Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion

[Andycoleno9]

Next 4 games are Saints and WH away and Leicester and Arsenal at home. It is perfect run of games to see the truth about him and squad. Weaker teams away and stronger teams at home. 9 or 10 points and good performances should be our goal there. 8 is minimum. If we end it up with one win he should be fired that second

 

[ash_86]

This particular chance was the best we had besides the penalty. It's not exactly where James attempted the shot (the ball bounced to the right), thus the xG 0.35 (35% probability). But that's not the point i was trying to make. I never suggested that we play hoofball. As i mentioned we definitely put more pressure on our opponents and we've been unlucky at times because we forced them into mistakes that would have been enough to win us all 9 points if it hadn't been for a great goal vs Wolves and an incompetent ref vs Palace. This is where we agree, thus my comment about the over the top criticism of the manager in these 3 games.

But it's not only about the quality of the players. Arguably, City didn't have one of their best games yesterday.Still the xG for their goals was 0.52, 0.50, 0,45. Sterling and Aguero are great players who can finish well but City's tactics create opportunities where they have a 50/50 chance of scoring a goal from open play more often than not. That's a recurring theme in their games under Guardiola's tenure. We don't do that very often and some people have mentioned, correctly, we still look at our best when we are afforded space to exploit and not when we have to create it by ourselves. That's still a valid criticism in my book although we definitely need a bigger sample of games under Ole now that he's been afforded a whole preseason to work on his tactics. After all, a total of 16 shots, no matter where you took them from, with a combined xG 0.81 indicates that we only managed to get our players to shot with very little chance of success. And that's a problem as long as it persists and becomes the norm.

Let's hope this won't be the case and that things will improve.

I get your point that you want us to create better chances, but that is also directly dependent on the quality of the personnel we have at our disposal. If we have likes of David Silva/ KDB /B Silva who can get into the box dribbling for fun , attract players towards them and release a pass for Aguero who is free in the box , that shot will have a better XG definitely. It does not work this way for rest of the teams in premier league though as it requires every player to be good/great on the ball to have an average of 0.5 XG for open goals. It's even difficult to for Liverpool to match this feat who had an XG of (.76(pen), 0.22, 0.06) for their 3 goals last week.We can certainly make it little better but i doubt we can create XG close to 0.5 with this team. Our only hope would be for our forwards to be more clinical with their chances. Even under SAF in the later stages of his career, we didn't create chance after chance . We just had forwards like RVP who buries what he gets inside the box.

 

[Leftback99]

Next 4 games are Saints and WH away and Leicester and Arsenal at home. It is perfect run of games to see the truth about him and squad. Weaker teams away and stronger teams at home. 9 or 10 points and good performances should be our goal there. 8 is minimum. If we end it up with one win he should be fired that second

Anyone expecting any easy points away at Southampton or West Ham will be disappointed. Southampton should have beaten Liverpool a couple of weeks ago, West Ham we always struggle.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

Next 4 games are Saints and WH away and Leicester and Arsenal at home. It is perfect run of games to see the truth about him and squad. Weaker teams away and stronger teams at home. 9 or 10 points and good performances should be our goal there. 8 is minimum. If we end it up with one win he should be fired that second

Hopefully. Although I can already see the excuses that'll be made if we drop too many points.

"If the ref gave/didn't give (decision) it would be a different story."
"We would've won if Martial/Rashford scored from their chance."
"Not Ole's fault (player) made an individual error leading to a goal."
"Our xG was higher than theirs. We were unlucky."

 

[hocane]

So all Ole has done in the whole Pre Season is working on fitness and counter attacking play..
Counter attacking is all well and good, all the good teams are very good at it, but you can't base you're whole philosophy only on counter attacking. What do you do against organized teams then?
Problem now is the majority of teams now knows our weakness and knows we are not able to break teams down.

 

[AshRK]

Next 4 games are Saints and WH away and Leicester and Arsenal at home. It is perfect run of games to see the truth about him and squad. Weaker teams away and stronger teams at home. 9 or 10 points and good performances should be our goal there. 8 is minimum. If we end it up with one win he should be fired that second

Board won't risk doing that. They know if they do that this soon all attention will be on them and they wouldn't want that. I can see it being a season of ups and down and more so frustrating.

 

[GlasgowCeltic]

It took Klopp 4 & a half years to get them like that. They were still sh*t when VVD first signed as well. It took him from January through a full pre season to settle.

Let's just pretend they were awesome as soon as Klopp arrived eh?

Is this true though? I recall them regularly outclassing the teams above them with Klopps Dortmund ideas all over it but lacking the quality to do it consistently, as well as reaching two finals. I’d say he warranted the patience he received.

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

Palace were always comfortable when the game was 0-0 and became even more comfortable when leading by a goal. Granted I have not seen Palace enough but one thing I have observed them under Hodgson is they don't lose big. This is where it is important to get that early goal and take those half chances because once you score the early goal you can put more pressure and create more goal scoring chances. This is where we lack quality. Too much is expected from Rashford and Martial that people forget that they are still 21 and 23. Not everyone can be Rooney/Ronaldo and even they had senior pros like Scholes, Giggs to bail them out. One thing Ole should have done is play Mata ahead of Lingard but then it's not like Mata is so better quality wise. Truth is we were fecked the moment we did not add a quality attacker. We will win some games but we also witness games like these because of lack of quality.

I agree that Palace looked comfortable in the first half but this was mainly because our two creative outlets, Pogba and Lingard, were stinking the place. It took Pogba going up a gear in the second half for us to pin them down. It wasn't perfect, far from it really and that's why i mentioned to the other poster that the 22 shots stat is a bit misleading. A bit, not totally because we tried to attack, we attempted to get bodies forward and we tried to raise the tempo in the second half when one of our play-makers decided to turn up.

I disagree with the notion that Mata is a player who will instantly improve our game and it's a huge mistake by the manager not to start him. It hasn't happened for six whole years and four different managers for Juan, i can't blame the manager for thinking it won't happen for him this time either. Furthermore, i've always seen Mata as a player who operates more like a SS, finding pockets of space at the far post & playing closer to the forward in the search for an assist, and less as a play-maker who excels in tight spaces. Everyone and their dog can tell you that Lingard is not good enough for United but there's a reason why he's ended up as a starter for three managers. People laugh at his "movement" but this type of movement is something you need when you lack creativity and the Hazard-type wingers. Take the Wolves game for example: Lingard's movement to the left creates the momentum for Rashford to cut inside and position himself in the half-space (where the assist came from) and initiates the overlap from Shaw because he's got someone to cover him. Even in the shot he scuffed early in the second half, he fist helped create a triangle between him AWB & James which allowed the overlap from the FB again. The problem with Jesse is that the times he does these things are very few and far between. But with the exception of Gomes (and this is a hope more than a belief), we don't have other players for this role.

I agree with your general point though, especially regarding Martial & Rashford. They are forwards more than anything else and as such they'll always look to get to the end of moves instead of being at the heart of them. We must get them near the box in good positions where they can be lethal. And if we're going to trust both of them with the future of the club, we'll definitely need more creativity around them.

 

[Nikelesh Reddy]

He will probably get the sack soon,but it would be utterly idiotic to sack him now...,

 

[AshRK]

I agree that Palace looked comfortable in the first half but this was mainly because our two creative outlets, Pogba and Lingard, were stinking the place. It took Pogba going up a gear in the second half for us to pin them down. It wasn't perfect, far from it really and that's why i mentioned to the other poster that the 22 shots stat is a bit misleading. A bit, not totally because we tried to attack, we attempted to get bodies forward and we tried to raise the tempo in the second half when one of our play-makers decided to turn up.

I disagree with the notion that Mata is a player who will instantly improve our game and it's a huge mistake by the manager not to start him. It hasn't happened for six whole years and four different managers for Juan, i can't blame the manager for thinking it won't happen for him this time either. Furthermore, i've always seen Mata as a player who operates more like a SS, finding pockets of space at the far post & playing closer to the forward in the search for an assist, and less as a play-maker who excels in tight spaces. Everyone and their dog can tell you that Lingard is not good enough for United but there's a reason why he's ended up as a starter for three managers. People laugh at his "movement" but this type of movement is something you need when you lack creativity and the Hazard-type wingers. Take the Wolves game for example: Lingard's movement to the left creates the momentum for Rashford to cut inside and position himself in the half-space (where the assist came from) and initiates the overlap from Shaw because he's got someone to cover him. Even in the shot he scuffed early in the second half, he fist helped create a triangle between him AWB & James which allowed the overlap from the FB again. The problem with Jesse is that the times he does these things are very few and far between. But with the exception of Gomes (and this is a hope more than a belief), we don't have other players for this role.

I agree with your general point though, especially regarding Martial & Rashford. They are forwards more than anything else and as such they'll always look to get to the end of moves instead of being at the heart of them. We must get them near the box in good positions where they can be lethal. And if we're going to trust both of them with the future of the club, we'll definitely need more creativity around them.

And that is the problem. We don't have quality in those positions that will eventually lead us to losing and drawing games. Whenever we had the ball in good position our attackers botched the move. We have to be hopeful our attackers become mature quickly and raise their game immensely or else we are looking to have a long season.

 

[Suv666]

Feck all to do with the manager. The team lacks quality simple as. Everyone knew Rashford and Martial arent enough to do the job. There is only so much a manager can do, if the players arent good enough they arent good enough. Its insane to expect Ole to be like Fergie and can get the squad to overachieve. The owners just want another Fergie to happen. So they can keep pocketing cash as well as the revenue generated from the success.

 

[Alabaster Codify7]

Of course he shouldn't be sacked now, but it will happen during the season for me - again, I'll stick my neck out and say Christmas. The next four games will see us dropping more points again, quite possibly a lot more.

My predictions:

Southampton 1 - 1
Leicester 2-2
West Ham 2-1 (us)
Arsenal 2-1(us)

So 6/12 points would be my prediction.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

So all Ole has done in the whole Pre Season is working on fitness and counter attacking play..
Counter attacking is all well and good, all the good teams are very good at it, but you can't base you're whole philosophy only on counter attacking. What do you do against organized teams then?
Problem now is the majority of teams now knows our weakness and knows we are not able to break teams down.

We don't even really look like a counter-attacking team. We keep possession the majority of the time and we don't look comfortable when we don't have the ball. Counter-attacking teams are supposed to be good at soaking up pressure in their own third.

I'm really not sure what our philosophy (for lack of a better word) is, to be honest.

 

[Greck]

Is this true though? I recall them regularly outclassing the teams above them with Klopps Dortmund ideas all over it but lacking the quality to do it consistently, as well as reaching two finals. I’d say he warranted the patience he received.

It's false. They looked amazing in attack and comical in defence to start the season. Even in preseason. They were scoring 3 and conceding 4 till VVD. The poster clearly wasn't watching them

 

[Nikelesh Reddy]

And that is the problem. We don't have quality in those positions that will eventually lead us to losing and drawing games. Whenever we had the ball in good position our attackers botched the move. We have to be hopeful our attackers become mature quickly and raise their game immensely or else we are looking to have a long season.

How stupid is it to have 3 frontline attacking players,all under the age of 23?Shouldnt there be a senior attacking player to guide them and take the burden off these young lads?When Rooney and Ronaldo signed for United,they had RVN for a couple of seasons....Then there was Louis Saha for a season before Rooney and Ronaldo really took off....

 

[Nikelesh Reddy]

Do we even have a choice right now?Ofcourse we back him for now....he will eventually get the sack before the end of the season...

 

[croadyman]

I have serious concerns about the next time we played a packed defence. Ole needs to come up with a way of beating these kind of teams, however we can't do anything about the creative side until January.

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

I get your point that you want us to create better chances, but that is also directly dependent on the quality of the personnel we have at our disposal. If we have likes of David Silva/ KDB /B Silva who can get into the box dribbling for fun , attract players towards them and release a pass for Aguero who is free in the box , that shot will have a better XG definitely. It does not work this way for rest of the teams in premier league though as it requires every player to be good/great on the ball to have an average of 0.5 XG for open goals. It's even difficult to for Liverpool to match this feat who had an XG of (.76(pen), 0.22, 0.06) for their 3 goals last week.We can certainly make it little better but i doubt we can create XG close to 0.5 with this team. Our only hope would be for our forwards to be more clinical with their chances. Even under SAF in the later stages of his career, we didn't create chance after chance . We just had forwards like RVP who buries what he gets inside the box.

We don't disagree, i just said that we're not good enough to lay it all on the players just yet. I wrote in another thread about the excuses regarding the #10 that they are not excuses at all and that people can't fully grasp how good Liverpool's attack is and how it makes their midfield look more competent than it actually is. I was screaming my lungs out that we need to be more active in the transfer market. And your point about the Fergie's last title-winning side is valid.

As i mentioned to the poster above, when you have the likes of Martial and Rashford starting for you, you must create the environment for them to be as close to the box as possible. Rashford won't do a Hazard, draw players and open up spaces for others. Martial won't bring others into play by dropping deeper like Firmino. The team must find a way to create chances for them. We must improve on that, if not to raise the quality of our chances (better xG) then not to ask Rashford and Martial to do things they can't on the pitch. It will make the whole team more functional.

 

[Madzik_92]

T

Is this true though? I recall them regularly outclassing the teams above them with Klopps Dortmund ideas all over it but lacking the quality to do it consistently, as well as reaching two finals. I’d say he warranted the patience he received.

So now people seriously consider Ole is a master tactician like Klopp? Haha even 5 years Ole won't be able to match Klopp. I guarantee it. I don't hate Ole but come on to compare ole and klopp is brutal. One managed German squad and another did managed Cardiff and Molde

 

[AshRK]

How stupid is it to have 3 frontline attacking players,all under the age of 23?Shouldnt there be a senior attacking player to guide them and take the burden off these young lads?When Rooney and Ronaldo signed for United,they had RVN for a couple of seasons....Then there was Louis Saha for a season before Rooney and Ronaldo really took off....

Of course it is stupid and which is why the club should have planned better by appointing a DoF or someone who can make footballing decisions. Ole clearly won't be satisfied with buying 3 players in which one is a 21 year old raw player. Each summer the story remains the same, we start the summer slowly and then panic in the last 5 or 6 days. We needed a proper clearout this summer and needed to buy 5 or 6 quality players but we didn't and now here we are.

 

[AlwaysRed66]

Allegri is available and learning English. Can see it happening if this run of form from last season continues for the next few months.

Why would we want Mourinho mark II. We have just got rid of all these negative managers & you want to go back to another one.

 

[Andycoleno9]

Anyone expecting any easy points away at Southampton or West Ham will be disappointed. Southampton should have beaten Liverpool a couple of weeks ago, West Ham we always struggle.

So we can't expect from Ole to beat other top6 clubs because they are "much better than us and we are shit", it is not bad result to draw against Wolves, Leicester or Everton because they apparently have strong teams like us and others are tricky ones at their home games. So basically any win during the season is huge success

 

[wolvored]

Of course he shouldn't be sacked now, but it will happen during the season for me - again, I'll stick my neck out and say Christmas. The next four games will see us dropping more points again, quite possibly a lot more.

My predictions:

Southampton 1 - 1
Leicester 2-2
West Ham 2-1 (us)
Arsenal 2-1(us)

So 6/12 points would be my prediction.

Isnt that 8/12 points?

 

[wolvored]

As long as we finish top 6 I think the board will back him this season. They will then bankroll another 150 mill next summer and expect top 4 next season. If that doesnt happen, then can see him getting sacked.

 

[Ade_]

I will be honest, his team selections and his decision-making during games are really worrying me, not bringing on Mata sooner when the game is crying out for some creativity, and continuing to persist with James and Lingard from the start when neither should be starting.

However with saying that, we must back him. It's too early for us to turn on him and I can't emphasis how much I don't want to go through another manager change, I really want Ole to succeed here.

 

[Leftback99]

So we can't expect from Ole to beat other top6 clubs because they are "much better than us and we are shit", it is not bad result to draw against Wolves, Leicester or Everton because they apparently have strong teams like us and others are tricky ones at their home games. So basically any win during the season is huge success

There's only 2 teams in the league i'd 'expect' to beat Southampton and West Ham away, for the rest they are the type of game that can go either way. Bookies give us less than a 50% chance on Saturday, we're more likely to beat Leicester at home.

 

[Garethw]

LvG always said you should control the ball before you take a shot.

A top centre forward controls the ball while he is striking it. LVG has some very strange “philosophies”

 

[Alabaster Codify7]

Isnt that 8/12 points?

Haha, yes it would actually. I could see the Arsenal game ending a draw too, but i'm confident we'll win at WHU.

 

[90 + 5min]

As I wrote in another thread. You have to give him time. We have played 3 (!) games this season. 3! We have won against Chelsea and should have won against both Crystal Palace and Wolverhampton. Both those games we were unlucky not to get 3 points. Nobody can say that we are not playing better then last year and I can clearly see the progress. Yes, it doesn't look good sometimes but progress takes time. We are young team and young players tend to have up and down performences.

Give him 10-15 games and then we should see where we stand. Then we should evaluate. We knew we had young and tiny squad before season. To think we could challenge for league and win every game is just asking for to much.

Those who are calling for sacking now can't be real. Unfortunately we are living in time were everything should be done immediately and results should come immediately as well. We had great Mourinho, we had great van Gaal, we had Moyes. It didn't went as we hoped. Let Ole get his chance and see if he can do something better. For the club. For the future.

 

[matt10000]

So all Ole has done in the whole Pre Season is working on fitness and counter attacking play..
Counter attacking is all well and good, all the good teams are very good at it, but you can't base you're whole philosophy only on counter attacking. What do you do against organized teams then?
Problem now is the majority of teams now knows our weakness and knows we are not able to break teams down.

How do you know that is all Ole has worked on? Did you attend all the training sessions or were you told by a mate of a mate who is the third cousin of the bloke that cuts the grass at Carrington?

 

[RussellWilson]

Why would we want Mourinho mark II. We have just got rid of all these negative managers & you want to go back to another one.

I must have missed the great attacking football under Ole.

 

[RooneyLegend]

This board managed to sell the joint best player on the planet, perhaps the best player this club has ever seen, for a world-record fee and replaced him with Michael Owen on a free and Wigan's RW for £18m. They managed to do this without fans refusing to renew their season tickets and somehow got away with it scott free. Do not think for one second that this same board would worry about selling Pogba for £120-150m and replacing him with some £50m young British player or similar. All they'd do is brief the media about Pogba being a bad influence and Ole pursuing 'young and British and the United way'.





Its because he's indecisive. He's one of those people who looks at the situation like this:

'I am currently sitting on a '3'. If I roll the dice now, I might roll a 4 or a 5.....I might also roll a 2'.

This indecision is not a great indicator of success. Successful managers have the confidence to be decisive even if that means taking a risk.




We have one on loan at Sheff Utd.
The money wouldn't be reinvested, we'd recall Henderson, if DDG brings in a fee of course.

Dont say that ffs . Now you're making me think we're gonna sell him and buy Longstaff.

 

[Acquire Me]

Is this thread a joke? A little early in the season lads?

 

[fps]

How do you know that is all Ole has worked on? Did you attend all the training sessions or were you told by a mate of a mate who is the third cousin of the bloke that cuts the grass at Carrington?

Embarrassing isn't it.

 

[Alabaster Codify7]

Dont say that ffs . Now you're making me think we're gonna sell him and buy Longstaff.

I think its more likely to be James Maddison next summer for around £90m. Longstaff won't be coming he doesnt even look any good in my opinion, certainly not £50m good anyway. Either way we'll be downgrading.

 

[dev1l]

Is this thread a joke? A little early in the season lads?

It s specifically created by moaners for moaners )

If you re not prepared to moan, you re out of place )

 

[RooneyLegend]

My biggest gripe with him atm is he seems to believe in unicorns. I fail to understand why he believes we have enough in our to do anything productive. What's worse is he has convinced half our fan base that focusing on British talent is the way to go while the plan should instead be to focus on quality.

Given the set up he's using the onus is one our wide players to bear the creative burden. This would be good and dandy if we have Becks and Giggs but instead we have Rashford and James. Behind the striker we have someone that isnt going to produce anytime soon.

Arsenal had a free run at Pepe, Mahrez remains a squad player at City. How about we make moves that are going to progress the club.

 

[momo83]

Evidently only a select few attackers in the world are able to reach those numbers.

Do you believe only a select few managers in the world are able to turn around a run of bad results?

Only a few managers are good enough to take United back to the top. Solskjaer’s time at Cardiff, and the window controlling him instead of him controlling the window plus his substitutions, inability to adapt to inplay events have show that likeable Ole is not one of those managers.

 

[fergiesarmy1]

My biggest gripe with him atm is he seems to believe in unicorns. I fail to understand why he believes we have enough in our to do anything productive. What's worse is he has convinced half our fan base that focusing on British talent is the way to go while the plan should instead be to focus on quality.

Given the set up he's using the onus is one our wide players to bear the creative burden. This would be good and dandy if we have Becks and Giggs but instead we have Rashford and James. Behind the striker we have someone that isnt going to produce anytime soon.

Arsenal had a free run at Pepe, Mahrez remains a squad player at City. How about we make moves that are going to progress the club.

This goes way back further than Ole’s reign, we had to change direction from these ridiculous signings that we’re gonna make a difference to a team full of young, jones, smalling and Lingard.

The signings we made this summer are top notch, did we make enough of them? No.

Until we address the weakness of our squad you could put prime fergie in charge and we still aren’t getting past Liverpool or City.

It’s going to need at least two more windows unfortunately (next one being a bit useless in reality)

 

[Sing you a song]

Morale of the squad? who gives a feck? They're shit, it's been obvious for the past 5 years, these players should have been shipped out this summer, but he was too much of a nice guy to do anything.

I do generally agree with your point though, but the fact the players downed tools for the last 10 games of last season, and have a track record of downing tools on managers should have told him that these players won't perform for him.

Your right they won’t but getting rid of them is easier said than done because of the idiotic contracts they are on .
Ole knows the ones he wants out ( Lukaku a prime example ) but it’s down to Woodward to find a way of moving them on for free if necessary rather than trying to be clever and giving new contracts to try and get a fee .
No interest in Darmian , Jones , Smalling , Sanchez says it all almost impossible to get rid of these guys