I was skeptical of Solskjaer's appointment from the beginning. Even during the run & before PSG away. We know managers in the Norwegian league aren't normally in consideration for the top jobs. To land one of Europe's top jobs, (
he is now one of the highest paid managers in the world) based on being a well regarded former player here, was absurd to me.
(And no it is not similar to Zidane or Guardiola, he had 10 years of experience & no other club in the PL would have ever touched him).
Regardless, since he was here, i was willing to give him a chance at least.
The winning run at the start was massively overrated, we had a 3 game purple patch, where we played confident football before reverting back to type. the performances were mostly mediocre after that, vs Spurs we got battered in the 2nd half and if not for De Gea's heroics & uncharacteristic poor finishing from Spurs, we would have lost comfortably by the end. That game summed up the initial run.
March 26th, 2 days before his permanent appointment:
What if Ole and co aren't capable of anything more than being defensive and counter-attacking? Would you still trust them to take over?
I have these doubts myself. I'm not sure I can say I trust them fully atm.
I certainly hope this is not Ole's actual philosophy.
Do people not think it is hypocritical to bash Mourinho for being a defensive manager, yet celebrate Ole for being just as defensive, just because he
''gets the club'' ?
April 25th:
How can Ole be exempt from criticism when he's been here for 4 months now. We should be seeing some evidence of his coaching by now. All i can see is us looking more and more clueless by the week, getting outplayed by everyone we come across. In the past month or so, he's got outplayed by Nuno twice, Pellegrini who's West Ham had the better of us at home, Javi Gracia who's Watford had the better of us at home too & Marco Silva's Everton. Forget City, those are the matches that i form my opinion on. If he can't even get the better of them, what chance has he got vs the rest of the top 6?
For me, it's about knowing that you are going in the right direction. If we consistently play good but keep getting unlucky with results, i'm perfectly willing to give more time, knowing that eventually, our results will change.
At this point, i suspected he wasn't capable of much more:
Seems to me that Ole is all about playing up to fans romanticism with the nice words but once I look past all that and focus just on the performances, I'm not impressed at all. We play like pure rubbish. At this point, we don't even look like a football team. We seem to go from game to game, hoping to get lucky. I can't see any clear patterns to our play. (This has gone to pot since LVG)
I'm hoping this will change in the summer when we have a clear out but I'm not holding my breath after the renewed contracts to Young & Jones.
In short, I don't have high hopes for next season. I think him & the staff are just bluffers.
I was willing to wait until after pre-season, to give him a chance to bring in his own players, work with the team & see if anything changes.
By now, i think i can answer confidently that it is not going to change. He has been here a year now. He is defensive and counter-attacking by nature. The performances have been consistently poor, going back to February. The results have been disgraceful throughout.
He has 25 points from 21 league matches overall. He is averaging 1.19 points. That equals 45 points overall. That is 13th place 3/5 last seasons. That tells me everything i need to know about him as a manager. I do not think we have anything to build upon in the future when the performances are so consistently poor.
Flashes of individual quality is not progress to me. We will beat Aston Villa, then people will proclaim progress, to only lose the following week. It is one false dawn after another.
That is why i have no confidence in him going forward and hope he is removed as soon as possible.