have left a squad where the preferred XI are all in their late 20s or early 30s

Not only that. You cannot say he wasn't backed because the 2 seasons before he was and bought flops.

Why would you spend more money when none of his signings worked?

Mikhi, Bailly, Pogba, Lindelof, Lukaku, Matic, Alexis. He got 2 CB, 1 DM, 4 attackers and we didnt progress.

 

[roonster09]

He'd have demanded another 250million to spend on players. His transfer record here was abysmal, his best transfer was probably Ibra on a free and Fred who didn't even feature much under Jose. His squad building here was shit.

Why do we have to keep talking about Jose in here anyway, he tanked at United in his 3rd season. People are moaning about United being inconsistent this season and yet we're only 2 wins away from equaling the total Jose had in 18/19 when he was sacked on 26 points after 17 games and that was a normal season with none of this Covid shite. We got knocked out by Derby in the EFL cup 3rd round, we won 3 of the 6 CL fixtures, twice against Young Boys and once against Juventus.

The excuses made for Jose is honestly astonishing.

Yeah and not even surprising. It's not as if he wasn't backed or got enough time.

 

[Strelok]

I'm not offended at all, no need to apologize. I just think you might have misconstrued what I had said - i.e. what the rival fans view was vs whether we should use their view as basis to judge. I don't actually think we should hold it into account generally speaking, because we can evaluate our own manager ourselves.

Great, cheers then I think.

 

[anant]

Not only that. You cannot say he wasn't backed because the 2 seasons before he was and bought flops.

Why would you spend more money when none of his signings worked?

Mikhi, Bailly, Pogba, Lindelof, Lukaku, Matic, Alexis. He got 2 CB, 1 DM, 4 attackers and we didnt progress.

Definitely. Lindelof, Fred were horrible under him, and even if I take the best case scenario here that his new signings would have succeeded, even then we'd have been in trouble a season or two later

 

[romufc]

I agree that Jose was a wrong appointment for our time in question. We needed to build a squad and get our identity back. Looking back, that didn't fit to Jose's style. He's better suited to Spurs where they will also look up to his CV more. It suits him and the club to be a tough underdog.

Exactly, if you look around Jose's success he has gone into teams that already have very good players, he adds 3/4 signings to take them to another level.

Inter had decent players and a spine, Real too, Chelsea when he joined both times had very good squads.

When he came to Manchester United, he had to build from scratch, I do not think he is capable of doing that.

Spurs had the likes of Lloris, Kane, Son, Moura, Lo Celso, Toby.

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

To be fair, who knows what would have happened if he'd been allowed to get rid of Pogba and Martial when he wanted to, replace them with players he liked and bring in the likes of Perisic and an Alderweireld or whoever.

He wanted and likes Matic and we gave him that. And look what happened now? We still need a new DM even after spending 40m on Matic. So it’s very likely cause us the same problem if we decide to sign Perisic, Alderweireld and Willian.

 

[Mike Phelan's Former Tash]

It's a combination of many things. I have no doubt in my mind .. NO DOUBT ... that the performances in those 2 matches against Palace and Brighton were down to a combination of Pogbas covid-19, AWBs vacation, Greenwood in Iceland and Maguire in Greece. The Spurs games was most likely a total collapse as a result of what had gone wrong in the first 2 games. Players were nervous because they felt they had performed horribly.

But Arsenal and Chelsea - that was of course something else. That was a case of having one average, and one really poor day - which wasn't good enough.

So we should have had 2-3 points more after those games - but after the horrible start we had - we have done incredibly well if we beat West Ham and claw our way near the top of the table. But we are still in a position where we need a few more wins to really be up there.

Good assessment. I'd just like to add that Spurs had played 7 competitive games before they turned up at OT as oppose to United's 4 which were a mess as you pointed out.

I think the Chelsea 0-0 will improve as a result over time if Chelsea keep doing well but the Arsenal result was poor and gets worse every time I watch Arsenal play.

 

[rotherham_red]

To be fair, who knows what would have happened if he'd been allowed to get rid of Pogba and Martial when he wanted to, replace them with players he liked and bring in the likes of Perisic and an Alderweireld or whoever.

What have you seen in any of those players in the years since they were linked to us under Jose, that makes you think they'd have improved our lot?

 

[lex talionis]

Ole can be frustrating at times, as though he’s playing too long of a game in terms of squad and performances development, but I was greatly encouraged by his early substitution bringing on Cavani at the beginning of the second half rather than in the 80th minute.

Let’s stick with him right now and evaluate where things are at season’s end.

 

[Widow]

Defend Oles decisions tonight

 

[JB08]

Shite game management, reverse of Sunday.

 

[Ralph1386]

Why did he keep Fred on for so long????

 

[Heinzesight]

One of his worst decisions to keep Fred on. Everyone knew it was coming bar Ole. Shocking.

 

[Red Star One]

Clueless

 

[Crashoutcassius]

Needs to walk after not coaching the players to finish easy chances and coaching them headbutts instead , or maybe not coaching them to not headbutt

 

[PoTMS]

Completely reactive manager. Sees Martial and Fred having clangers. Does nothing.

Sack him if we bottle CL qualification.

 

[Crashoutcassius]

Clueless

Hahahaha

 

[Djemba-Djemba]

i love Ole,

But keeping Fred on 2nd half was fecking moronic and it might cost us hugely.

Diabolical management.