Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

LVG and Mourinho had true pedigree.

Yet neither of them was allowed to implement fundamental change from the bottom down or finish top 8 which seems to be what the board and the Ole in crowd want us to be ok with.

If Poch was manager I'd have much more faith because I've seen him do a successful rebuilding job using the academy at two Premier League clubs.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

The reality is this, our defense was a massive concern going into this season and we badly needed quality across the back line.

For all the Joseites in here and across our "supporter" base they cried, bitched and moaned about him not getting Maguire last summer. We got him and we added AWB as well at RB to cover the soon to be retired / sold Young.

He's rebuilding the team from the back, if folks just calmed the feckin jets and afforded him another transfer window or two I'll say matter of fact the club will invest in a CM and another attacking / CF player.

Slowly adding a spine to the team with long term in mind.

I hope you're right of course but so far it appears his entire style of play will be counter attack based, he has no ideas whatsoever on how to break down a tough deep lying defence, he thinks Pogba is a DM and his results have been poor.

So yes, the recruitments have been good as have some sales, but there's a long way to go before just "affording" him something you wouldn't have afforded LVG, Moyes or Mourinho.

 

[Sky1981]

Because we didn't win all our games. Weird question.


If you take off the blinkers for a second and look at the Arsenal and Liverpool match, we should have won those if not for defensive mistakes. That's a 4 point difference and would be 5 positions higher, sitting in 5th. If we did better against the small teams, of which we either drew or lost by a single goal, then we'd comfortably be in top four.

Every game is deserved to win when you put it like that.

Bayern deserved to win if not for that 5 minute lapse. We deserve to win 2 cl if messi didnt head that ball. If and buts

 

[Mainoldo]

That isn't ignored, that's simply not being able to address all key issues immediately.

Which the FIFA generation supporting twats around today can't comprehend.

Pep needed and still badly needs a CB...

Did he ignore that need? Does it make him a failure? Should he be sacked for it?

For one I don't play Fifa

You can clearly identify targets based on priority and we signed 3 player neither of which was a CM and are going into January looking for a striker. I don't think it's crazy... to assume a CM is not a priority of the level of other positions. So who's fault is that.

 

[Keefy18]

In my united circle not a single one want Ole at the job, including my father that supports united since 1962 who I never thought will ever give up on Ole. I know Ole still get some support on mostly english united fans forums like the Caf. But I write on an arabic forum and only 1 of 10 wants him at the job. I dont have official statistics but many websites and known twitter accounts did poles on him and the majority wanted him out.

Still refuse to believe "most / majority" want him gone.

For me if your blaming him singularly and think sacking Ole and hiring Poch / Allegri will suddenly turn us into a great side is beyond stupid. It isn't going to happen and I would legit put my life on that.

It doesn't matter if its Ole, Poch, Klopp, Pep or hell a prime SAF.... They would all need time now to undo years or poor scouting and player investments and to fix the mentality within the club.

Our supporters simply do not understand this and at this point the supporters are the most toxic and hurtful thing right now to this club.

I hope you're right of course but so far it appears his entire style of play will be counter attack based, he thinks Pogba is a DM and his results have been poor.

So yes, the recruitments have been good as have some sales, but there's a long way to go before just "affording" him something you wouldn't have afforded LVG, Moyes or Mourinho.

Does he? Or was his hand forced?

When he played him there Fred was out injured and when Fred got over his injury Pogba got injured.

I afforded LVG time cause I could see he had a long term vision of buying young players or promoting from within the YTS.

Moyes and Jose I didn't as the former was a complete clown and Jose toxic.

 

[Mainoldo]

Jaysus, can you be any more obtuse about this?

Being happy to give him time is obviously a different thing.

No it's not. If he is not perfoming to a satisfied level like now. But you still want to give him time, you are accepting the current Status Que.

 

[Keefy18]

For one I don't play Fifa

You can clearly identify targets based on priority and we signed 3 player neither of which was a CM and are going into January looking for a striker. I don't think it's crazy... to assume a CM is not a priority of the level of other positions. So who's fault is that.

Could well be the boards, could be the manager. Could well be both.

We've had a huge overhaul of the coaching, scouting and transfer strategy this summer and to get in 3 whilst off loading all that we did was impressive considering all the movements going on in the background.

If you want to look at the 2 best ran clubs and best teams in the country today in Liverpool and City, they too had years of feck ups, poor recruitment, hires, transfer strategy. Its not like FSG took over Liverpool in 2010 and magically became league contenders over night, they chopped and changed managers quickly, fecked up with transfers and investing in flavor of the months signings for big fees with no long term vision..... sound familiar????

City weren't much better, bought out in 2008, no league title for 4 years and done similar in many instances. Over paying for utter tripe and short term patch ups and changed manager often.

FIFA / Football Manager, doesn't matter. Your mentality is one of instant gratification and if not just keep sacking cause your not getting peak Barca circa 2009.

Fact is, not even peak Fergie could fix us in a season like some are expecting.

 

[Tarrou]

No it's not. If he is not perfoming to a satisfied level like now. But you still want to give him time, you are accepting the current Status Que.

you are basically arguing black is white now, so I'll leave you to it

 

[Mainoldo]

Could well be the boards, could be the manager. Could well be both.

We've had a huge overhaul of the coaching, scouting and transfer strategy this summer and to get in 3 whilst off loading all that we did was impressive considering all the movements going on in the background.

If you want to look at the 2 best ran clubs and best teams in the country today in Liverpool and City, they too had years of feck ups, poor recruitment, hires, transfer strategy. Its not like FSG took over Liverpool in 2010 and magically became league contenders over night, they chopped and changed managers quickly, fecked up with transfers and investing in flavor of the months signings for big fees with no long term vision..... sound familiar????

City weren't much better, bought out in 2008, no league title for 4 years and done similar in many instances. Over paying for utter tripe and short term patch ups and changed manager often.

FIFA / Football Manager, doesn't matter. Your mentality is one of instant gratification and if not just keep sacking cause your not getting peak Barca circa 2009.

Fact is, not even peak Fergie could fix us in a season like some are expecting.

Why is it impressive. This is not our first rebuild since Fergie. We gave the rebuild job to LVG and he got us top 4, managed to clear out a tone of players whilst getting a CB, CMx2, CF, LB and Di Maria. Whilst overhauling the coaching staff and scouting.

Liverpool and City are not the two best run clubs, they are just the most successful. Norwich and Brighton are very well run clubs, Newcastle aren't. It has nothing to do with their positions in the league. It's a flawed argument that always gets blown up when you are successful, it's the same reason why we believe David Gill is better than Woodward.

Peak Barca 2009, now you are just throwing everything out their and seeing what sticks. . That's actually when I did play Fifa, maybe that's my problem, i need to play the new Fifa and i might be up with the times.

Peak Fergie would have us above Leicester City because he is a better manager than Rodger and has better players than him. He was top with Anderson and Cleverly in midfield. Battered Spurs 4-0.

 

[Giggsyking]

Our supporters simply do not understand this and at this point the supporters are the most toxic and hurtful thing right now to this club.

Blaming the fans for the club's status now! are you serious? The fans are the most toxic and hurtful thing at the time but not the incompetent manager, the incompetent CEO Ed and the leeches of owners, some of our mercenary players? really?
The fans who pays Ed Woodward's, the players and the managers salary?

 

[Mainoldo]

you are basically arguing black is white now, so I'll leave you to it

But it's all the grey and unknown's that makes the Ole project keep ticking. But it will be the black and white that gets him sacked. So what's the most relevant argument?

 

[Leftback99]

Peak Fergie would have us above Leicester City because he is a better manager than Rodger and has better players than him. He was top with Anderson and Cleverly in midfield. Battered Spurs 4-0.

But yet lost a title race to Mancini.

 

[Wumminator]

In my united circle not a single one want Ole at the job, including my father that supports united since 1962 who I never thought will ever give up on Ole. I know Ole still get some support on mostly english united fans forums like the Caf. But I write on an arabic forum and only 1 of 10 wants him at the job. I dont have official statistics but many websites and known twitter accounts did poles on him and the majority wanted him out.

Yes. Says quite a lot that doesn’t it.

 

[Leftback99]

If Spurs finish above us this season, it'll be interesting to see how the Ole apologists explain this in a positive way.

Anybody who knows anything about football knows that Ole is not good enough and is doing a terrible job. Nobody can deny this. BUT, Woodward is the one who needs to be removed. Even if Ole is fired and we bring in the new flavour of the month, that new manager will also struggle to do well, under the current structure.

In a perfect world, I'd like to see Woodward removed from all footballing operations (ie. he has absolutely no say in which player is bought/sold), a DoF who knows about football is brought in and he decides on who to bring in to replace Ole.

Why would anyone expect us to finish above Spurs who have a better squad and now have Mourinho in charge?
If Mourinho gets them challenging it's the Poch 'apologists' that should be questioned.

 

[Bobcat]

The reality is this, our defense was a massive concern going into this season and we badly needed quality across the back line.

For all the Joseites in here and across our "supporter" base they cried, bitched and moaned about him not getting Maguire last summer. We got him and we added AWB as well at RB to cover the soon to be retired / sold Young.

He's rebuilding the team from the back, if folks just calmed the feckin jets and afforded him another transfer window or two I'll say matter of fact the club will invest in a CM and another attacking / CF player.

Slowly adding a spine to the team with long term in mind.

This. If we instead had bought a midfielders, people would 100% bitch and moan about us not buying a CB and a RB. He sent Smalling on loan and suddenly hes the best CB ever, despite the fact that hes been here 10 years soon, under 5 different managers and has yet to establish himself as a first choice under any of them. Hes a decent enough defender, but i think people have forgotten just how much he panics when he is put under pressure.

If you want to play out from the back, then its a real fecking problem if you have a CB that hoofs it every time another player looks at him.

 

[Gomes]

He sent Smalling on loan and suddenly hes the best CB ever, despite the fact that hes been here 10 years soon, under 5 different managers and has yet to establish himself as a first choice under any of them.

Smalling has been the first choice for every manager. That's the problem with Ole people. When they don't spout absolute rubbish that you would expect from a deluded 10-year-old, they openly lie.

 

[ArjenIsM3]

Smalling has been the first choice for every manager. That's the problem with Ole people. When they don't spout absolute rubbish that you would expect from a deluded 10-year-old, they openly lie.

He was first choice because the other choices were even worse. Smalling was dropped from the England squad for a reason and when he did play for us he got a lot of abuse for not being good enough. Let's not pretend he's some kind of world-class defender. Maguire is easily better than him and Lindelof while not as good in the air is better at basically everything else. Tuanzebe has the potential to become world-class or better than Smalling at least so it makes sense to want to open a pathway for him which Ole has done. The players that aren't better than him are Jones and Rojo but who's going to take them off our hands?

 

[Shiva87]

In my personal opinion, the only unfortunate thing was starting the season with Pogba and McTom as deep lying midfielders and Andreas as a number 10 when the obvious thing has always been McTom & Fred with Pogba at 10.

So that above is shite managing in my opinion and he didn't need to buy anyone in order to still put out a decent midfield.

Fred and McTominnay in the beginning of the season would get wolloped by the team's we were playing. Scott has massively overperformed and Fred has just recently put in 2-3 good performances! You would be calling Ole shite for making that choice from day 1.

Get rid of your biased opinions!

 

[Alabaster Codify7]

We are a and I hate the term a 'sleeping giant' now. We need a spark to awaken us up. Klopp was Liverpools, will Ole be ours? Who knows? We need him to have the season I think. Lets see after the next transfer window in Jan who we have bought in. Lets see if there is a big improvement from now on.

No, he fecking won't. He is the least inspiring manager we've had since 2013, neck and neck with David Moyes. He has absolutely nothing about him and his demeanour in the dugout is a perfect personification of his 'spark'. Drab, lifeless and lacking impetus. In 2021 when we have a new manager, we will look back on this period as our worst since SAF retired. David Moyes left us in 7th, we'll look back at the time we were 10th with horror.

 

[Bobcat]

Why is it impressive. This is not our first rebuild since Fergie. We gave the rebuild job to LVG and he got us top 4, managed to clear out a tone of players whilst getting a CB, CMx2, CF, LB and Di Maria. Whilst overhauling the coaching staff and scouting.

Liverpool and City are not the two best run clubs, they are just the most successful. Norwich and Brighton are very well run clubs, Newcastle aren't. It has nothing to do with their positions in the league. It's a flawed argument that always gets blown up when you are successful, it's the same reason why we believe David Gill is better than Woodward.

Peak Barca 2009, now you are just throwing everything out their and seeing what sticks. . That's actually when I did play Fifa, maybe that's my problem, i need to play the new Fifa and i might be up with the times.

Peak Fergie would have us above Leicester City because he is a better manager than Rodger and has better players than him. He was top with Anderson and Cleverly in midfield. Battered Spurs 4-0.

"Managed to clear our players", you mean practically giving away Welbeck, Kagawa, Zaha, Evans, Nani and Rafael for a combined total of 49 million? That's less than we paid for Shaw+Rojo

LvG fecked up the "rebuild" badly

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Who says we are ignoring it?

With Herrera going its afforded McTominay to take his spot and he's having as good a season as any of our holding mids have had since the days of Carrick. I'm sure they will expect Garner to also step up, but they will likely move Matic on and replace him.

A midfield quartet of McTominay, Garner, Fred and a new signing for those 2 holding mid spots would be fine. We need more creativity to compliment Pogba or likely replace him too.

Folks ignore just how big a rebuild job is needed here at the club and it's going to take time regardless of the name on the managers door.

It shouldn't be a big rebuild job? We should be reaping the rewards now because that rebuild job should now be complete. The trouble is the people who have left us in this state are still in charge and are still making stupid football decisions.

 

[Giggsyking]

Yes. Says quite a lot that doesn’t it.

Say's what? enlighten us Wumminator!

 

[Wumminator]

Say's what? enlighten us Wumminator!

The fans who are more knowledgeable and close to the club in your eyes seem to be supporting more. The fans with looser bonds to the club and on Twitter seem to be a majority Ole out.

There will be people who overlapping on each side. I respect RAB for example, who goes to plenty of games and loves the club. But the Twitter mob and the fans who don't have the deeper connection really struggle to see the bigger picture.

 

[Gomes]

The players that aren't better than him are Jones and Rojo but who's going to take them off our hands?

Not going to comment on the other nonsense, but why does anyone care about if we could get rid of Rojo or Jones? No, Manchester United should not care if a player still has resale value or not and neither should the club care if a worse player sits on the bench or in the reserves. Smalling wasn't loaned because nobody wanted Rojo, he was loaned because Ole thinks the latter is better. Yes, he actually is that dumb.

 

[Wumminator]

"Managed to clear our players", you mean practically giving away Welbeck, Kagawa, Zaha, Evans, Nani and Rafael for a combined total of 49 million? That's less than we paid for Shaw+Rojo

LvG fecked up the "rebuild" badly

The rebuild was fecked up by Jose.

He had almost half a billion to spend and wasted it.

Bailly/Mikhi/Sanchez/Fred (good for the last two games), Matic and Dalot.

If you add up the money spent on them, it's roughly three times as much as we paid for Rojo and Shaw.

End of the day, Mourinho signed horrific players at a time where players were more expensive. He massively increased the wage bill, failed to develop our youth and didn't make one successful signing when you consider where they were when he left the club.

 

[Wumminator]

Not going to comment on the other nonsense, but why does anyone care about if we could get rid of Rojo or Jones? No, Manchester United should not care if a player still has resale value or not and neither should the club care if a worse player sits on the bench or in the reserves. Smalling wasn't loaned because nobody wanted Rojo, he was loaned because Ole thinks the latter is better. Yes, he actually is that dumb.

I mean, this is the level of discourse you see from some of the fans.

This displays such a lack of critical thinking, I'm surprised you managed to log in after the update.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

The rebuild was fecked up by Jose.

He had almost half a billion to spend and wasted it.

Bailly/Mikhi/Sanchez/Fred (good for the last two games), Matic and Dalot.

If you add up the money spent on them, it's roughly three times as much as we paid for Rojo and Shaw.

End of the day, Mourinho signed horrific players at a time where players were more expensive. He massively increased the wage bill, failed to develop our youth and didn't make one successful signing when you consider where they were when he left the club.

The rebuild was fecked up from the day SAF left. Either through bad player recruitments, bad training methods that see players constantly injured, bad managerial choice in the first place. It's could be a long list.

 

[RedSky]

The rebuild was fecked up from the day SAF left. Either through bad player recruitments, bad training methods that see players constantly injured, bad managerial choice in the first place. It's could be a long list.

Agreed, it's been terrible for years. I will go as far to say that it was happening before SAF and Gill retired. They neglected the right wing position for example.

 

[Giggsyking]

The fans who are more knowledgeable and close to the club in your eyes seem to be supporting more. The fans with looser bonds to the club and on Twitter seem to be a majority Ole out.

There will be people who overlapping on each side. I respect RAB for example, who goes to plenty of games and loves the club. But the Twitter mob and the fans who don't have the deeper connection really struggle to see the bigger picture.

Ah, the "true red" debate.
So you consider the fans living in England and specifically in Manchester are more knowledgeable and care more about united? But we who live abroad and active on Twitter have loos ties with the club and those fans and their opinion about the manager is less respected? You know those Twitter/abroad fans are 99.5 of united fan base and it is them who make the club big and generate this money.
I will take myself as an example. I support united since the the eighties. Why do (I'm assuming you are a local) you think you know more about football and the club more than me? What deeper connection you are thinking of? living in the city? or going to the games because you live in the city?
I for one and I am one of hundreds of thousands, pay to attend one game in Manchester every year more than what a season ticket holder pay to attend the whole season. Does that qualify me as a "true red"?

 

[Bobcat]

The rebuild was fecked up by Jose.

He had almost half a billion to spend and wasted it.

Bailly/Mikhi/Sanchez/Fred (good for the last two games), Matic and Dalot.

If you add up the money spent on them, it's roughly three times as much as we paid for Rojo and Shaw.

End of the day, Mourinho signed horrific players at a time where players were more expensive. He massively increased the wage bill, failed to develop our youth and didn't make one successful signing when you consider where they were when he left the club.

They both fecked up and Moyes fecked up before them when he got rid of the Fergies backroom staff and bought fecking Fellini for more than his release clause when everyone could see the squad was getting old

 

[roonster09]

Agreed, it's been terrible for years. I will go as far to say that it was happening before SAF and Gill retired. They neglected the right wing position for example.

Right wing was one of our strongest position with both Nani and Valencia playing their best football as RW.

CM was completely ignored though, ageing Carrick with Cleverley, Anderson and close to retirement Scholes.

 

[wolvored]

Why would anyone who doesn’t have a United supporting family support United anyway? Why would you expect to see that?

In the past a lot of kids supported Utd when they were winning things. How do you think they built up the biggest fanbase? I see City shirts here and you wouldnt have seen any 10-15 years ago.

 

[acnumber9]

Bailly/Mikhi/Sanchez/Fred (good for the last two games), Matic and Dalot.

If you add up the money spent on them, it's roughly three times as much as we paid for Rojo and Shaw.

Well it’s three times the number of players so that shouldn’t be a big shock.

 

[Yagami]

Agreed, it's been terrible for years. I will go as far to say that it was happening before SAF and Gill retired. They neglected the right wing position for example.

I reckon if Sir Alex had stayed on he'd have probably envisioned one of Zaha or Januzaj sorting the right wing spot. The real problem was the negligence of the central midfield.

 

[Mainoldo]

But yet lost a title race to Mancini.

On goal difference.

 

[Kag]

The rebuild was fecked up by Jose.

He had almost half a billion to spend and wasted it.

Bailly/Mikhi/Sanchez/Fred (good for the last two games), Matic and Dalot.

If you add up the money spent on them, it's roughly three times as much as we paid for Rojo and Shaw.

End of the day, Mourinho signed horrific players at a time where players were more expensive. He massively increased the wage bill, failed to develop our youth and didn't make one successful signing when you consider where they were when he left the club.

Mourinho’s work in the transfer market was (and still remains) atrocious. He replaced the entire first team and complained that he wasn’t able to do it again (by buying players that were older than those he was trying to dismiss).

Ole has (so far) done a great job of sorting out the recruitment failings.

 

[Mainoldo]

"Managed to clear our players", you mean practically giving away Welbeck, Kagawa, Zaha, Evans, Nani and Rafael for a combined total of 49 million? That's less than we paid for Shaw+Rojo

LvG fecked up the "rebuild" badly

What exactly did they go on to achieve?

Practically gave them away because if he never they would be dead wood like Darmian outstaying there welcome. Plus Welbeck was sold for £17m. Zaha we got our money back virtually plus we are still sitting on 20% sell on. Rafael was sold for decent money. So are you referring to just Nani.

Like stop embarrassing yourself your out of your depth with football knowledge.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Fred and McTominnay in the beginning of the season would get wolloped by the team's we were playing. Scott has massively overperformed and Fred has just recently put in 2-3 good performances! You would be calling Ole shite for making that choice from day 1.

Get rid of your biased opinions!

Well the proof will be in the pudding won’t it? When Pogba gets back we will see him play in his best position at number 10 with Fred and Scott behind and we will not get walloped, we will be a much better side for it.
If however I am wrong and Pogba comes back at number 10 and we get walloped then yes I will freely admit my opinion was shit.

 

[Random Task]

I reckon if Sir Alex had stayed on he'd have probably envisioned one of Zaha or Januzaj sorting the right wing spot. The real problem was the negligence of the central midfield.

The midfield has been a problem area for what feels like an eternity now.

Matic, Fellaini, Schweinsteiger, Schneidelien, Pogba, Miki, and Fred cost the club approx £300 million combined and not a single one of them could you call an unquestionable success. Criminal.

Ole must make addressing that area has utmost priority either in the upcoming winter window or next summer latest. No excuses.

 

[Mainoldo]

The rebuild was fecked up by Jose.

He had almost half a billion to spend and wasted it.

Bailly/Mikhi/Sanchez/Fred (good for the last two games), Matic and Dalot.

If you add up the money spent on them, it's roughly three times as much as we paid for Rojo and Shaw.

End of the day, Mourinho signed horrific players at a time where players were more expensive. He massively increased the wage bill, failed to develop our youth and didn't make one successful signing when you consider where they were when he left the club.

Agreed.