If you don’t understand why Ole is a gamble worth taking… you’re doing football support wrong

[amolbhatia50k]

Put it better than I could have, it's really just a bunch of holier-than-thou bs with no substance. I wonder what all these sanctimonious types would be saying about ou manager if he wasn't a club legend and results were the same.

Cheers. The article, as you say, lacks substance. At the end of the day there's no substitute for talent and excellence and all the road to glory (youth/experience/attack/defence) require that as a pre condition. Pep you could argue did evoke the magic of Cruyff at Barcelona but many would argue that he also offered something new. Simeone at Atletico did his own thing. As did Mourinho, Zidane etc during their successes. In fact the article, presents the worst kind of argument really - forget talent and quality , what if it works? Wouldn't that be nice?

 

[Leftback99]

I knew what would lie ahead in this thread with the Emery sacking.

‘Arsenal have more ambition’ and ‘We can’t we do the same and get rid of Ole’

Lets see who they hire and how that goes first shall we

I remember the same things being said when Watford sacked Javi Gracia at the start of the season.

 

[Enigma_87]

How did they go from 1st to 12th under the same manager?

What did they do after that manager got to 12th?

Leicester have sacked and hired managers almost every year since they got promoted, having an inferior budget and resources as ours and have reached 1 CL QF, won the title once and are about to win another CL qualification this year.

Sacking in hiring managers sometimes works eh?

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Good article, not that the spoilt, arrogant side of our supposed fanbase will pay any attention, as already demonstrated.

Agreed. It's arrogant of fans to expect Ole to do any better than he has. The nerve.

 

[Ayush_reddevil]

This thread and article is such a joke . This is literally every thing we used to laugh at Liverpool fans for

 

[Shark]

Out of interest, does anybody know if Sheffield Utd have scored 3 goals in a single match, this season?
Before the match, I was told that SU tend not to score or concede goals, which is not what I saw the other day when they played MUFC.

They beat Burnley 3-0 as far as I know, but that's it.

 

[Adnan]

Well you originally said he was held back by the squad, which i interpreted as the players he had at his disposal were poor. He was very clever in the market though and if anyone could make a great DoF or Head Scout i think Wenger would be a good shout, the man clearly had a nose for good talent

I firmly disagree with that bolded part, but i cant really be bothered to discuss those two any more

Him being held back was a response to your post where you stated he got his arse handed to him around 2010. I gave you context on why that was. If he had the luxury of breaking the world record on a RB and CB his squad would've looked stronger because Wenger had form for being shrewd in the transfer market.

so you disagree we could've spent the £130m that was spent on AWB and Maguire in a more economical way? Whether you agree or disagree, there were better options that could've been bought for considerably less and would've fit the longterm strategy in a much better way.

 

[Shark]

This thread and article is such a joke . This is literally every thing we used to laugh at Liverpool fans for

Exactly. The poetic, romanticism tripe.

 

[RUCK4444]

Our squad is not so painfully poor that we should be mid table after our worst start in 30 years. Ole also spent more money than anyone else during the summer. I see shit results, shit football, and no style being implemented that I can decipher. He needs to be held accountable for this.

Net Spend was around £70 mil I believe? You agree United are in the midst of our biggest ever rebuild (that's pretty unanimously agreed) - compare that net spend with Real Madrid when they appoint a manager in the midst of a rebuild. Have a look at their summer spend.

People believe that Ole was happy to let Lukaku go and not replace him, happy to not sign an additional midfielder - sorry that's pure nonsense regardless of Ollie towing the company line in his interviews, any manager no matter if they are as thick as pig shite would want to undertake a rebuild at the biggest club in the world and start by selling the highest goalscorer without a replacement and have a net spend of as low as this in his first major transfer window.

Ole was backed with a petty amount when you consider this net spend for a club of our size, he has made three signings, all three are good, young and will improve. None of the previous three managers made a SINGLE good signing.

Now if we assume that this club is working under this inept board for the foreseeable future and this is the expected net spend going forward then whoever is in charge on the pitch must make good signings every. single. window. So far Ole is the only one to have made any in five years.

It's an insult to peoples intelligence to suggest that people blindly follow Ole as manager regardless of results, there are positives amongst the up and down performances, people don't see them, they can't see the wood for the trees and keep thinking the change in manager is all that needs to happen whilst allowing the mess the board and previous managers have churned out to rest on Ole's shoulders.

 

[Alabaster Codify7]

Agreed. It's arrogant of fans to expect Ole to do any better than he has. The nerve.

Yep. No manager out there would have United higher than 9th 13 games into the season.

 

[Leftback99]

What did they do after that manager got to 12th?

Leicester have sacked and hired managers almost every year since they got promoted, having an inferior budget and resources as ours and have reached 1 CL QF, won the title once and are about to win another CL qualification this year.

Sacking in hiring managers sometimes works eh?

Sometimes but mostly not. Quality of players makes more difference. Hence a manager like Mancini can beat SAF to league titles.

 

[Enigma_87]

Yep. No manager out there would have United higher than 9th 13 games into the season.

Last year after the 13th round we were 7th with 21 points, despite toxic atmosphere, Jose losing the dressing room and him throwing tantrums.

12 months later, after 150m pounds, we are 9th with 17 points. Progress.

 

[UDontMessWith24]

Its about giving your support, in the good times as well as the bad times. The Club is an entity that has zero benefits from support since it has no thoughts or feelings, where as the people that make up the club do. Everyone is entitled to their opinions about players and managers, but the amount of nasty abuse they get thrown after them is just shameful. Ole has not had the greatest of starts to the season, but i dont think anyone can doubt his commitment and love to the club and that he has the best of intentions, although the results have been poor

Saying hes out of his depth or unfit to manage a club at this level is all fair. But when you start calling a club legend cnut, clown, twat, idiot and so on because you are unhappy with the results, then you are a shite "supporter", and its abundantly clear you only like the club and the people involved in it when they are winning. In other words, a glory hunter

There is a fine line between "Wanting what is best for the club"(Read: Endless moaning over bad results) and outright toxicity. Just look at Arsenal and how ridiculously toxic their fanbase have become, spurred on by the geniuses as AFTV. Sending death threats to the pregnant wives of your own players. What the feck kind of "supporter" is that? Right now the Arsenal fans are more of a hindrance than a boon to their own club and the atmosphere in and around the Emirates have been awful for years. Luckily we are not there yet, but its not that far off either

That’s very moving and I’ve been supporting this club since I was 6 years old drew a number 11 and the name Sharp on the back of a white T-shirt (wrong number and misspelled named as my dad was nice to point out at the time), but I can still be of the opinion that the manager is out of his depths.

 

[Godfather]

Exactly. The poetic, romanticism tripe.

It's embarrassing. Can't believe we have turned full RAWK on Ole.

 

[Shark]

Sometimes but mostly not. Quality of players makes more difference. Hence a manager like Mancini can beat SAF to league titles.

So what is it? Ole needs another 5-6 quality players for us to see improvement/any semblance of style on the pitch?

How many will it take to reach top four I wonder?

 

[Enigma_87]

Sometimes but mostly not. Quality of players makes more difference. Hence a manager like Mancini can beat SAF to league titles.

What quality players did Leicester bring over the Summer to bridge the gap from finishing 9th to being 2nd currently? Who did they lose to our expense? Didn't we spend nearly double to what they spent and we are 12 points behind them currently with Spurs and City coming in the next 3 games?

 

[Josep Dowling]

At the end of the day football is solely about winning games. The only teams that people speak of in the past are teams that have won. 1968, 1999, 2008. If I saw progression in the style of football Ole is trying to implement I would be give him more time.

Solskjaer is doing neither and there has been no progress since he took over as manager. We have simply gone backwards. That is backed up by our position in the table and our embarrassing performances in Europe. Anyone trying to argue this point is merely blinded by him being an ex-player and the idea he is going to re-enact the class of 92 because he plays the youth players. The way he is introducing the youth players to the first team is completely wrong and shows his incompetence at this level. Last night he must have known we were likely to lose against Astana with the team he put out. Winning the game should always be priority number one, especially when top spot in the group is available. Giving debuts to that many players in one game and using 3 very poor senior players shows he had no interest in the result last night. He already had the excuse after the game it's good experience for the younger players. Travelling half way round the world to lose their first professional football match is not what I would call good experience. Had he not sold our entire squad we wouldn't need to give debuts to 7 players in one game.

My reaction isn't about yesterday's game but the entire season. He makes terrible decisions all the time. This season was written off by October. Redcafe was up in arms with Mourinho last season when we were 7th and he was rightly sacked. Now we are struggling to even make 7th and it's suddenly acceptable because Ole is in charge. I'm not sure how many embarrassing losses we must take until the right decision is made.

Spurs and Arsenal have already pulled the trigger. Once again we will be 6 months too late in sacking our manager and any decent replacement would have taken another job.

 

[The Bloody-Nine]

Net Spend was around £70 mil I believe? You agree United are in the midst of our biggest ever rebuild (that's pretty unanimously agreed) - compare that net spend with Real Madrid when they appoint a manager in the midst of a rebuild. Have a look at their summer spend.

People believe that Ole was happy to let Lukaku go and not replace him, happy to not sign an additional midfielder - sorry that's pure nonsense regardless of Ollie towing the company line in his interviews, any manager no matter if they are as thick as pig shite would want to undertake a rebuild at the biggest club in the world and start by selling the highest goalscorer without a replacement and have a net spend of as low as this in his first major transfer window.

Ole was backed with a petty amount when you consider this net spend for a club of our size, he has made three signings, all three are good, young and will improve. None of the previous three managers made a SINGLE good signing.

Now if we assume that this club is working under this inept board for the foreseeable future and this is the expected net spend going forward then whoever is in charge on the pitch must make good signings every. single. window. So far Ole is the only one to have made any in five years.

It's an insult to peoples intelligence to suggest that people blindly follow Ole as manager regardless of results, there are positives amongst the up and down performances, people don't see them, they can't see the wood for the trees and keep thinking the change in manager is all that needs to happen whilst allowing the mess the board and previous managers have churned out to rest on Ole's shoulders.

Our inept, mess of a board appointed this man on the sole basis that he used to play for us. After saying they would wait until the end of the season. They even managed to mess that up. If you're being honest with yourself, if our manager was not a club legend as a player, you would feel very differently about our current situation. However, because he is, all logic and reason goes flying out the window, to be replaced with excuses, ifs, buts and blind hope. And that's a problem.

Ole is under performing. And we can't be surprised given his track record.

 

[Josep Dowling]

Three great signings, clear strategy, United through and through etc

AWB - £50m for a RB who hasn't made his England debut. Hardly an unknown player and paid an inflated transfer fee to sign him.

Maguire - £80m world record fee for a CB who wouldn't lace the boot of the best CBs in the world. As above hardly an unknown and paid an inflated transfer fee to sign him.

How many clean sheets have we had this season?

James - has done ok. His performances are made to look better because the rest of the team has been so dire.

 

[Leftback99]

What quality players did Leicester bring over the Summer to bridge the gap from finishing 9th to being 2nd currently? Who did they lose to our expense? Didn't we spend nearly double to what they spent and we are 12 points behind them currently with Spurs and City coming in the next 3 games?

They brought in Tielemans and Barnes just before Rodgers came in, both key players in their improvement. At the same time they got Vardy back onside which was crucial. They've had no injuries, no midweek games and are also overchieving significantly compared to their expected goals, as we did when finishing 2nd in 17/18.

 

[Leftback99]

So what is it? Ole needs another 5-6 quality players for us to see improvement/any semblance of style on the pitch?

How many will it take to reach top four I wonder?

Just getting our better ones on the pitch all at the same time would help. I expected 6th this season, so thought we were short on top 4.

 

[Bobcat]

Him being held back was a response to your post where you stated he got his arse handed to him around 2010. I gave you context on why that was. If he had the luxury of breaking the world record on a RB and CB his squad would've looked stronger because Wenger had form for being shrewd in the transfer market.

so you disagree we could've spent the £130m that was spent on AWB and Maguire in a more economical way? Whether you agree or disagree, there were better options that could've been bought for considerably less and would've fit the longterm strategy in a much better way.

Well, yeah Arsenal post-invincibles were getting their arses handed to to them quite regularly by smaller teams. As i said, Wenger was incredibly shrew in the market and manged to pick up loads of good talent at bargain prices. Another proof that cost does not equate quality when it comes to football teams

AWB and Maguire were both expensive, but both of them were worth their transfers fees imo. You say better players, but who? The last couple of years we have signed loads of players from foreign leagues who were absolutely amazing, and then they completely failed when they took the step into the PL. With so many failed signings over the past years i think the management team wanted to play it safe and buy "PL proven" players who they knew would have no problem settling.

80 million for Maguire was a bit much and considering we could have had him last year for 60 says something about what a tool Ed is. AWB was well worth the 50 million. He is only 21 and already have the best defensive stats of any player in the league. His attacking play leaves a lot to be desired yet, but hopefully he will improve that. His dribbling skills are alright and hes got a decent delivery at times, but his positioning and movement when attacking is very lacking at the moment, that is something he can improve though

 

[Enigma_87]

They brought in Tielemans and Barnes just before Rodgers came in, both key players in their improvement. At the same time they got Vardy back onside which was crucial. They've had no injuries, no midweek games and are also overchieving significantly compared to their expected goals, as we did when finishing 2nd in 17/18.

In other words they improved on what they've got, didn't put rigorous fitness regimes and with better coaching, despite losing one of their best players are a top side?

Before we even started playing EL we had one of the worst starts since the 80's, despite no midweek games.

Not always the answer is just buy better players, this is not football manager, whilst having a shite manager. Every club on earth sacks the manager first before putting another 150 -or 200m into the transfer market. At least sane owners of course..

Would Ole propel our team to 2nd spot ala Mourinho 2 years ago? I highly doubt that.

 

[Shark]

Just getting our better ones on the pitch all at the same time would help. I expected 6th this season, so thought we were short on top 4.

So you don't think a manager that's managing a club this size shouldn't be expected to ride a storm when key players are missing? SAF once fielded two full backs as wingers against Arsenal when going through a injury crisis and came out on top. With Ole, we're talking about beating teams such as Newcastle, Sheffield United and West Ham. He can't outsmart them without Paul Pogba?

 

[Bobcat]

So what is it? Ole needs another 5-6 quality players for us to see improvement/any semblance of style on the pitch?

How many will it take to reach top four I wonder?

Yes. Thats the reality of it, 5 signings sound about right, 1CB, 1LB, 2CM, 1RW/CF
Bench: McTomminay, James, Lindelof, Williams, Greenwood

------------------DDG-----------
AWB---Maguire-----???---???
-----????----Pogba---???---------
???-------Martial----Rashford

 

[Un4givableB]

This pretty much sums up the theology of most fans backing Solskjaer. They have this roulette mentality that we can underpin short term failings and suddenly in three years time be ready to win the league with a flick of the switch.

"We need this signing, our players are crap blah blah blah" but tell me when Leicester finished 9th last season 14 points behind us and lost their most prolific defender why is it this season they are 2nd, almost 10 points ahead of us with a simple change of manager ? Do Leicester have the second best team in the league? Did BR need three seasons at the club to churn decent results along with consistent performances ? If Solskjaer can have a mediocre career in ten years of management and suddenly become a UCL / league winner when given "time" then by this logic any manager in world football can succeed here.

You nailed it.

About half our fans and our broad have little or no respect for the art of football management, Solskjaer was managing at Molde for a reason, because that's his level. We would never put up with this level of performance from Steve
Bruce who is a much better manager than Solskjaer will ever be.

Managers like Chris Wilder of Sheffield United or Nuno of Wolves know 100% that they are better managers Solskjaer.

 

[The Brown Bull]

The OP is a crock.
Olé the player was a club favourite and deservedly so.
Olé the manager is a different animal.
We didn't go for Poch because he was at Spurs and would have cost a load.
What's our excuse now?

 

[Leftback99]

In other words they improved on what they've got, didn't put rigorous fitness regimes and with better coaching, despite losing one of their best players are a top side?

Before we even started playing EL we had one of the worst starts since the 80's, despite no midweek games.

Not always the answer is just buy better players, this is not football manager, whilst having a shite manager. Every club on earth sacks the manager first before putting another 150 -or 200m into the transfer market. At least sane owners of course..

Would Ole propel our team to 2nd spot ala Mourinho 2 years ago? I highly doubt that.

If you want to believe it's all down to the manager that's fine. Everton should go and give Poch £30m a year rather than buying any better players. He'd have them challenging because he's so good, right?

Who mentioned prices being important? Leicester haven't built the excellent team they have by buying £50m+ players. A good structure behind the scenes makes the difference. Or were Chilwell, Pereira and Ndidi all useless pre Rodgers?

 

[lex talionis]

A beautifully written, but poorly reasoned opinion piece.

After the new manager’s bounce, our record has been very poor. Admittedly, our performances have been better than our record indicates but the table just doesn’t lie.

For me, the damning indictment is that our key players have not pushed to a new level under Ole. Not De Gea, not Pogba, not Rashford, not Martial. They’ve stagnated or regressed.

We work hard on the pitch, but we look lost once we’re in the final third. Players have to bear their share of responsibility, but confusion on the pitch is the fault of the manager.

Ole was the right man to stop the decomposition of the corpse under Jose, but to challenge for a major trophy again is beyond Ole’s reach. I don’t have the right answer but it’s pretty clear it isn’t Ole. Still love for Ole for his playing days as well as his willingness to take on this monstrously difficult job, but he’s done all he can do at Old Trafford.

 

[AneRu]

Sometimes but mostly not. Quality of players makes more difference. Hence a manager like Mancini can beat SAF to league titles.

Name one poster demanding the title from Ole, there isn't but the fact that we are so far the title doesn't mean we shouldn't demand upward progression. We can all claim that injuries, poor squad and whatever are hampering us but at the end of the day Ole is paid millions to deal with those exact issues. Hiding behind the quality of players' excuse after overpaying by almost 100% for a couple of players is a weak excuse, how much did Leicester pay for their RB and who is better between him, as an allrounder, and the guy we spent 50m to get? Tielemans was there for a reasonable fee all summer and if we had just been reasonable with how we spent money we could have gotten him.

 

[lysglimt]

If you can’t understand that Ole never has been & never will be good enough to be Manchester United manager then honestly your football intelligence needs to be questioned. There’s been no evidence whatsoever that says he’s the right man.

You’re actually actively hurting the club by putting up with this mediocre manager when we could be doing so so much better

What a remarkable logic - there is no evidence that he is good enough, so he can't be good enough.

 

[lysglimt]

A beautifully written, but poorly reasoned opinion piece.

After the new manager’s bounce, our record has been very poor. Admittedly, our performances have been better than our record indicates but the table just doesn’t lie.

For me, the damning indictment is that our key players have not pushed to a new level under Ole. Not De Gea, not Pogba, not Rashford, not Martial. They’ve stagnated or regressed.

We work hard on the pitch, but we look lost once we’re in the final third. Players have to bear their share of responsibility, but confusion on the pitch is the fault of the manager.

Ole was the right man to stop the decomposition of the corpse under Jose, but to challenge for a major trophy again is beyond Ole’s reach. I don’t have the right answer but it’s pretty clear it isn’t Ole. Still love for Ole for his playing days as well as his willingness to take on this monstrously difficult job, but he’s done all he can do at Old Trafford.

It's hard to agree with your examples

DDG is back to his normal self after a poor period last year.
Rashford has 10 goals in 18 matches (slightly better than 1 in 2). The last 3 seasons he scored 37 goals in 152 matches (or 1 in 4) - he is scoring goals regularly for the first time since his debut season.
Pogba and Martial have more or less been injured most of the season. But Martialcertainly has looked lively after coming back.

 

[Leftback99]

Name one poster demanding the title from Ole, there isn't but the fact that we are so far the title doesn't mean we shouldn't demand upward progression. We can all claim that injuries, poor squad and whatever are hampering us but at the end of the day Ole is paid millions to deal with those exact issues. Hiding behind the quality of players' excuse after overpaying by almost 100% for a couple of players is a weak excuse, how much did Leicester pay for their RB and who is better between him, as an allrounder, and the guy we spent 50m to get? Tielemans was there for a reasonable fee all summer and if we had just been reasonable with how we spent money we could have gotten him.

I didn't say there was anyone demanding the title (although many aren't far away).

Injuries etc are hampering us, why can't it be said? The manager isn't a miracle worker, just as City are losing games because they had no centre backs.

It's easy to sit in hindsight and say we shouldn't have spent on defenders while our whole midfield is injured, it could easily be the other way round if we'd bought a midfielder to sit on the bench and all our centre backs got injured or relying on Dalot at right back.

 

[lysglimt]

The OP is a crock.
Olé the player was a club favourite and deservedly so.
Olé the manager is a different animal.
We didn't go for Poch because he was at Spurs and would have cost a load.
What's our excuse now?

We have seen his results over the last 18 months ?

 

[momo83]

This is egregious as hell, and follows Neville's shameless lead in depicting concerned supporters as grandstanding whingers who are insincere in their concern. Note how similar the quoted criticism is to the usual pathetic tactic of right-wing zealots worldwide: 'It's just faux outrage. Move along, folks, there's nothing to see.'

Exactly, the whole objective of Neville’s interview was to change peoples opinions. But it’s been amazing to see how quickly it’s worked, even on here post Neville interview there’s been a huge shift in more pro Glazers like comments and for first time that I can recall protestors against Glazers are now viewed as the bad guys by some.

 

[Paul InceUlt]

Looks like José poured his toxicity onto the Caf before packing the bags..
Reading here feels like watching a José presser while eating grapefruit.

 

[devilish]

Wenger was restricted in his later years due to the cost of the stadium but still did a good job getting Arsenal in the top 4 consistently. Wenger's net spend was really low but he still overachieved on a low budget for many years.

You can't win with the guy. He's too fixated about Ole to see reason.

 

[Shark]

Looks like José poured his toxicity onto the Caf before packing the bags..
Reading here feels like watching a José presser while eating grapefruit.

Yeah, because it’s all sunshine and rainbows at United this season. We should be all be jumping around celebrating 9th place.

 

[RedBanker]

There has not been any logical answer to the question whether any other elite club with pedigree like us would tolerate and persist with Ole. There is no pattern of play, no style, no formation integrity. But still we should not sack. Bayern and Kovac is a perfect example of how a modern forward thinking club deals with non performing managers, be it club legend or whoever.

 

[Adnan]

Well, yeah Arsenal post-invincibles were getting their arses handed to to them quite regularly by smaller teams. As i said, Wenger was incredibly shrew in the market and manged to pick up loads of good talent at bargain prices. Another proof that cost does not equate quality when it comes to football teams

AWB and Maguire were both expensive, but both of them were worth their transfers fees imo. You say better players, but who? The last couple of years we have signed loads of players from foreign leagues who were absolutely amazing, and then they completely failed when they took the step into the PL. With so many failed signings over the past years i think the management team wanted to play it safe and buy "PL proven" players who they knew would have no problem settling.

80 million for Maguire was a bit much and considering we could have had him last year for 60 says something about what a tool Ed is. AWB was well worth the 50 million. He is only 21 and already have the best defensive stats of any player in the league. His attacking play leaves a lot to be desired yet, but hopefully he will improve that. His dribbling skills are alright and hes got a decent delivery at times, but his positioning and movement when attacking is very lacking at the moment, that is something he can improve though

I personally suggested we go for a 20 year old French player from the German Bundesliga in Ibrahima Konate at the time. Eventhough he was 20, he was regarded as one of the best CBs in the league and has been a real leader in a defence that was the best in the German top flight playing for Leipzig. He is as good as Maguire in the air and comfortably quicker, more mobile and even physically superior. Also comfortably better at defending space in a highline and also accustomed to playing the high press which Ole wanted to adopt going into the current season. With the team looking like it would require at least 3 years before it was gonna compete for the league. It would've been smarter to start the rebuild with Konate who is quite clearly a superior talent to Maguire. Milenkovic from Fiorentina was also suggested as someone that would've been a smarter purchase that could also play at RB. Signing him and keeping Smalling would've been the smarter move due to his versatility and quality which inturn would've seen us save the bulk of the £130m that we spent on Maguire and Wan Bissaka. Which also would've been beneficial for Ethan Laird who is the biggest RB talent to come from our academy in my lifetime. And the remaing funds could've been spent on the midfield which would've been a better strategy for the longterm, and we could've gone into the season with a balanced team.

Fullbacks in the modern game need to be adept at attacking and if you look at the big clubs from around Europe and even domestically, they have fullbacks that are very good to world class going forward. Marcelo at Madrid from his teens has been great going forward. Kimmich and Trent Arnold are two more examples of very young RBs that were displaying high quality in a attacking sense. Even Max Aarons from Norwich was displaying huge potential in a attacking sense as a teenager. Youcef Atal at Nice another young RB with great potential in that regard and then you have Kostermann at Leipzig and the list goes on. Wan Bissaka is very good defensively but in a attacking sense his game lags behind the aforementioned considerably. And with how important fullbacks are now in the modern game to provide width and contribute in attack. You not only have to be good at defending but must also be good in attack at the elite level which we're hoping to return to. There's a bigger chance we'll return to that level with Ethan Laird than AWB IMO.