Is Solskjaer an attacking manager?

[Skills]

If so, what's the evidence? His football is just as dull as Mourinho's.

When given money, his first instinct was to spend the bulk of it on two defenders. One of the two is a defensive FB - a position which in modern football is demands more attacking output than defensive nous.

So what makes you believe he is an attack minded manager?

 

[roonster09]

I dont think he is attacking manager, he was when he was caretaker manager but he isn't now. Not sure what happened but the way he sets up the team is very poor. He isn't defensive either as he doesn't shut the teams down with players defending in numbers. It's more like he doesn't know how to set up the team when in possession so we win the ball and look clueless with it

 

[LoneStar]

The lads randomly press here and there. That's about it.

We seem completely clueless against teams that sit back.

I don't know what his style is, there is no style at all. It all looks haphazard and the players don't seem to know what to do either.

 

[snowkarl]

Perhaps not very attacking, but his football is certainly offensive

 

[passing-wind]

No fans have silly perspective about attacking football and what constitutes it's reputation. Even when we was on our winning run the team was not playing attacking football, we transitioned the ball from back to front quickly which provided opportunities to score. Never once under Ole have we looked dynamic in phases / patterns of play. There's never been any progressive movements from our attacking players to indicate any significance in instructions / coaching. We never string more than three passes together to score. You don't need 11 Ronaldo's to move the ball around the field that's why even if the glazers gave Ole 400 million the team would still be struggling. Ian Holloway's Blackpool had more attacking impetus than anything under Solskjaer in the league. Paul Pogba having a purple patch is what got Ole the job, there's no merit in his influence on the team whatsoever.

 

[Eric7C]

Perhaps not very attacking, but his football is certainly offensive

 

[ayushreddevil9]

I mean, you need more proof?

 

[Eric7C]

If so, what's the evidence? His football is just as dull as Mourinho's.

When given money, his first instinct was to spend the bulk of it on two defenders. One of the two is a defensive FB - a position which in modern football is demands more attacking output than defensive nous.

So what makes you believe he is an attack minded manager?

I think it's fine that he spent on defenders, the players he got are definitely significant upgrades on what we had. It was, however, criminal to sell strikers without making absolutely sure that they were going to be replaced. That alone should be a sack-able offence at a club like United.

Also, when he first arrived, he pushed the full-backs up and played with only one holding midfielder in Matic. Pogba played in the LAM position and Herrera often joined attacks. For some reason he has since decided that 4-2-3-1 is the way to go and he is stubbornly sticking to it despite lack of penetration and goals. Unless he changes, and changes very quickly, the writing is on the wall for him.

 

[In Rainbows]

There is no evidence he's an attacking manager. LVG was right in calling Ole a Mourinho in style apart from results.

No fans have silly perspective about attacking football and what constitutes it's reputation. Even when we was on our winning run the team was not playing attacking football, we transitioned the ball from back to front quickly which provided opportunities to score. Never once under Ole have we looked dynamic in phases / patterns of play. There's never been any progressive movements from our attacking players to indicate any significance in instructions / coaching. We never string more than three passes together to score. You don't need 11 Ronaldo's to move the ball around the field that's why even if the glazers gave Ole 400 million the team would still be struggling. Ian Holloway's Blackpool had more attacking impetus than anything under Solskjaer in the league. Paul Pogba having a purple patch is what got Ole the job, there's no merit in his influence on the team whatsoever.

I think we looked a progressive side in his first 2-3 matches, but I questioned whether it was his influence or not because as time passed (even while winning) it clearly looked like a team that sat back. It wasn't a counter attacking team in the vein of Klopp's side. It had to be instruction. We were clearly passing really fast, even if it ended up in failure, and as soon as we failed to conjure up an attack we hounded them with a coordinated press. Was that Ole? I have no idea. I also have no idea why anyone would go away from that if it was his instructions considering the stark contrast in performances.

Our performances started to gradually look crap before he was permanently appointed. We just got results that masked that.

 

[Sky1981]

What is an "attacking manager"?

Every manager has their own phylosophy on how they want to play. Some managers are more talented in a way that they can make any sort of teams work (Big sam, hiddink, Ranieri, etc), they can create a new phylosophy based on what he has at his disposal. Some managers are very successful only if they have the tools (Pep, Jose), some excel on creating new phylosophy (Cruyft, Sachi, Capello, Michel).

I'd class Ole as a clueless manager who remember how it was back then, and replicate things to a tee. It's kinda like a kids memorizing the exam he'd done 10 years ago, change the question slightly and he doesn't really understand the heart of the problem. He knows the what, but doesn't know the how.

If Football is chess, Ole at best remembers every opening, every move, every first 20 moves, but once he's asked to improvise and actually play he doesn't have the capability to create his own understanding.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Perhaps not very attacking, but his football is certainly offensive

 

[Sky1981]

I think it's fine that he spent on defenders, the players he got are definitely significant upgrades on what we had. It was, however, criminal to sell strikers without making absolutely sure that they were going to be replaced. That alone should be a sack-able offence at a club like United.

Also, when he first arrived, he pushed the full-backs up and played with only one holding midfielder in Matic. Pogba played in the LAM position and Herrera often joined attacks. For some reason he has since decided that 4-2-3-1 is the way to go and he is stubbornly sticking to it despite lack of penetration and goals. Unless he changes, and changes very quickly, the writing is on the wall for him.

Significant on a player vs player basis, but on the grand scheme of things?

Having Smailing - Lindelof partnership will probably cost you 10 pts a season, but not buying Maguire and spend it on Attackers and Midfielders nets you 15-20pts a season (just some number for illustration purposes), at the end of the day managers has to prioritise, nobody not even pep got everything at one go.

 

[wolvored]

There is no style to his play at all. I think he did well in the first phase, as there was no pressure on him to win or lose as he was only interim. When he got the job permanently and had to start worrying about the job, his first priority was the defence, which he did get 2 good players in. James was probably a result of Giggs influence on Ole. We havent a clue how to score more than once now his main striker Martial is injured. He focussed on us being the fittest side in the league, but we run out of steam the same as Mourinhos side. I supported him until the West Ham game, but every game after is the same shitshow, the same formation, the same excuses hes happy with the result etc

 

[Drawfull]

Perhaps not very attacking, but his football is certainly offensive

Zing!

 

[Skills]

There is no style to his play at all. I think he did well in the first phase, as there was no pressure on him to win or lose as he was only interim. When he got the job permanently and had to start worrying about the job, his first priority was the defence, which he did get 2 good players in. James was probably a result of Giggs influence on Ole. We havent a clue how to score more than once now his main striker Martial is injured. He focussed on us being the fittest side in the league, but we run out of steam the same as Mourinhos side. I supported him until the West Ham game, but every game after is the same shitshow, the same formation, the same excuses hes happy with the result etc

First phase, where he basically didn't even have enough time to influence the team on the training ground.

He came in just before the start of the festive matches, with 2-3 days between each match. It's weird to me, that people are crediting him for that run of games when he didn't even have enough time for more than a single training session between matches.

 

[Eric7C]

Significant on a player vs player basis, but on the grand scheme of things?

Having Smailing - Lindelof partnership will probably cost you 10 pts a season, but not buying Maguire and spend it on Attackers and Midfielders nets you 15-20pts a season (just some number for illustration purposes), at the end of the day managers has to prioritise, nobody not even pep got everything at one go.

True, but there are reports out there that money was actually available to replace Lukaku and Sanchez only for Ole to think that he had the strikeforce he needed. Both defense and attack needed to be fixed but Ole chose to fix only one problem - most probably because he is clueless on what actually constitutes a good attack. The fact that players seem as if they need more coaching in attacking patterns supports this theory.

 

[In Rainbows]

First phase, where he basically didn't even have enough time to influence the team on the training ground.

He came in just before the start of the festive matches, with 2-3 days between each match. It's weird to me, that people are crediting him for that run of games when he didn't even have enough time for more than a single training session between matches.

It looked like instructions, but it being Ole is in doubt. He had no time with the team and the more time they were with Ole, the less it looked like that initial 2-3 performances. All the other matches were just results rather than dominant attacking performances. Just look at Spurs. Scored against the run of play and countered them twice. de Gea pulled a world class performance and Spurs had numerous huge chances.

 

[Sky1981]

True, but there are reports out there that money was actually available to replace Lukaku and Sanchez only for Ole to think that he had the strikeforce he needed. Both defense and attack needed to be fixed but Ole chose to fix only one problem - most probably because he is clueless on what actually constitutes a good attack. The fact that players seem as if they need more coaching in attacking patterns supports this theory.

Look, if Ole thinks the boards going to spent 300-400m for him, he's naively stupid. If ole thinks his strikeforce is adequate then he's naively stupid, if Ole thinks Lukaku/Sanchez are so bad he won't ever gonna need them ever in case of injury or form then he's naively stupid.

I've said before, coming in as a new manager (let alone interim manager) and acting Django selling the deadwoods are a sign of naive manager, especially if 3 mths onwards he's left with bare bone squad. Stupid from his part.

He has 10 months with the team, he should have known what Gomez, Chong, Greenwood are capable of. He should have had a clear vision of how he wants to play, which player he needs, how much budget he has, how to stretch the budget to try and plug every hole. He should have known Pogba's best position in 10 months, if he doesn't know he can ask him directly. Carrick/Mckenna has been with us for 4 years, what input do they have?

If blaming ed / jose / moyes makes us feel better and keeping that glimmer of hope (or delusion) alive, then we too deserve this situation.

Moyes should have taught us, if he walks talks coach like a midtable manager, chances are he is a midtable manager

 

[CM]

Even during our good spell in his interim period we weren't particularly attacking. We started off scoring a lot of goals but it wasn't long before we slipped into becoming a pragmatic team defending narrow leads and playing on the break.

 

[devilish]

I dont think he is attacking manager, he was when he was caretaker manager but he isn't now. Not sure what happened but the way he sets up the team is very poor. He isn't defensive either as he doesn't shut the teams down with players defending in numbers. It's more like he doesn't know how to set up the team when in possession so we win the ball and look clueless with it

Wow if positive posters like yourself are going negative on Ole then things are really bad

That's not criticism BTW. I agree with everything you said

 

[MrPooni]

If so, what's the evidence? His football is just as dull as Mourinho's.

When given money, his first instinct was to spend the bulk of it on two defenders. One of the two is a defensive FB - a position which in modern football is demands more attacking output than defensive nous.

So what makes you believe he is an attack minded manager?

The longer this slump goes, the more I'm convinced his early run of good form was a combination of favourable fixtures and the side effect of taking the handbrake off Mourinho's overly organised team.

As time has gone on he's effectively drilled said organisation out of the players and not replaced it with anything of note, which is why we appear to be getting progressively worse with every passing week.

It was effectively like a friendly but unqualified former student being put in charge of a school for gifted but miserable children. I say miserable because they were sick of the previous administrations high standards and strict practices. Naturally for the first term, the kids excelled because while they still retained a lot of the information they'd picked up from the previous folks in charge, they no longer had to worry about the pressure associated with their caustic teaching methods so everything seemed fine.

Flash forward to the next term and the school board notices the quality of everyone's work slipping but the cool new unqualified teacher convinces them that it's simply a product of fatigue as they're approaching the end of the school year. He tells them to relax and look forward to the upcoming Summer holidays and that he'll introduce a new curriculum when everyone gets back.

The kids come back from their holidays hungry to learn but slowly start to realise that the new teacher is somewhat out of his depth but at least he's nice right? The teacher brings in 3 new kids from a few local schools and fecks off a couple of super smart but troublesome ones and the new ones outshine all the remaining students because they spent the whole previous school year working under a qualified administration elsewhere.

Only the longer the new kids spend under cool teacher, the shitter they start performing too because guess what? He's not fecking qualified to run a school for gifted children just because he studied there when he was younger. Could he possibly learn on the job? Maybe, if the school board wait a couple of years but the school itself and the current batch of kids will probably be fecked in the process.

So to answer your question, no he's not an attacking or defensive manager. He's a former player trying figure our how to be a manager.

 

[Treble]

His excuse is the plan to build from the back: to sort out the defence, then the midfield and then the attack. I think that's naive. Both the defensive and the attacking phases of the game depend on the overall organisation of the team that has to find a working balance between those phases. To think of a team in terms of separate units like defence, midfield and attack is characteristic of clueless fans and pundits.

 

[roonster09]

Wow if positive posters like yourself are going negative on Ole then things are really bad

That's not criticism BTW. I agree with everything you said

When you don't see the progress and how we are regressing with each week, it's hard to be positive. I think from past 2 weeks I said I have lost hope on him. Cant see him changing it.

 

[ayushreddevil9]

When you don't see the progress and how we are regressing with each week, it's hard to be positive. I think from past 2 weeks I said I have lost hope on him. Cant see him changing it.

Same. The stubbornness to stick with this negative 4-2-3-1 after spending 130m on the defence is infuriating.

 

[Skills]

The longer this slump goes, the more I'm convinced his early run of good form was a combination of favourable fixtures and the side effect of taking the handbrake off Mourinho's overly organised team.

As time has gone on he's effectively drilled said organisation out of the players and not replaced it with anything of note, which is why we appear to be getting progressively worse with every passing week.

It was effectively like a friendly but underqualified former student being put in charge of a school for gifted but miserable children. I say miserable because they were sick of the previous administrations high standards and strict practices. Naturally for the first term, the kids excel because while they still retained a lot of the information they'd picked up from the previous folks in charge, they no longer had to worry about the pressure associated with their caustic teaching methods so everything seemed fine.

Flash forward to the next term and the school board notices the quality of everyone's work slipping but the cool new unqualified teacher convinces them that it's simply a product of fatigue as they're approaching the end of the school year. He tells them to relax and look forward to the upcoming Summer holidays and that he'll introduce a new curriculum when everyone gets back.

The kids come back from their holidays hungry to learn but slowly start to realise that the new teacher is somewhat out of his depth but at least he's nice right? The teacher brings in 3 new kids from a few local schools and fecks off a couple of super smart but troublesome ones and the new ones outshine all the remaining students because they spent the whole previous school year working with a qualified administration elsewhere.

Only the longer the new kids spend under cool teacher, the shitter they start performing because guess what? He's not fecking qualified to run a school for gifted children just because he studied there when he was younger.

So to answer your question, no he's not an attacking or defensive manager. He's a former player trying to be a manager.

It was also basically the snowball effect. Form and momentum is a real thing in sports irrespective of what people say.

The shackles being released and the new manager effect got the team the initial results. The results after that were off the fumes of confidence and momentum.

 

[MisterLupus]

True, but there are reports out there that money was actually available to replace Lukaku and Sanchez only for Ole to think that he had the strikeforce he needed. Both defense and attack needed to be fixed but Ole chose to fix only one problem - most probably because he is clueless on what actually constitutes a good attack. The fact that players seem as if they need more coaching in attacking patterns supports this theory.

Which reports? Sounds very weird as Ole himself said publicly that he wanted five signings during the summer.

 

[MrPooni]

Which reports? Sounds very weird as Ole himself said publicly that he wanted five signings during the summer.

I've learned not to listen to anything Ole says. He claimed Pogba and Rashford were 100% fit after the Arsenal game after Sky Sports brought it up as a potential explanation for their performances. A few days later we're told Pogba has been carrying a foot injury since the Southampton game.

 

[AFC NimbleThumb]

I've learned not to listen to anything Ole says. He claimed Pogba and Rashford were 100% fit after the Arsenal game after Sky Sports brought it up as a potential explanation for their performances. A few days later we're told Pogba has been carrying a foot injury since the Southampton game.

Finally people are catching on.

He’s contradicted himself throughout his tenure.

 

[devilish]

When you don't see the progress and how we are regressing with each week, it's hard to be positive. I think from past 2 weeks I said I have lost hope on him. Cant see him changing it.

Welcome to the dark side.

Seriously you are right 100%

 

[devilish]

H

Look, if Ole thinks the boards going to spent 300-400m for him, he's naively stupid. If ole thinks his strikeforce is adequate then he's naively stupid, if Ole thinks Lukaku/Sanchez are so bad he won't ever gonna need them ever in case of injury or form then he's naively stupid.

I've said before, coming in as a new manager (let alone interim manager) and acting Django selling the deadwoods are a sign of naive manager, especially if 3 mths onwards he's left with bare bone squad. Stupid from his part.

He has 10 months with the team, he should have known what Gomez, Chong, Greenwood are capable of. He should have had a clear vision of how he wants to play, which player he needs, how much budget he has, how to stretch the budget to try and plug every hole. He should have known Pogba's best position in 10 months, if he doesn't know he can ask him directly. Carrick/Mckenna has been with us for 4 years, what input do they have?

If blaming ed / jose / moyes makes us feel better and keeping that glimmer of hope (or delusion) alive, then we too deserve this situation.

Moyes should have taught us, if he walks talks coach like a midtable manager, chances are he is a midtable manager

He is not mid table manager. He is Molde's level. The guy was out of depth at Cardiff. Maybe Joel can relocate him and Carrick to chivas

 

[Enigma_87]

He’s neither attacking nor defensive. He’s crap manager on borrowed time.

Found it hilarious some posters were against bringing someone like Conte is based on the defensive manager premise. Especially after the shot show last night.

 

[FireballXL5]

No, he's a shit one.

 

[elnorte]

Perhaps not very attacking, but his football is certainly offensive

Brilliant!

 

[Nickelodeon]

Is Solskjaer a manager?

 

[Crashoutcassius]

He clearly has attacking intention but doesn't seem to be able to get United to break teams down that park the bus. It is a hard skill to be fair... the team is so skewed towards counter that our opponents just play ultra deep and feel safe there ... and it's been a good strategy

 

[Rendezvous with Ronaldo]

He's not a defensive manager but in terms of getting bodies in the box he seems to be risk-averse. He likes to maintain control without being penetrative. A bit like LvG, but less solid defensively. Not a good combination.

Hey, I'm a fan of Ole, but it was always clear there would be hiccups.

 

[romufc]

He clearly has attacking intention but doesn't seem to be able to get United to break teams down that park the bus. It is a hard skill to be fair... the team is so skewed towards counter that our opponents just play ultra deep and feel safe there ... and it's been a good strategy

Attacking intentions? where do you get this from? Just because he says so? He also said yesterday's performance was good..

How can a Manutd team rely JUST on counter attack when most teams will sit back?

 

[redIndianDevil]

Calling him a manager is too much for me at this point.

 

[AlexUTD]

United clearly had issues in defence and Solskjaer has done something about it this summer. Not his fault that the Glazers did not give him more money for creative players that we also clearly need! Feck it took 4 months to negotiate deals for 3 players!

We have to look at what squad Solskjaer has right now, with only Pogba as the only creative player in midfield. How are we supposed to play a attacking fluent football? And with half of the few attacking players we have beeing injured also, what do people expect? miracles? Even Ferguson couldnt make this current team a PL winning team.

Atleast Solskajer does not park the bus like Mourinho did when we were leading 1-0.

 

[André Dominguez]

Perhaps not very attacking, but his football is certainly offensive