The squad isn't great but at the same time it's not a 10th squad as I said previously. Shieffled United are ahead of us in the table with better stats and they just got promoted. No one asked us to challenge for the league or even finish top 4, but we should be ahead of Brighton, Palace, Bournemouth and a newly promoted team as Shieffled, or do these have better squads and better footballing structure than us?We did. And honestly its not worth discussing the players that left in more length. But, if we do take a honest look at our squad, its pretty clear its not the superstar squad we have had in the past. Its pretty far from it.
DDG: 25 million£. Used to be the best keeper in world and has looked a shadow of himself for about 2-3 years now.
Maguire: 80 million£, expensive, maybe even overpriced, but that's what you got to pay for English internationals
Lindelof: 35 million£. Has looked decent from time to time, but overall has been poor imo in his time here. Dont think hes gonna be good enough as a first choice CB if we want big trophies
Rojo/Jones/Baily: 78 million£ combined. Problem with these guys is that they cant stay injury free for more than 2 months, and even when they are fit they are incredibly rash and tend to make massive blunders way to often for them to be trusted
Tuanzebe: 0 million£ Hopefully he can develop into a first team regular
Shaw: 37 million£: Hes decent but has the worst injury record i have seen. I dont see the point in having him at all since he never plays anyway
Young: 18 million£: Hes 34, bizzare that we still rely on him so much
AWB: 55 million£: Hes great. POTM in October and if he keeps on delivering hes guaranteed to be our POTY
Dalot: 18 million£: Maybe he can become good one day, but right now hes well below AWB
Matic: 45 million£: Had one good season before he lost his legs. 45 million is bloody expensive for one decent season
Pogba: 100 million£: Fecking expensive and our only superstar outfield player. Problem is that hes been injured almost the entire season so far
McTomminay: 0 million£. I like him a lot, but at 22 he really should not be a regular starter as a CM as most CM's dont develop the nous and tactical awareness to be top player until they are 25+
Fred: 50 million£: I dont hate the guy and we cant blame him for his price tag or the fact that we bought him, but he is truly Bebe-levels of bad and 50 million is just absurd
Mata: 44 million£: I think hes been a decent player for us, but its clear as day he no longer has the legs to play at this level.
Pereira: 0 million£: Has been here 4-5 years? Has never shown that hes anywhere near the required level
Lingaard: 0 million£: Zero goals and assists since last December says it all. Is stealing a living here
Martial: 60 million£: Everyone (including Ole) was hoping this was going to be his year. Hopefully it can, but his consistency has to improve drastically if hes ever going to become a top class CF
James: 15 million£: Take penalties out of the equation, and hes our most productive player this season. Time will tell, but if he keeps improving, 15 million is going to be an absolute steal
Rashford: 0 million£: Hes quite good at some things, but quite limited otherwise. Maybe he will become great one day, but right now hes little more than a promising academy player really
Greenwood: 0 million£: Way to early to tell. Maybe he will become a star one day
So lets sum this up. We have spent a combined total of 272 million£ on Rojo, Jones, Baily, Shaw, Fred, Young, Matic and Mata and that is not accounting for inflation in prices, had we bought them today, the sum would be at least twice that imo, but lets say 400 million£ to get a nice round number. These are "deadwood" for different reasons. Some are simply not good enough, some are always injured while some are just too old for this level
Then you have the "good" players DDG, Pogba and Martial bought before Oles time for 185 million£, but in Martials case, needs to show a lot more to justify that price tag really. And then you have the ones Ole bought: Maguire, AWB and James for a combined 150 million£. The rest of them are academy players.
So the situation is as follows. Before Ole got here, 272 million£ (much more if you adjust for inflation) had been pissed away on deadwood or players that should have been replaced a long time ago. The actual good players that were here accounted for around 185 million£, while Ole bought for 150 million£ himself, the rest are academy players and most of them dont look good enough. if we are being completely honest.
Those are damning numbers imo, almost half (even more if you account for inflation) of our budget has been spent on dross, meanwhile only about 335 million are have been spent an actual useful players.
This isnt about accepting mediocrity or saying that Ole has done wonderfully or anything. But rather accepting the fact that despite our big name our current squad has been mangled by years of bad transfers and is currently pretty fecking far from where it should be in terms of quality
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
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Exactly this. It's not something that should be held against Ole, none of us would resign from our job in his situation. But the notion that he is sacrificing himself for the club is pretty embarrassing.
Is it true that Ole has a worse managerial record in the past 28 games then Gaz had at Valencia?
Sheffield United have won one more game, faring +4 on goal difference compared to +2 for United. You'd think the difference is 10 points and a gap of 10 in goal difference by the number of times you pulled this argument.
We are not really competing for anything in epl though. It's as good as a pass.
Are you talking seriously ? The fact we won less than or even equal games to a newly promoted team after 11 matches is absurd, but what can I say, expectations have taken a nose dive to justify anything Ole has done here.
Neville had 3 wins, 5 draws and 8 losses in La Liga, 4 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss in the Copa del Rey and 3 wins and 2 losses in CL/Europa.
Total of 10 wins, 7 draws and 11 losses.
Ole has 5 wins, 6 draws and 9 losses in the PL, 1 loss in the FA Cup, 2 wins in the League Cup and 2 wins, a draw and 2 losses in the CL/Europa.
Total of 9 wins, 7 draws and 12 losses.
Uh oh
Go on then, keep being proud of almost being on par with Sheffield United. What a mind feck this is. To think Ole and Woodward have dropped our standards like this. I miss the days feeling left behind the pack when we were on the cusp in third place back in 2003-05.
100% this.
It was all Liverpool fans had to cling to because everything else was falling to pieces. That's exactly what is happening right now at United.
Shite results.
Shite football.
Shite league position.
Shite board.
Shite Woodward.
Shite prospects for the rest of this season at least.
"But our manager loves us. He has a plan."
Desperation and blind faith.
I dont think its his fault, they offered and he accepted.
My point is directed towards Woodward and his wage structure, when you see things like this you know why we have one of the highest wage structures in the world and a mediocre manager and poor/average team.
Jeeez this is badNeville had 3 wins, 5 draws and 8 losses in La Liga, 4 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss in the Copa del Rey and 3 wins and 2 losses in CL/Europa.
Total of 10 wins, 7 draws and 11 losses.
Ole has 5 wins, 6 draws and 9 losses in the PL, 1 loss in the FA Cup, 2 wins in the League Cup and 2 wins, a draw and 2 losses in the CL/Europa.
Total of 9 wins, 7 draws and 12 losses.
Uh oh
The scariest thing is how low the expectations have fallen.. We’re going to be the death of our club, on top of the board, Ed, and Ole, we are to blame as well..
I was making the point of how incompetent our board is, giving Ole the third biggest wage in the EPL just after Guardiola and Poccetino, I mean what the feck were they thinking?
Ole was against the wall, he was a takecare manager coming from the Norwegian league, he would have accepted practically any offer it’s not as if he had other offers.
Things like this are exactly the reason we have a shit squad, players earning way more than they deserve and then we can’t get rid of them, now we have an overpaid manager that’s going to cost a lot to get rid of.
Just to give some insight we are the 4th team with the highest wages in the world just behind Madrid, Barca and City and we are not even top 4 quality in our own league FFS nevermind a top 4 team in the world.
Like you said its not my money and I dont blame Ole at all for accepting that contract, who wouldn't have in his shoes? But my point is a mere critic of how piss poor the contracts are handled at the club.
We are better than Sheffield, but City, Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea and arguably Leichester all have stronger squads than us right now. Also, league position right now does no say very much as only 6 points separates 17th from 5th so that can change very fast. Imo, if we qualify for EL this year that would be par for the course or even a bit better considering our squad.
And you know what? All these teams probably does have a better structure than us, since they dont have a bean counter CEO at the top who fecks over his managers by buying players they dont want (Fred) and hands out ridiculous contracts to greedy cnuts (Sanchez) while letting important players leave for free (Herrera)
This is exactly the reason where we are. Ole and Ed can talk about we have changed in transfer policy but it is clearly a smoke screen.
How can you justify giving an unknown manager the same wage as one who is playing glorious football and getting success?
The biggest problem at this club is the management from top level. How you can justify giving contracts to players that do not deserve them. We are not talking about giving Jesse Lingard a 4 year contract on 25k a year, he is on £100k. Luke Shaw is on £180k.
Luke Shaw earns nearly as much as VVD.. let that sink in.
What has Luke Shaw done to get that? nothing.
What has Jesse Lingard done to warrant £100k?
I have said this on here before and have been buffed by fans saying, these are not the real figures etc..
No one at this club is worth more than £150k for the performances they have put in over the last few years.
It is all well and good when they have 10 good games and they decide to jump up and down, the club gives them a contract. In the same vein, a run of 10 poor performances should be wages cut.
It is not the fact that he coached a bottom 3 team it is his managerial career in England. There should be context in this situation. If you want me to isolate his time in Cardiff and post only his time at MUFC how much better do you think it gets? The reason I posted those stats was to show people that this is the man in charge of our beloved club. I know this is not what he wanted but you have no God given right to be a Pep or Klopp, you need to read the game and understand it better. I'm afraid he doesn't and this is why I want him gone asap.
Honestly Solskjaer week in week out is p1ssing in the wind with hope of results and performances. He's done. Anyone who thinks Ole can turn it around has to be deluded judging by the evidence he has given.
If winning in a random noncompetitive league is enough of a merit to be a manager then let's hire the coaches who were winners of the MLS, Danish Superliga, Prva HNL, Veikkausliiga
. Another romanticism notion, let's go the full Dalglish mode and grab one of Bruce, Giggs or Neville for our next manager because clearly the formula for success is predicated specifically to former employee's of this club. This is pretty much the highlight of fans defence of Solskjaer no one can point to the hypothesis of the teams performances. The only way an unproven manager is given time is if he earns it with short term success. The longevity arguments are null, it's near impossible to do anything in life gaining momentum in the long-term without having successes short term periodically to provide a measure of improvement or estimation.
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Ahh, no they dont. Everybody expected Chelsea to struggle with them losing their best player and transfer ban. Arsenal have the worst squad between all top teams. Maybe spurs on par with us or a bit better, but that is a debatable. We know we dont have the best squad and have holes, but even that is on the clueless manager.
It's funny how people want us to build for the future, spend 100s of millions on these young players and then leave their development in the hands of someone who even they recognise is a novice.
Ole is an awful manager man, it’s kind of comical that he still has a bunch of people behind him.Neville had 3 wins, 5 draws and 8 losses in La Liga, 4 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss in the Copa del Rey and 3 wins and 2 losses in CL/Europa.
Total of 10 wins, 7 draws and 11 losses.
Ole has 5 wins, 6 draws and 9 losses in the PL, 1 loss in the FA Cup, 2 wins in the League Cup and 2 wins, a draw and 2 losses in the CL/Europa.
Total of 9 wins, 7 draws and 12 losses.
Uh oh
IF we manage by some miracle win at the weekend, this thread will be full of smug Ole backers again. What people who still back him don't seem to grasp is none of the people who don't think he's up to it get any pleasure whatsoever in us being shite under him. We all want us to win and be successful.
What’s comical is that the very people who criticise our board are the ones supporting the boards masterplan of shutting the fans up
Are you joking? Which of our player would improve Spurs and Arsenal. AWB, Maguire and Pogba?
And clearly Ole is responsible for transfers made under Moyes, LvG and Jose. Christ
Funny how in preseason predictions these "we have a mid table squad" people were nowhere to be seen. In fact, improved fitness in preseason alone was seen as THE solution to our problems.
Surely if the squad is as bad as people are saying, the execution of this long term plan is absolutely terrible. A long term plan with abysmal short term results is not a good long term plan period.
This is absolute crap. Plenty of people were pointing out how average our squad was and how we'd struggle? Unless I'm totally misunderstanding your post. Hence why so many were dismayed and downright confused by our lack of business because our squad was so obviously weak.
Of course we are going to win this weekend. Brighton at OT is a match we will win. So would the next games in EL and also against Aston Villa. Then is where the problems may start. I can't see us winning against Sheffield Utd away to them. For sure we will be pottering along as a mid table side and the backers would say I told you so. Then the new season starts and we play terrible football and he gets the sack, they will change their monicker and start as new members here. This always happen from the start from Moyes now to Ole.
The transfer window is where Ole fecked it up. There are better players available than what he has now yet he did not want to buy them but to wait for certain players. Those top players are not going to come to play for Ole Gunnar and a mid table club.
The reason why many top players came to play for Manchester United was because Sir Alex Ferguson was the Manager and it was guaranteed that they would win trophies at Manchester United.
Why would they come to Manchester United to play under a manager who has never won anything significant and who is not know to be a progressive manager?
The reason why many top players came to play for Manchester United was because Sir Alex Ferguson was the Manager and it was guaranteed that they would win trophies at Manchester United.
Why would they come to Manchester United to play under a manager who has never won anything significant and who is not know to be a progressive manager?
The fact that so many people says as a given that we have the worst squad from the top teams and below leicester speakes a lot about how bad our players look under Ole. I mean the arent worldclass players for sure, but we confortably have a better squad than Leicester, Arsenal and Chelsea. Of course those teams are coached so players like Tammy Abraham and Mason Mount suddenly look like great players and not youngsters, and players like Maddison, Pereira, Barnes look like top class.
Thats the thing with good managers, they make their players improve.
Hate to bring Klopp again and again but which player they have was bought as the end product? Except Allison all their players have improved a lot under Klopp now they have a worldclass squad when a couple of years ago many of those players were just average or good at best.
What’s happening now with the quality & depth of the squad is a direct consequence of poor planning and the scatter gun approach toward transfers over a period of 6 years. This is the reason I don’t understand the posters calling for the manger to be sacked when if one lesson we should have learned is that sacking the manager isn’t the answer right now.
Over the summer, for the first time since Fergie retired, there was some proper planning for the type of players we should be building the squad on and that is for a large part down to the manager. You may have an opinion on Ole’s tactical nous or whatever, but the club needs to prioritize long term solutions to get itself out of this mess and that is exactly what Ole is bringing when we need it most. The poster who claimed that if short term results are abysmal then the long term cannot be good is clearly confusing the sporting side of things with a business. In order to create succes on the pitch you need to build the right squad and that’s inevitably going to come at the cost of short term results. Any United fan who lived through the Fergie years of the 80’s and early 90’s should know exactly what I mean.
Over the summer, for the first time since Fergie retired, there was some proper planning for the type of players we should be building the squad on and that is for a large part down to the manager. You may have an opinion on Ole’s tactical nous or whatever, but the club needs to prioritize long term solutions to get itself out of this mess and that is exactly what Ole is bringing when we need it most. The poster who claimed that if short term results are abysmal then the long term cannot be good is clearly confusing the sporting side of things with a business. In order to create succes on the pitch you need to build the right squad and that’s inevitably going to come at the cost of short term results. Any United fan who lived through the Fergie years of the 80’s and early 90’s should know exactly what I mean.
But let's say we hypotheticaly keep him for the remainder of his contract. What do you think will happen? During the time he's been here, strictly talking the way we play, what do you see him building towards? I feel like even if he's given 2 or 3 more years he still won't be able to land top 4 once. Hate to break it but with the people in charge above there will be a lot more sacked managers in the future until we find the right fit.
I thought we’d finish 6th with Leicester right behind us. But being 10 point off top 4 in just 11 games was not expected. I feel our squad isn’t the best but Ole is failing big time
It’s going to take years to build a squad capable of competing again for the long term no matter who the manager is. There are no quick fixes in football.
Just look at Ajax tonight, down to 9 players and still attacking and trying to win a game. Yet Ole still makes excuses for us barely having a shot on goal.
I definitely agree but the manager in charge of that rebuild has to be the right fit. Ole's been here nearly a year now and all I can see is that we are becoming drastically worse. The absolute shit end to last season which many said would be over once he gets a pre season and some players has carried on into this season and he seems incapable of turning it around. Getting a win these days have become very rare for us. In the last 28 we have a disturbing amount of draws and losses.
There isn't, but Ole is completely useless so shouldn't be kept on for that reason either.
What excuses does he use?
He says we have been the best team and deserved to win nearly every defeat thus far. He has used injuries as an excuse. He has talked other garbage which I don't even have the energy to research, such as how I feel with just how bad he is.
Ajax play the 'United way' ironically enough. Our current team do not.
I don't think this applies specifically to Solskjær but rather all managers that are struggeling. They will try to make excuses or positives even when there aren't any. To say "we deserved to win" or injuries are bad are quite normal.
I love how every time something completely unrelated happens in the football world people come on here just to rant about how much Ole sucks.
"Norwich beat City. Ole sucks"
"Southampton conceded 9 goals. Ole sucks"
"Bayern sacked Kovac. Ole sucks"
"Thiago Motta has imprinted his ideas on Genoa in 3 matches. Ole sucks"
"Ajax attacked with 9 men. Ole sucks"
"Norwich beat City. Ole sucks"
"Southampton conceded 9 goals. Ole sucks"
"Bayern sacked Kovac. Ole sucks"
"Thiago Motta has imprinted his ideas on Genoa in 3 matches. Ole sucks"
"Ajax attacked with 9 men. Ole sucks"
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