We do need more players, however:
1. There is no guarantee the new players will be successful buys. Even the best managers of all time have 50-50 rate when it comes transfers.
2. He can't coach the new players, nor bring in successful strategy based on what we have seen and on his track record.
3. There seems to be no plan B on the transfer market as well. For every top target we fail to identify a replacement and there is no chance all of our top targets agree to come and also be allowed to leave at a right price.
No doubt our academy grads are overrated, but that's also down on Ole starting the season like this and pinning our hopes on a long hard season with such an underwhelming midfield line and also backups.
As for Leicester - Tielemans was available at a very good price, we didn't entertain that. Mendi, Söyüncü, Ndidi - all excellent prospects were available at very good price at the time and there are many players that would be open to come and that would cost significantly less than Maddison and Maguire types - yet this doesn't seem to be our transfer strategy nor aligned with our "core values" and "United way".
Leicester have bought smart but were also very average under Puel and only when they got a very good manager in their results and overall game began improving. We also took one of their best players this Summer, who they replaced with a youngster and still look a ton lot better than us.
When the results aren't improving and our game also isn't improving you need to sack the manager. It's what every other club literally does. In terms of pressure - there absolutely have to have one. We're a big club and there is always pressure, if you can't handle it and you are the manager then you are not good enough, simple as.
Again, Klopp is not a valid example. Klopp was one of the best managers around and he came with those credentials. Klopp changed the way they played and that was visible from day one.
Compare it to Ole - we play significantly worse than under any other manager we had post Fergie and his results are significantly worse.
When the new manager comes in and if those players are not performing, he would show them the door. But the biggest difference to novice manager like Ole, is that most probably he will replace them.
1. Cant disagree with that, but this is the main (and soon only) reason i still back Ole to some degree is because of transfers. Despite crap on a stick football and horrific results, his three buys have been excellent, i would argue AWB and James have been our best performers this year and he was also willing to get rid of some deadwood and bad apples, despite it obviously leaving us very thin in certain areas. In any case, that is more than can be said about Moyes, LvG and Jose who ultimately left the squad in a worse state than they found it.
2. I wrote this in the other tread and since im lazy im just going to copy it instead of typing it out again.
On my last flight to Manchester i talked with a guy who claimed to be best mates with Daniel Berg Hæstad (was captain under Ole in Molde). He told me Ole trusted his coaches to conduct the training sessions and half the time he was not even there. He also mostly listened to his tactical coaches regarding team selections and in-game tactics. Now this was just some guy, but it seems like a strange thing to lie about and imo if this was how he did things at Molde i dont see why it is any different here. Regarding our coaches though, i seem to remember us getting significantly worse when Jose replaced Rui Faria with Carrick/McKenna and i also seem to remember Phelan was a big step down from Queiroz. Take that as you want. Not trying to exonerate Ole here as he is the man in charge after all and it was he who picked the coaches, but if this guy i met is to be believed, his involvement in the actual coaching part is pretty limited. And i might be wrong about this one, but did not Fergie as well mostly leave the coaching to his coaches while he was sat in the office?
3. This is fair criticism, but none of us know exactly what has happened here. It might have been that Ole have vastly overrated the players he had and went into the season thinking that midfield would be good enough, but we both know how unreliable transfer news are and most of them are downright click bait fabrications. Maybe Woody was being a tight arse and demanded we slashed the wage bill before we got any new ones in? Woody is also not exactly known for his excellent transfer negotiating skills so maybe we had more deals on the table that fell through because he fecked around? In any case, we have done plenty of bad business over the years so i would much prefer we wait until the right targets are available instead of taking more punts and hope for the best.
Regarding that bolded part. It makes perfect sense and i can see where you are coming from. Of course every big job comes with some level of pressure. When Ole took over after Jose in December there was very little he could do except change the mood and do some small tactical changes, the same will be true for whoever if they take over for Ole now. I am also pretty certain that if we get a new manager now, nothing will happen in January since 2 months is not enough time to get to know all the players and see where they fit.
I am not enjoying this more than you do. Seeing that shite we served up vs B'mouth really ruined my weekend. But even if we end up 10th it wont destroy us as a club. I am much more concerned if we end up with a reputation of being a managers graveyard, where you would be afforded very little time to make your impact. Since Fergie left we have ended up 7th, 4th, 5th, 6th, 2nd and 6th. Not exactly amazing that, and Ole last season overall ended up 3rd, and that very much includes our implosion at the end of the year. Since 2013 we have also seen our squad deteriorate badly and the rise of City and Liverpool as probably the best clubs in the world right now, which means top 4 is harder then it has been in some time. Also, keep in mind that this is largely the same group of players that have failed under 3(4) different managers so regardless of who is managing us, there is
a lot of work to be done before we can even begin discussing challenging for the league. In my opinion, the reason behind the shite football is not a coaching issue, but more of a player quality issue and i think no amount of coaching is going to turn Fred, Lindgaard and Pereira into good footballers, or turn Mata, Matic and Young any younger
10th is clearly not good enough, but considering how tight the league is this year two wins in a row and suddenly we are back up to EL qualifications. Spurs for example are even worse than us and that squad on paper shits all over ours. Getting a new manager now could maybe fix all our plights (i seriously doubt that) but it could also backfire spectacularly. Say if we got Allegri in now, he fails to turn the ship around and we end up 6th-7th. Do we sack him then? And even if we dont sack him, getting here now and having a mediocre season would mean the pressure to deliver next year would be immense. Anything less than top 4 and soon calls for his head will be heard as well. Meanwhile, if we continue our season in this fashion and Ole is sacked, then the next manager will start the 2020/21 season with a clean slate and the knowledge that at least
some patience will be shown to him both from the fans and from the club.
So me not wanting Ole sacked now is not because some romantic notion or because i put him above the club. It is from a very pragmatic standpoint because i firmly believe its a very risky move and it does a huge disservice to whoever comes next. Also, maybe Ole can use his personal connections to lure Haaland here and we go on an amazing winning streak after Christmas and somehow end up 3rd
