We might also see this season how good their kids really are. Ole is supposedly going to use some of ours as well, so are we great at developing kids or will it be Frank Lampard and Jody Morris?
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
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No way is JLingz a CM, CAM or RW. Don't want to see him anywhere else, (if he has to play)..
I'm not saying he will do well at all. But I think he has better tools to work with at Chelsea, even with a transfer ban! And with a transfer ban, there isn't much pressure on him first season. I think they will finish above us!
He did better than Ole in the championship actually.
That was his first season as manager.
All I'm saying with Ole is, he has shown in the 6 months in charge he has reiterated over and over that we need to play the Utd way and sign young hungry players like SAF did. Do it your own way if you are good enough!
You ask any cardiff fan what they thought of Ole as manager, and they would say it was very reminiscent of that last 3 months of our season.
All interim managers have their honeymoon period.
It's my opinion, and my opinion is, this just might be a worse appointment than Moyes.
Ole is the right guy.
Great post
It might eventually end up being a worse appointment than Moyes, but don't talk up Lampard then insult Ole, they're both in the same boat with very limited experience. But if anything Ole has been in management far longer, if it was a toss between Ole and Lamps I'm going for Ole every time. Lamps is a big risk for Chelsea, bigger than Ole is for us imo. Still though, Lampard deserved a shot to see what he can do with them...
well that's cleared that up then. Thanks!
Agree with another who said 'great post'.
Regarding the 81 point second place finish.
Who do you attribute that achievement to, which as you quite rightly say exceeded expectations.
That point is exactly not what I, a fan, have seen on TV and the internet, even if I as a Norwegian most likely have seen more than you and is positive about it (despite almost always being pessimistic about Norwegians).
The point is that if someone in 2007 asked ‘is Pep ready to coach Barca’ or in 2014 ‘is Zidane a good appointment to lead Real Madrid’, I’d have answered ‘I have no idea’. And anyone who then said ‘It’s obviously a bad idea, because they are not proven managers at the top level’ would have made fools of themselves.
The point is, those making these ‘in-house’ appointments know alot more about the people in question than we fans do, and we’ll just have to trust them. Which is more difficult maybe if they’re lead by Woodward than if it’s Laporta or Perez, but that’s how it stands.
Your points 1-3 are valid, though I doubt anyone in hindsight would have said about Guardiola or Zidane that they would have been terrible appointments if Barca or Real M was more in a building process or if the re was no DoF there at the time.
You could turn it around and say that Guardiola, Zidane, Solskjær, Enrique, Koeman, DeBoer and other ‘in-house’ appointments are les of a long shot than taking picking a foreign person from Napoli or Borussia Dortmund based on watching his team on TV, looking at his CV and having an interview process, before taking him to a new club, a new culture, a new country.
History shows that both approaches can work, and both approaches can go south. What we know is that when clubs like Barca and Ajax, and previously Liverpool, promote or retrieve their own, their CV is not going to tell us much about wether they will be up to it or not. I don’t know, you don’t know. The proof will have to be in the pudding. And if it’s a build-from-the-bottom situation, the pudding will not be out of the oven in at least a couple of seasons.
You're very welcome, son!
Great post. Not sure about the Solskjaer bit. Yes he will be given more rope to hang himself but hang himself he will. Our club is stuck in the past trying to recreate the glory years. We thought we could do it with Moyes - literally finding a scot to take over thinking he would clone Sir Alex. Then we changed our ways with Van Gal and Mourinho - two completely different football approaches. But we never really backed or believed in them and did everything we could to sabotage their football methodologies. Fans, press included. Now we are trying getting one of Sir Alexes players to try and imitate him. Its obvious by everything he says and does. But this ideology we have is ridiculous. Arsenal never got back to winning ways until Wenger ripped up the old rule book - same as Klop at Liverpool now. Chelsea, Man City and the other clubs dont really have this idealizing of the past. Until we move into the present and future and realize we are more than the phrase 'The United Way' we will forever be stuck in the age of kodak and megadrives.
Is it worth doing a poll on this now?
Or is that a stupid idea?
Or is that a stupid idea?
I said the same last summer - if Solskjaer is to succeed he needs to be able to spend at least 300m. Mourinho wasn't given the required funds, and we failed. he was told we didn't need a CB, and we failed. We finished 2nd in the league the season before this one. All we needed was a few more additions last summer (RW, CD, CDM) and we would have finished 2nd at least again. Now we need to buy 4 more top quality players in addition to keeping Pogba and Lukaku, otherwise it will get worse.
Lampard is actually a lot closer to the Pep comparison that people keep making with regard to Ole. He's had one good season at a lesser level - as opposed to about 8 ranging from title win in a poor league to relegation.
So you reckon we would have hit well over ninety points had we backed Mourinho last summer? Don’t agree personally.
There is significant difference in appointing Pep/Zidane at the time and Ole when you point to 'in-house' appointments. Both Pep and Zidane were managing youth formations at their respective clubs by the time they were appointed(promoted). Ole was managing United reserves 10 years before his appointment.
It certainly isn't the same "house" as you are implying. At United management is different, structure is different, players are different, youth development is different, youth coaches are different...
Pep and Zidane worked with and promoted the same guys 1 day prior to be appointed on the job. They knew and worked with the roster they had at their disposal. Ole for example hasn't done so and would need to evaluate players like Laird before replacing players like Young when they are underperforming.
The youth players Ole worked in house are now 30 year olds.
Lamps is still a risk, like Ole is for us. We don't know anything about them at the top level but we will shortly find out. I think Lamps will have a great start with the new manager bounce and all, but will it last? that's where it all went sour for Ole. Apprehensively excited to see what's going to happen, even if our summer window has been atrocious so far..
Yeah, both a risk, but at this stage Lampard hasn't really had a down spell, so who's to say that his career won't go in a Pep/Zidane type trajectory? The thing is though, we know that Ole's career hasn't followed that trajectory cos he's nearly a decade into it - that's why the comparisons are so off the mark.
The two truly world-class players on our side, Pogba & De Gea, performed reasonably well. Matic wasn't a liability most of the time and he's a proper defensive midfielder. Although we have huge issues at both FB positions, Valencia's ability to protect the ball and pass it short was a good asset in the first phase of transition (something that LvG valued too). Both Smalling & Jones enjoyed injury-free seasons (for their own standards) which meant that, despite the fact that we didn't have a particularly good defensive line, we at least had a stable one. With Matic/Pogba being mainstays in the centre of the park, we could add different things and qualities by rotating Herrera and Fellaini depending on the opponent and more choices in the midfield battle are always welcome. Mou's decision to rotate Martial and Rashford was a correct one since none of the two is ready yet to be trusted with providing the goods consistently, none is good at finding pockets of space against crowded defences and they both like to be at the end of moves and not in the heart of them. Lukaku was a bad signing overall but one that could replace Zlatan's goals right here & right now, which he did. Short-term solutions by Jose? Yes and this is actually a stick to beat him with. But Rashford/Martial (inside forward/second striker) + all-around main man up-front (why Lukaku was a bad choice long-term) + main orchestrator was imho a very sound line of thought, much better than everything else i've seen being tried with our current options. As far as this "orchestrator" is concerned, Jose really fecked everything up with Miki and Sanchez. But in 17/18, he got lucky with Lingard having the season of his career and with Mata performing just above average (which is, sadly, a good thing for his United career).
The problem with all of that is that it's not sustainable. Not a single bit of it. A club that knows how to prepare for the future would probably be looking for keepers too since GKs who rely on their reflexes usually don't improve with age. Quite the contrary. We also need FBs because Valencia/Young are both way past it. Young, particularly, is finished at this level. Getting a young, raw FB like AWB (who i believe we should get) when Young is supposed to be the player who will give him the time he needs to bed in and improve his game without the feeling that the weight of the world is upon his shoulders week in-week out contains high risks. Shaw, similarly, wasn't ready either, was held back because of the injury he suffered and he's still not ready. Why are we trying to possibly relive this (not the injury, of course) is beyond me. Mou asked for Godin, Alderweireld or Maguire so that we'll go into the season with 1/2 CBs and with the experience/leadership thing sorted out but he was told by Ed to work with what he has at his disposal. Enough said. Finally, his plan to sign someone who will relieve Pogba of his deep-lying play-making duties had a serious complication. The name of this complication? Fred. Nevermind Pogba's behaviour in general. As for our options upfront? Nothing has changed thus far except for the wages of the attacking players who haven't managed to score more than 68 PL goals in a single season.
Thank you for your kind words. @Big Ben Foster , @UpWithRivers thank you too. UpWithRivers, i believe that the main problem is that, for some reason, the men in charge think that this side is actually good and it just needs 2/3 marquee signings to compete with City/Liverpool. Moyes wasn't willing to take any action while both LvG and Mourinho came in believing that they can do the job. The Dutchman has a history of being hopeless in the market, so he started doing what he knows well: Giving debuts in the hope that the youngsters will save him from his fate. At least we got Rashford from all of that battiness. Mourinho walked in with a swagger ( "i need 4 specialists", "Wayne feck off") and he ended up looking like an idiot when he asked for more funds because his personna holds no gravitas among United fans. That's why i said Ole has a chance to leave a mark here. He may not be able to deliver a title (against Klopp and Guardiola i don't have high hopes) but his presence could potentially become the start of a new era.
Talking about Utd on TalkSport now
What they saying? I know it was going to be about the Glazers, but I am watching the WWC so not listening now/
Let’s also not forget that Lampard was a midfielder unlike Ole, so there’s a very high chance he has a much better natural understanding of the game. Here’s a quote by Drogba:
“Frank is the best midfield player that I played with, the most intelligent and efficient.”
It simply requires a different level of football intelligence to be able to play CM at the highest level. Based on just this, I predict that Lampard will be held in much higher regard as a manager in 3 years time than Ole.
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Difference is Lampard did decent with Derby.
Ole did terrible with Cardiff both in Premier League and in the Championship.
Ole did terrible with Cardiff both in Premier League and in the Championship.
Basically how the Glazers are taking money out every year, and everything that has happened has been down to very bad decision making, including appointing Ole as manager.
A caller nailed it on its head, he said that SAF masked the early years of the Glazers by being the genius he was, and only he would have been able to do anything with the squad he left!
So all this hooha about no value in the transfer market was basically just a diversion from paying top dollar for a Hazard etc
I wish they had brought this up a few years earlier.
We knew it but the media have handily ignored it.So does every team that’s done well full of quality players? Explain Liverpool and Spurs then? Those teams weren’t full of quality when their respective managers joined were they? You say Martial, Mata etc won’t suddenly improve but guess which players did suddenly improve under their managers:
Liverpool - Mane, Henderson, Milner, Lovren, Wijnaldum, Lallana etc
Spurs - Eriksen (he wasn’t living up to his reputation before Poch), Dier, Son, Sissoko, Alderweriald, Rose, Walker etc
Do you actually know how these managers got so much out of their players? Do you know how Fergie did it? Do you think it’s just magic? Genius of the manager? Knowing coaching secrets that no one else knows?
Let me explain it. Players play well when they play in an effective system which suits their strengths and exploits opponents well. This is how you get overnight sensations. This is how Salah goes from scoring 20 goals in Serie A to scoring 40 goals in the PL and breaking records. This is how Sissoko goes from being a mug at Newcastle who’s derided to being a star player in Spurs midfield. The system is so important to the performance of the players. Both LVG and Mou got decent performances out of players but they were barely through constructing the teams they were building. For a system to work you need the right players for it and both tried to radically change from the system before which needs a top to bottom change of the players, both only got a few summers to do that which clearly wasn’t enough. Both of those managers were the wrong fit and as a consequence left us with a mish mash team of different styles and identities. One of the key components of Mourinhos style was low block conservative approach where defence always came before attack. When Ole came in he had a team drilled to defend and not attack, obviously the team is going to be shit when he tries to get them to start playing a completely new system and approach. Regardless even of the 11 game streak we know these guys have talent, look how different Pogba is for France, or Lingard and Rashford for England or Sanchez right now at the Copa America.
You have to realise we are the worlds poorest constructed team, no plan, 3 radically different philosophies imposed on these players in 6 years. To do what Klopp and Poch did will take time, will take drilling these players with modern ideas and not the ancient ones that LVG and Mou had
Norway
"I as a Norwegian"
Good then you know that Molde won the league in 2014 IIRC, two years after Ole left for Cardiff, with a far higher points total than Ole ever achieved.
NB. I should add that you are making a (normal) risk weighted assessment here. More on that later.
Appointment
" And anyone who then said ‘It’s obviously a bad idea, because they are not proven managers at the top level’ would have made fools of themselves."
No they would have been right.
A plane can fly on one engine but you would be best advised not to do so. The fact that planes have successfully flown with one engine is not proof that planes should be flown using just one engine.
I don't think you understand risk.
And (as tons of posters have pointed out)
i. Ceteris Paribus does not apply - for a start it is not the "same board" that has made the assessment. for a start we do have "some history" to compare.
ii. The demarcation is not "internal" vs. "external" appointment so grouping them together as you have done questionable. Being "internal" in and of itself is not sufficient qualification for the role.
That is why "what have you seen to justify your vigorous defence" is a normal question.
History
"History shows that both approaches can work, and both approaches can go south"
That doesn't imply what you think it implies.
You are effectively saying this,
"History shows that I can walk on the motorway or I can walk on the pavement and both approaches can go south.".
Or this,
"History shows you can pet a tabby cat and you can pet a tiger and both approaches can go south".
The question is not about whether it can go south, the question is about likelihood of doing so. And that measure should be in the aggregate based on a large number of samples.
If Ole can implement the kind of football Lampard had Derby playing when the teams met I'd be happy to give him all the time in the world. Don't know if he'll succeed at Chelsea but his coaching style definitely passes the eye test
Frank certainly comes across as relatively smart and I think this could help him succeed at the higher echelons of football management in the way that his compatriots have failed to do so.
That being said a direct comparison to Solskjaer doesn't really tell us anything who himself comes across as rather lacking in intellect and if we're being brutally honest downright thick.
Interesting. I haven’t really bothered listening to him that much. What dumb things has he said?
Wow.
I have to say how impressed I am with your analysis.
One thing that I have learnt since I joined this forum is how intelligent many of the contributors are and how well they understand the game of football.
Drilling will offer next to nothing if we go into next season with two players who only switch on when they see an opportunity to end an attacking move (Rashy, Tony) and two mediocre at best play-makers (Lingard, Mata) to accomodate them. It will offer next to nothing, if we still depend on Matic and Fred to move the ball from the defence to attack and if we end up with Smalling/Jones as our most reliable centre-back partnership. We've seen this play a million times before. Even decent talents like AWB will get lost because they'll be asked to immediately perform at the highest level. This squad doesn't need better coaching, it needs restructuring first and foremost. Then the good coaching will have an effect.
I don't believe that what Klopp and Pochettino do is magic. You know why? Because even the best magicians in the world can't pull a rabbit out of the hat, if there's not a rabbit there in the first place. Yes, the system is there and plays a big part. That's why managers are being paid handsomely. But take the false #9 out of the equation and let's see how Salah/Mane will cope. Similarly replace these two (their pressing, their acceleration, their ability in one-twos) with Martial and Mata and see if Klopp will finish in the top-four.
This thing with giving everybody a second chance is madness. Ole showed glimpses of pressing tactics and then he didn't try to keep in the team the only midfielder who's at his best when pressing/closing down opponents. With who are we going to press in the midfield? Matic, McTominay and Fred? With Mata and Martial? I'd prepare for a whole lot more of sitting deep and hitting on the counter, if i were you. I'm more than glad that LvG & Mourinho are gone because, in the end, they did more bad than good for our club. But they're gone now. We can't keep putting the blame on them when Ole had already 6 months to assess the squad. James and AWB are not the (only) answer to our woes. Good coaching and only that isn't either. Most of these players have played under possession based and transition based tactics and they have failed to perform at top level whether we like it or not. Some of them because they're simply not good enough and some because they need different teammates around them. This exactly is the ruthlessness that Ole has to show.
So many goddamned seasons we have built our dreams upon the idea of either what certain players can become or what they could be under different circumstances. It has been the downfall of two managers who share 3 CL, 3 Europa League cups and 15 league titles in 6 different countries between them. It will be the downfall of Solskjaer too, if he chooses to follow the same route.
Anyways, i hope i'm proven wrong. I agree that it will take time. But all this "let's wait and see what happens in the market" is wrong on so many levels. There's no need to give Mata a three-year deal (when you have barely involved him in your plans as interim). Establish your style with a thin squad and work your way from there. Ole has the appreciation of the fanbase as leverage. More of the same is what the fanbase can't stand anymore.
Nice but dim. Best way I can put it.
Great posts.
What’s your take on going forward. Players? Formations? Philosophy?
I do not understand the Lampard criticism on account of what he's done, he's already a better manager than Ole in my opinion. We could very well find ourselves further behind the top 6 in the coming season. The aura around the club already resembles that of Moyes tenure. Can't believe how stupid the club are appointed Solskjaer. One thing Mourinho and Ole have in common is the lack of directive in coaching and instructions for the team no one has any idea what the vision is for next season. We haven't identified players who will contribute to a playing form, seems solskjaer just wants hard workers with zero brains in giving them a directive to win games on a counter attack.
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He's also making the mistake of favouring athleticism and overlooking technical ability in his buys. Can't believe no one in the club's hierarchy has the foresight to spot the oncoming train wreck. We have to wait and see
Spot on. Worrying times indeed
Yup.
If we were signing Sancho, sterling, Kane, TAA and Robertson it would be great going British. Not for the second rate stuff we are linked with or extending contacts of. As squad players Longstaff, James, Young, Jones, Lingard are fine but as starters they are just asking to come 10th.
Yes you are pointing to a lot of differences. You could also point to quite a few similarities. Neither are my point.
You portray Guardiolas position then as favourable to Solskjær’s now, if you wanted you could also find arguments that go the other way. But that wasn’t the point either.
You write some things that are plain wrong, and there are some things you left out. Which is also irrelevant to the point I made.
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