Why I don't think we should sack Solskjaer...now

Bobcat

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I agree with your analysis, but not with the conclusion.

1) Being out of a job isn't the only way to be available. Brendan Rodgers wasn't "available" when Leicester hired him. They just felt they were a bigger club (atm) than Celtic, so they poached him off of them. Do we still think of ourselves as a huge club? Then surely we can get someone who isn't just sitting on a couch waiting for a call. Why not Nagelsmann for example? Surely he could be tempted with the right wage offer and a promise of a healthy transfer kitty?

2) That argument will still stand in the summer, after we inevitably finish midtable this season. Why not swallow our pride now and give a new manager a half season head start. Again, look at Leicester. Had they waited till the summer to ditch Puel, they probably wouldn't be this good yet.

3) Why would we not spend with a new manager? That could be part of a plan to somewhat save this season. Bring in a fresh face and boost the squad he has to work with with a couple of attacking options.

I'd say you've actually made a strong argument on why we definitely should sack him sooner than later :)
My rationale for that is not because i think Ole deserves more time, but rather because i dont think any manager deserves to be thrown to the wolves like this. People will say now that for whoever comes in now the season is a write off and they get a free ride, but we know that is not true.

When Ole started this season, plenty of fans had already lost patience with him, so it will inevitably come back and bite the new manager in the arse unless we do a complete 180 which i think is extremely unlikely. Jose was self sabotaging and had lost the dressing room, which is not the case here. There is no magical tactic that will turn this around and coaching takes time before you see results on the pitch
 

Massive Spanner

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My rationale for that is not because i think Ole deserves more time, but rather because i dont think any manager deserves to be thrown to the wolves like this. People will say now that for whoever comes in now the season is a write off and they get a free ride, but we know that is not true.

When Ole started this season, plenty of fans had already lost patience with him, so it will inevitably come back and bite the new manager in the arse unless we do a complete 180 which i think is extremely unlikely. Jose was self sabotaging and had lost the dressing room, which is not the case here. There is no magical tactic that will turn this around and coaching takes time before you see results on the pitch
It's the best fecking possible time to get a manager in because if they're in any way decent then there's absolutely no way we can possibly not at least be somewhat better under them than we currently are. Expectations on them will basically be at an all time low.

Your argument is ridiculous. You are essentially agreeing that Ole is not cut out for the job but yet you don't want to replace him with a better manager now. Apparently a choice between letting Ole feck us up more for the rest of the season or letting a much better manager come in, get some time with the squad to assess the players at his disposal and build the foundations six months earlier is one where we should pick the former? Madness.

It's not like the season is an automatic write off either. We still have the FA Cup, League Cup, and we have one of the best squads in the Europa League, and it's still not impossible to get top four. Getting a better manager in to give us a more realistic chance at those competitions is a no brainer if they are available.
 

Skills

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My rationale for that is not because i think Ole deserves more time, but rather because i dont think any manager deserves to be thrown to the wolves like this. People will say now that for whoever comes in now the season is a write off and they get a free ride, but we know that is not true.

When Ole started this season, plenty of fans had already lost patience with him, so it will inevitably come back and bite the new manager in the arse unless we do a complete 180 which i think is extremely unlikely. Jose was self sabotaging and had lost the dressing room, which is not the case here. There is no magical tactic that will turn this around and coaching takes time before you see results on the pitch
This is a bad way looking at it because that's exactly what they're getting paid for.

It's not meant to be easy, they don't earn £7m a year to come into a cushy environment where everything is perfectly set up for them. That's not real life. Our fans need to get over this fetish for the managers seat, they don't do this job for free.
 

Leftback99

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I'll stick to what I've been saying, I'll judge him when he's actually got a squad to pick from as he planned.

Yesterday wasn't good enough but he's got next to no options to work with. There's still no excuse to be playing Mata in a PL game.

I knew as soon as McTominay went down before the international break we'd be in trouble for these games. This is Scott McTominay not prime Roy Keane!

Basically the only position this squad can cope with an injury is at left back because they are all as average as each other.
 

Bobcat

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It's the best fecking possible time to get a manager in because if they're in any way decent then there's absolutely no way we can possibly not at least be somewhat better under them than we currently are. Expectations on them will basically be at an all time low.

Your argument is ridiculous. You are essentially agreeing that Ole is not cut out for the job but yet you don't want to replace him with a better manager now. Apparently a choice between letting Ole feck us up more for the rest of the season or letting a much better manager come in, get some time with the squad to assess the players at his disposal and build the foundations six months earlier is one where we should pick the former? Madness.

It's not like the season is an automatic write off either. We still have the FA Cup, League Cup, and we have one of the best squads in the Europa League, and it's still not impossible to get top four. Getting a better manager in to give us a more realistic chance at those competitions is a no brainer if they are available.
You are basing it on the assumption that the new manager has an instant impact. What if he doesn't?

As i said, our tactics under Ole have been mostly sound, so its mostly a coaching/mental issue and that takes time.
 

Jaqen H'ghar

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I agree with pretty much everything in the post.

We are so fecked under this board, how this twat Woodward has a job is beyond me.
Pretty much this.

I don't think there is any manager who can save us. Mismanagement by the board is taking us down, and any manager who comes along will be dragged down with us.

I don't think the Glazers will sack Woodward, so unless the club is sold I don't think we have much hope.
 

ManRed

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Don't agree with your reasonings:

1. Which other manager will be available in the summer that can't possibly be available now??
2. If are already deciding to get rid of Ole in the summer then why back him with any funds in January?? Rather keep those funds for new manager and his profile of signings.

Keeping Ole is just saying out loud that these are our standards now. Even if a manager has 27% win rate can stay in the job because he is a club legend. That is not fair to the fans or the club.
 

Roboc7

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Problem is Woodward and his recruitment team and the owners aren’t going anywhere, they also don’t want a DOF. That’s the reality and that’s what any new manager will have to deal with. We won’t be appointing Nagelsman or Rose or anyone like that, it’ll be whoever the best free agent is at time we sack Ole.

The huge advantage to sacking Ole now is there is a viable candidate waiting in the wings in Poch. Wait till summer and there might not be anyone decent.

Woodward has also come out and said how difficult it was to sign three players do we really want him having to try and recruit a manager as well as the new players we need.

Ole will leave us in such a poor position that the next manager can have agree hit and can at least make his mind up about players and start preparing for summer window. We’ve seen repeatedly that even with this preparation we struggle so it would be nonsensical to go into the summer window without any.
 

Massive Spanner

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You are basing it on the assumption that the new manager has an instant impact. What if he doesn't?

As i said, our tactics under Ole have been mostly sound, so its mostly a coaching/mental issue and that takes time.
If our new manager doesn't have an instant impact i.e. doesn't improve on the tumescent football we are currently witnessing, then they don't deserve to be here anyway.

Hell, even Ole had an instant impact!
 

TheRedDevil'sAdvocate

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Poch didn't improve players or build a team? Forgot the superstars Alli, Kane, Rose, Dembele, Eriksen, Alderweireld, Walker, Trippier, Dier, Son were before he arrived.

All world class players. People do spout some nonsense.
Amazing, isn't it? Although both sides of the spectrum are guilty of hypocrisy on this one. The ones who prefer a proven manager at the helm were constantly pointing at the lack of trophies when Jose was here while the ant-Mou ones were suggesting that we should be looking at the quality of the overall job he's done at Spurs. Now, the lack of trophies isn't an issue for the former set of fans, while the Ole-in crowd dismisses all the work he's done at Spurs over the past 5 years and likes to point at the lack of silverware.




I'll stick to what I've been saying, I'll judge him when he's actually got a squad to pick from as he planned.

Yesterday wasn't good enough but he's got next to no options to work with. There's still no excuse to be playing Mata in a PL game.

I knew as soon as McTominay went down before the international break we'd be in trouble for these games. This is Scott McTominay not prime Roy Keane!

Basically the only position this squad can cope with an injury is at left back because they are all as average as each other.
From the 14 players that were used yesterday, there's not even one who won't be here in two/three years time. Not.A.Single.One. They were all signed, renewed or promoted to the first team by Solskjaer. The only one who may not be here in the foreseeable future is Pogba. This myth about how much different the squad will look if we give him more time has to die sooner than later.
 

dove

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Agree with most points except "we can't sack him because there is no one else" and "Poch had a very good squad". There are 100s of managers who could do a better job than Ole is doing now. We could have won 4 out of 14 with no manager at all, Ole is just a waste of space really. We don't need to hire someone permanently right now, just get a caretaker in.

Spurs squad is massively overrated IMO and most players looked better than they actually are due to system Poch implemented.
 

Shark

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I'll stick to what I've been saying, I'll judge him when he's actually got a squad to pick from as he planned.

Yesterday wasn't good enough but he's got next to no options to work with. There's still no excuse to be playing Mata in a PL game.

I knew as soon as McTominay went down before the international break we'd be in trouble for these games. This is Scott McTominay not prime Roy Keane!

Basically the only position this squad can cope with an injury is at left back because they are all as average as each other.
What does this even mean? Aside from McTomminay and Pogba, this is the squad that he’s decided to go into the season with. If he wanted to, he could have sold Mata just as he sent Smalling off on loan and chucked Fellaini, Herrera Lukaku out. But the issue is he hasn’t brought in in replacements and that’s on him.
 

dove

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What does this even mean? Aside from McTomminay and Pogba, this is the squad that he’s decided to go into the season with. If he wanted to, he could have sold Mata just as he sent Smalling off on loan and chucked Fellaini, Herrera Lukaku out. But the issue is he hasn’t brought in in replacements and that’s on him.
Didn't you know that no manager can be judged til he has 10 transfer windows and spent £500m? Ignore all other examples in the world where a good manager comes in and makes instant impact (Rodgers, Conte). Being unable to win a game for 6 months for a team like ours is completely fine, it's part of process.
 

OleTheGreat

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So i have vehemently defended Ole so far and had plenty of discussion with people on this forum on the subject. Yes i have given him more rope because i loved him as a player, i am fully admitting that, but considering our situation i would have been willing to give most managers plenty of time.

Aston Villa was a breaking point for me though. Not because that game was so much worse than any other game this season, but because it became abundantly clear to me that this "progress" i thought i was seeing was just wishful thinking. We started scoring again, but at the same time we forgot how to defend. The squad is the worst United squad i have seen, but we should be doing better than this. In other words: Ole isnt making the most of this squad, but the big question is why?

Tactics gets mentioned a lot, which is something i disagree with. Yes 4231 when all of our #10 options are terrible seems like a bad idea, but we dont really have the right players for 433 either. Team selections have also largely been pretty decent in my opinion. Yes Pereria is fecking horrible, and lots of people are crying out for Garner, but throwing an 18 year old into a dysfunctional side like this could be disastrous both for the player and for the team. We also had a couple of matches: Liverpool, Chelsea, and the comeback vs Sheffield where Ole has shown some tactical nous, so i dont think his tactics are all that bad.

What i do see though is a bunch of players, limited as they might be, constantly making the wrong decisions and lacking any real fight and THAT is on the manager. Just at the top of my head and in no particular order of importance this is what i see again and again it is absolutely infuriating

1) We put in cross after cross with no one at the end of it. Very often its James who gets down to the line and he zips one in between the goalie and their defense. Everyone who has watched football knows where that fecking ball is going to come, yet time and time again there is just one maybe two players even near the goal, and both of them are hanging out at the edge of the box or maybe one of them has taken up some useless position at the back post. Every other team seems able to do this, yet we dont

2) There is no fight in us. Ole has talked loads about improving fitness and mentality, which i thought looked better for a while, but turned out to be nothing. It seems pretty much every lose ball ends up with the opponent because no one is willing to get stuck in so we have 5 players ball watching, hoping that someone else goes into the duel because they wont.

3) The distance between defense-midfield and midfield-attack is fecking huge and that link is just not there. I watched a few Sheffield games this year and how they move as a unit is fascinating to watch. Everyone is moving all the time so they are never outnumbered and thus often have plenty of passing options. When we try to play for the back though we end up wide 9/10 because our CB's only have our fullbacks as passing options.

4) This is closely connected to #3 and #1, but we never seem to attack in numbers. Once one of James, Rashford or Martial has the ball it seems everyone else just stops and hope they will sort it out. I am not saying our CM's should charge into the box, but at the very least they should move up to pile on the pressure and be the first on on lose balls that fall down around the box.

5) Our mentality is severely lacking. We seem to be playing with a sort of an arrogance we have NOT deserved. Time and time again this year we have only started playing only after we have went down and we cant hang onto a lead if our lives depended on it. It seems these players think they are much better than they actually are and its unacceptable that it keeps happening. Fergie would never let this kind of nonsense stand

6) Movement is fecking shit. All over the pitch. Zombie football is not something new under Ole, but it has not improved either

All that taken into consideration, does Ole deserve to be sacked? Yes, he probably does. This squad is bad, but it is not THAT bad either, but i still think its a bad idea to sack him now for a couple of very important reasons.
1) The only available "top" coaches who are available now are Poch and Allegri and i dont trust either of them to turn this around. Allegri would be Jose v2 in my eyes and that is not what we need right now. Poch is a favorite among many here, but i dont trust him either for some key reasons
1a) Despite popular belief he never built that Spurs side and had nothing to do with transfers
1b) He had a very good squad at his disposal and never won a thing. No offense to Poch, but he seems like a massive bottler to me
2) Taking over this fecking trainwreck puts any new manager in a very difficult spot. The only thing you can realistically change right away is tactics and i sincerely doubt that would be enough to turn us around. Coaching and change in mentality takes a lot of time, so realistically we would be around March-April before we could see some real changes. People will point to the new manager bounce we had under Ole, but that had more to do with the players being relieved of Jose being gone and it seemed many of them had a point to prove (which is pretty maddening to be honest, they play like demons when they wanted to one up Jose but cant be bothered now? Feck off)
3) If we change managers now we wont be doing any business in January, which we badly need

Ole looks like he was the wrong man for us. No shame in not being a Man Utd manager, very few are but i firmly believe the best thing for us is to stick with him until the end of the year and then let the new manager have the preseason and the transfer window. Who? Julian Nagelsmann looks very impressive to me and hopefully we can convince him to come here. I read some articles about him and what he has done is incredibly impressive for a 32 year old. But even if he was available today i would have waited because i don't want any manager to get thrown into this shitshow. Let them start the new season with blank slates and hopefully a better squad
I agree with most of the things you say but i wouldn't probably agree with one thing. You say Nagesmann can be a choice but what you don't understand is, he hasn't been a manager in England and i think experience here counts for more. Poch maybe not have won anything at Spurs but his football tactics were brilliant at Spurs. He literally put them on the map. I think he can do a good job and can be an upgrade for us while Jose is an upgrade for them in terms of trophy experience. Right now we need to play better football from the back to the front and i think Poch will be perfect for us. While saying all this, i do want to confer that if a manager is not backed through the summer , he cannot put together the best team in his mind that would enhance the game-play.

Ole should be given time until the end of the season , you are absolutely right with that but i don't think they'l wait until the summer if things don't go well against Spurs and City. He might have a hard time explaining his plans if things don't drastically change in the coming days.
 

AndersB

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1) We put in cross after cross with no one at the end of it. Very often its James who gets down to the line and he zips one in between the goalie and their defense. Everyone who has watched football knows where that fecking ball is going to come, yet time and time again there is just one maybe two players even near the goal, and both of them are hanging out at the edge of the box or maybe one of them has taken up some useless position at the back post. Every other team seems able to do this, yet we dont
This is such a hugely relevant - and understated - point. It is also my biggest issue with Rashford, especially in his current position / as a 9. He is so far from a poacher it's infuriating at times
 

OleTheGreat

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Not a bad post and agree with some points and also some good rationale around what you have said. But let's not get silly here at the same time. To say we shouldn't hire someone like Pochettino is laughable. The budgets and constraints he worked under at Spurs were immense. Like seriously come on. He had three transfer windows with no signings and got them to a CL final. Consistently qualified for the CL when Spurs were mere pretenders to get into it. Stop with the nonsensical points.
Exactly! It's like these people haven't watched Spurs play for the last 6 years under him. He's brought them so far and yet they went for a manager who will slowly kill that team. :D :D
Poch will be perfect at United, in fact i feel if he gets the job he'll be reinvigorated.
 

Leftback99

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What does this even mean? Aside from McTomminay and Pogba, this is the squad that he’s decided to go into the season with. If he wanted to, he could have sold Mata just as he sent Smalling off on loan and chucked Fellaini, Herrera Lukaku out. But the issue is he hasn’t brought in in replacements and that’s on him.
Exactly, his first choice midfield pair plus Matic all missing.

What would another manager have picked yesterday from what we have? Lingard for Mata maybe? Tuanzebe, Garner? It's pathetic however way you cut it.

We can criticise him for going into the season with this squad but thinking another manager will come in and do far better with the same is a pipe dream.
 

Bobcat

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If our new manager doesn't have an instant impact i.e. doesn't improve on the tumescent football we are currently witnessing, then they don't deserve to be here anyway.

Hell, even Ole had an instant impact!
He did because Jose had completely lost the dressing room and it seems everyone had a point to prove. There is so much shite here to fix that its completely unreasonable to expect anyone to just come in and turn us into a good/decent side with the snap of a finger

Its also worth remembering that the squad is still mediocre/poor in many areas and i think no amount of coaching is going to turn Fred and Pereira into decent midfielders

Maybe i am being pessimistic here, but if a new manager came in now and got tasked with cleaning up this mess he would burn through a lot of goodwill really fast and start the next season with the threat of sacking looming over him right from the start. If we end up sacking him as well we are dangerously close to turning into AC Milan
 

thejtrain

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It's clear that Ole's appointment (and continued employment) is focused on long term success rather than what happens in the short term. His current win rate is pretty irrelevant to the discussion, because he's not being measured against what happens this season.
That's just silly. Why do we have to get this worse to be able to get better? If he's not judged on his performances and results as a manager, what else is he judged on? More importantly, how do you measure any such progress and tell if he has actually met the objectives for the season? Fact is, by no objective measure has he improved us in any way. Hell, even his recruitment that people find convenient to defend him with, is half-decent at best.
 

Flexdegea

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I'm still Ole in.


Just think its not a good idea to get rid of at this stage of the season, and too bring a new manager in to fix chaos, and too work with a midfield of fred Pereira and mata.

Seriously any manager will struggle with that.



Talk of poch etc is bad timing. He needs a break to end of season, he be at his lowest point mentality that he has ever been at, and to come into us to sort it out wont end well.


Very toxic vibe around tbe club at the moment.



If we start getting hammered in the bigger games then I think I might prob change my mind but tbf to Ole he been largely getting them games right.
 

RedCoffee

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I think we'll wait until the summer then go after Rogers or Poch. Neither will come now as Rogers is on too good a run and Poch would have to repay his 12m Spurs settlement if he took another UK job.
Might as well write off this season and use it to bed in youngsters and really see which ones are worthy of the badge. We can bring a new boss in next May and demote Solskjaer to attacking coach.
 

arthurka

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4 wins this season and 6 wins since March in the league.
That should tell anyone that it isn´t anywhere near good enough.
Like Ole and supported him for a long while when it was going badly but it just keeps happening again and again the same mistakes and errors. He isn´t good enough to lead this rebuild.
 

peridigm

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I have the same feeling as you on everything in your post. The only real way to fix this mess is to start with appointing a DoF. Why this hasn't been done yet is mind boggling.
 

Maccataq

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January will show if the club are arsed about the position we are in. If we don't make signings then it will be years and years of nothing, because this season will just fade away and then the summer window will be nearly impossible.
What's the betting that come February 1st we haven't signed anyone and Woodward puts out a briefing that January is a difficult transfer window?
 

Falcow

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I'm still part of the Ole in crowd. I think he could be doing better but i'm convinced he has surrounded himself with the wrong people.
We have no top quality, elite coaches with enough experience to coach this side properly (my thoughts, clearly I don't have knowledge of how they train). We noticed this under Jose when his assistance left. The decline has been evident for us all to see. Our signings are not improving, which indicated poor coaching and confidence.
We all know the squad is paper thin. Ole knows this too. He is doing as much as possible in selecting the best players available I think - he had to start Mata yesterday, it was either him or Lingered! He's playing Williams ahead of Young, which we all want, and I'm sure when Pogba comes back, alongside McT, then Perreira will be dropped too.
He needs backing in January with at least 2 quality players. We won't get any, for this i'm sure.
Do I think Poch is a better manager - Yes! But i'm still in the frame of mind that Ole is a couple of signings away from getting us top 4 (puts on tin hat for incoming……).
I agree with you. Ole inherited a shit show and has had his work cut out trying to sort it out, unbalanced squad etc. I feel he has improved us. I've said elsewhere that we would be happy enough if we had won the last two games but any manager is going to struggle with the midfield we put out last 2 games. We have been pretty good since the pool game considering the players at our disposal in my opinion. We are still 2 or 3 signings away from top 4 or possibly even a title challenge. Let's say for argument sake we bought kane, sancho and kroos in January(purely hypothetical). I would expect that squad to finish in top 4 and challenge for league next season. Presumably the ole out camp dont believe that would be possible with ole even with those 3 signings?
 

Shark

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Didn't you know that no manager can be judged til he has 10 transfer windows and spent £500m? Ignore all other examples in the world where a good manager comes in and makes instant impact (Rodgers, Conte). Being unable to win a game for 6 months for a team like ours is completely fine, it's part of process.
I actually find it frightening that there’s supporters genuinely not judging him. We could lose another five games in a row and they’d be like ‘’nope, can’t judge him until he has a squad to pick from’’

Utter lunacy. :lol:
 

Maccataq

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So i have vehemently defended Ole so far and had plenty of discussion with people on this forum on the subject. Yes i have given him more rope because i loved him as a player, i am fully admitting that, but considering our situation i would have been willing to give most managers plenty of time.

Aston Villa was a breaking point for me though. Not because that game was so much worse than any other game this season, but because it became abundantly clear to me that this "progress" i thought i was seeing was just wishful thinking. We started scoring again, but at the same time we forgot how to defend. The squad is the worst United squad i have seen, but we should be doing better than this. In other words: Ole isnt making the most of this squad, but the big question is why?

Tactics gets mentioned a lot, which is something i disagree with. Yes 4231 when all of our #10 options are terrible seems like a bad idea, but we dont really have the right players for 433 either. Team selections have also largely been pretty decent in my opinion. Yes Pereria is fecking horrible, and lots of people are crying out for Garner, but throwing an 18 year old into a dysfunctional side like this could be disastrous both for the player and for the team. We also had a couple of matches: Liverpool, Chelsea, and the comeback vs Sheffield where Ole has shown some tactical nous, so i dont think his tactics are all that bad.

What i do see though is a bunch of players, limited as they might be, constantly making the wrong decisions and lacking any real fight and THAT is on the manager. Just at the top of my head and in no particular order of importance this is what i see again and again it is absolutely infuriating

1) We put in cross after cross with no one at the end of it. Very often its James who gets down to the line and he zips one in between the goalie and their defense. Everyone who has watched football knows where that fecking ball is going to come, yet time and time again there is just one maybe two players even near the goal, and both of them are hanging out at the edge of the box or maybe one of them has taken up some useless position at the back post. Every other team seems able to do this, yet we dont

2) There is no fight in us. Ole has talked loads about improving fitness and mentality, which i thought looked better for a while, but turned out to be nothing. It seems pretty much every lose ball ends up with the opponent because no one is willing to get stuck in so we have 5 players ball watching, hoping that someone else goes into the duel because they wont.

3) The distance between defense-midfield and midfield-attack is fecking huge and that link is just not there. I watched a few Sheffield games this year and how they move as a unit is fascinating to watch. Everyone is moving all the time so they are never outnumbered and thus often have plenty of passing options. When we try to play for the back though we end up wide 9/10 because our CB's only have our fullbacks as passing options.

4) This is closely connected to #3 and #1, but we never seem to attack in numbers. Once one of James, Rashford or Martial has the ball it seems everyone else just stops and hope they will sort it out. I am not saying our CM's should charge into the box, but at the very least they should move up to pile on the pressure and be the first on on lose balls that fall down around the box.

5) Our mentality is severely lacking. We seem to be playing with a sort of an arrogance we have NOT deserved. Time and time again this year we have only started playing only after we have went down and we cant hang onto a lead if our lives depended on it. It seems these players think they are much better than they actually are and its unacceptable that it keeps happening. Fergie would never let this kind of nonsense stand

6) Movement is fecking shit. All over the pitch. Zombie football is not something new under Ole, but it has not improved either

All that taken into consideration, does Ole deserve to be sacked? Yes, he probably does. This squad is bad, but it is not THAT bad either, but i still think its a bad idea to sack him now for a couple of very important reasons.
1) The only available "top" coaches who are available now are Poch and Allegri and i dont trust either of them to turn this around. Allegri would be Jose v2 in my eyes and that is not what we need right now. Poch is a favorite among many here, but i dont trust him either for some key reasons
1a) Despite popular belief he never built that Spurs side and had nothing to do with transfers
1b) He had a very good squad at his disposal and never won a thing. No offense to Poch, but he seems like a massive bottler to me
2) Taking over this fecking trainwreck puts any new manager in a very difficult spot. The only thing you can realistically change right away is tactics and i sincerely doubt that would be enough to turn us around. Coaching and change in mentality takes a lot of time, so realistically we would be around March-April before we could see some real changes. People will point to the new manager bounce we had under Ole, but that had more to do with the players being relieved of Jose being gone and it seemed many of them had a point to prove (which is pretty maddening to be honest, they play like demons when they wanted to one up Jose but cant be bothered now? Feck off)
3) If we change managers now we wont be doing any business in January, which we badly need

Ole looks like he was the wrong man for us. No shame in not being a Man Utd manager, very few are but i firmly believe the best thing for us is to stick with him until the end of the year and then let the new manager have the preseason and the transfer window. Who? Julian Nagelsmann looks very impressive to me and hopefully we can convince him to come here. I read some articles about him and what he has done is incredibly impressive for a 32 year old. But even if he was available today i would have waited because i dont want any manager to get thrown into this shitshow. Let them start the new season with blank slates and hopefully a better squad
Good post, agree with most of this but disagree on Poch. I think he has shown that he is capable of building a team, coaching and improving players with an attractive style of play and bringing through youth. He has consistently punched above his weight in what he has achieved. Yes, he could have done better in some semi-finals / finals and maybe landed a trophy but I think it is unfair to hold that against him too much. Klopp's cup final record is really poor, let's not forget! Klopp also took a long time to win something with Liverpool but you could see the progress and he was consistently backed in the transfer market, unlike Poch at Spurs where he took a team to top 4 and a CL final without any new players.
 

AshRK

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Agree with most points except "we can't sack him because there is no one else" and "Poch had a very good squad". There are 100s of managers who could do a better job than Ole is doing now. We could have won 4 out of 14 with no manager at all, Ole is just a waste of space really. We don't need to hire someone permanently right now, just get a caretaker in.

Spurs squad is massively overrated IMO and most players looked better than they actually are due to system Poch implemented.
I understand your frustration for Ole but just appointing anyone under the sun will not take this club forward. There needs to be proper planning, which I seriously doubt this board is capable of doing.
 

Robbie Boy

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I actually find it frightening that there’s supporters genuinely not judging him. We could lose another five games in a row and they’d be like ‘’nope, can’t judge him until he has a squad to pick from’’

Utter lunacy. :lol:
He's literally the only manager that seems immune from actually being judged, according to some on here.
 

svn

Full Member
Joined
Mar 19, 2011
Messages
217
If you believe that you're delusional. There's no way he's not being judged on his performances.

IMO this season will mirror LvGs last season. He'll stay until the end of the season and then Woodward will sack him and bring in Poch.

By then the damage will be done though. Likely no European football at all and a squad of overpaid and underperforming players.
Every reputable journalist is saying the same. Despite poor results, the club are satisfied that Ole is working towards a long term plan that will take time to put in place. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it's obvious that he's not going to be sacked if we finish mid table this season.
 

dove

New Member
Joined
May 15, 2013
Messages
7,899
I understand your frustration for Ole but just appointing anyone under the sun will not take this club forward. There needs to be proper planning, which I seriously doubt this board is capable of doing.
Moving forward is not on my mind now, stopping us moving backwards is. Ole is dragging us towards relegation.
 

momo83

Massive Snowflake
Joined
Dec 5, 2013
Messages
1,463
So i have vehemently defended Ole so far and had plenty of discussion with people on this forum on the subject. Yes i have given him more rope because i loved him as a player, i am fully admitting that, but considering our situation i would have been willing to give most managers plenty of time.

Aston Villa was a breaking point for me though. Not because that game was so much worse than any other game this season, but because it became abundantly clear to me that this "progress" i thought i was seeing was just wishful thinking. We started scoring again, but at the same time we forgot how to defend. The squad is the worst United squad i have seen, but we should be doing better than this. In other words: Ole isnt making the most of this squad, but the big question is why?

Tactics gets mentioned a lot, which is something i disagree with. Yes 4231 when all of our #10 options are terrible seems like a bad idea, but we dont really have the right players for 433 either. Team selections have also largely been pretty decent in my opinion. Yes Pereria is fecking horrible, and lots of people are crying out for Garner, but throwing an 18 year old into a dysfunctional side like this could be disastrous both for the player and for the team. We also had a couple of matches: Liverpool, Chelsea, and the comeback vs Sheffield where Ole has shown some tactical nous, so i dont think his tactics are all that bad.

What i do see though is a bunch of players, limited as they might be, constantly making the wrong decisions and lacking any real fight and THAT is on the manager. Just at the top of my head and in no particular order of importance this is what i see again and again it is absolutely infuriating

1) We put in cross after cross with no one at the end of it. Very often its James who gets down to the line and he zips one in between the goalie and their defense. Everyone who has watched football knows where that fecking ball is going to come, yet time and time again there is just one maybe two players even near the goal, and both of them are hanging out at the edge of the box or maybe one of them has taken up some useless position at the back post. Every other team seems able to do this, yet we dont

2) There is no fight in us. Ole has talked loads about improving fitness and mentality, which i thought looked better for a while, but turned out to be nothing. It seems pretty much every lose ball ends up with the opponent because no one is willing to get stuck in so we have 5 players ball watching, hoping that someone else goes into the duel because they wont.

3) The distance between defense-midfield and midfield-attack is fecking huge and that link is just not there. I watched a few Sheffield games this year and how they move as a unit is fascinating to watch. Everyone is moving all the time so they are never outnumbered and thus often have plenty of passing options. When we try to play for the back though we end up wide 9/10 because our CB's only have our fullbacks as passing options.

4) This is closely connected to #3 and #1, but we never seem to attack in numbers. Once one of James, Rashford or Martial has the ball it seems everyone else just stops and hope they will sort it out. I am not saying our CM's should charge into the box, but at the very least they should move up to pile on the pressure and be the first on on lose balls that fall down around the box.

5) Our mentality is severely lacking. We seem to be playing with a sort of an arrogance we have NOT deserved. Time and time again this year we have only started playing only after we have went down and we cant hang onto a lead if our lives depended on it. It seems these players think they are much better than they actually are and its unacceptable that it keeps happening. Fergie would never let this kind of nonsense stand

6) Movement is fecking shit. All over the pitch. Zombie football is not something new under Ole, but it has not improved either

All that taken into consideration, does Ole deserve to be sacked? Yes, he probably does. This squad is bad, but it is not THAT bad either, but i still think its a bad idea to sack him now for a couple of very important reasons.
1) The only available "top" coaches who are available now are Poch and Allegri and i dont trust either of them to turn this around. Allegri would be Jose v2 in my eyes and that is not what we need right now. Poch is a favorite among many here, but i dont trust him either for some key reasons
1a) Despite popular belief he never built that Spurs side and had nothing to do with transfers
1b) He had a very good squad at his disposal and never won a thing. No offense to Poch, but he seems like a massive bottler to me
2) Taking over this fecking trainwreck puts any new manager in a very difficult spot. The only thing you can realistically change right away is tactics and i sincerely doubt that would be enough to turn us around. Coaching and change in mentality takes a lot of time, so realistically we would be around March-April before we could see some real changes. People will point to the new manager bounce we had under Ole, but that had more to do with the players being relieved of Jose being gone and it seemed many of them had a point to prove (which is pretty maddening to be honest, they play like demons when they wanted to one up Jose but cant be bothered now? Feck off)
3) If we change managers now we wont be doing any business in January, which we badly need

Ole looks like he was the wrong man for us. No shame in not being a Man Utd manager, very few are but i firmly believe the best thing for us is to stick with him until the end of the year and then let the new manager have the preseason and the transfer window. Who? Julian Nagelsmann looks very impressive to me and hopefully we can convince him to come here. I read some articles about him and what he has done is incredibly impressive for a 32 year old. But even if he was available today i would have waited because i dont want any manager to get thrown into this shitshow. Let them start the new season with blank slates and hopefully a better squad
Very good post. What i’d argue without being too certain of the time lines is that Poch developed the players spurs had. Ericson, Lamella, and a few others were bought with the Bale money and initially for a season or two they were viewed as flops. It was Poch that transformed then when many others could have said “these players are shite I need a few windows” and people would have been none the wiser. Also Poch developed Kane.
 

Resch

Full Member
Joined
Jun 20, 2011
Messages
681
Location
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Ole alone is not good enough for United, he has too many tactical deficits. But replacing him would not be easy. Maybe is the best solution to support him with a new assistent. Someone like Rene Maric. Mastmind behind Rose in Salzburg and Gladbach. Someone whos analyses are on a new level.
https://www.transfermarkt.at/rene-marić/profil/trainer/49415
https://www.sn.at/wiki/Rene_Maric
Maric startet his career as a tactic blogger at spielverlagerung.de, had a cooperation with Tuchel together with others and became an assistant at Salzburg. Maybe someone like him can help Ole and United.
 

AshRK

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Apr 23, 2017
Messages
12,095
Location
Canada
Moving forward is not on my mind now, stopping us moving backwards is. Ole is dragging us towards relegation.
Appointing any Tom, dick and harry may solve the issue for one month but we will again be back doing the same thing in a month. This is why planning is more important. I am all for sacking Ole but with right planning not just for the sake of removing him.
 

Schmeichel's Cartwheel

Correctly predicted Italy to win Euro 2020
Joined
Dec 21, 2014
Messages
11,420
Location
Manchester
I'd support sacking him if we could get a competent temporary manager until the end of the season, someone like Wenger, while doing proper research into finding the right man to take us forward in the summer.

Give me 6 months of Wenger any day over Ole. I think he could get more out of our players. Don't buy in Jan, just write the season off & back the new man in July.
 

jem

Full Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2010
Messages
9,257
Location
Toronto
A long post justifying why Ole shouldn't be sacked.

Here's a short post on why he should.....

27.3% win rate since being given the permanent job. And the sample size of games is large enough to make that decision.

I can see Ole getting fired if we lose to Spurs
It would appear you didn't read it very thoroughly if you dismiss it as a long post justifying Ole's continuing as manager.