It's probably down to a lot of things. But honestly I know Liverpool have a far better team and manager atm, but just by our last match vs Liverpool, you could see how VVD and Maguire are miles apart in quality. Even though we are a wealthy club spending 80 mil on a CB who is not world class does impact our transfer budget and thus our ability to improve the squad. In my eyes we've been robbed and Leicester didn't spend money on a replacement and they are doing far better than us this season.
Would you sack or keep Ole? (Poll reopened)
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I'd back him to do no worse than Ole at this pointQuinton Fortune leading out the team at the start of next season
Leicester is again down to the manager and progressive tactics of attacking football which integrate the best qualities of the players Rodgers has at his disposal.
Also a good coach can get much more out of players. See Henderson, seemingly a water carrier, now playing like prime Effenberg under the influence of Klopp. So there is still hope for Maguire I would say, if the next managerial appointment is not a daft one.
But the 80 mil part is correct. He is worth 50-55 mils at best.
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I don't think i's all about management and coaching. VVD is just a far better footballer. He is on Rio Ferdinands level if not higher considering he's been voted as the 2nd best player in world, but he has a long career ahead him to cement his place as one the best defenders of his generation. I just don't believe Harry Maguire would ever come 2nd in the Ballon'dor even if he played for Klopp.
There are a few myths kicking around the United fanbase that are used to excuse a failing manager. I’ll try to compile a short list of them.
A) A rebuild means that being awful is excusable. I don’t get this. Rebuilding, by its very name, means that you’re building towards something. If you’re building towards something, then you’re supposed to see incremental improvements, until you reach the point of success. You aren’t going to be awful and rebuilding for a few years, then one day a switch just flicks and you’re suddenly winning the league.
B) A manager needs a whole new team before he can be judged. I’ve never seen this anywhere except with United fans, where a manager has to be allowed to sign a whole new starting XI before it’s fair to assess how he’s doing, because he has to work with players the last manager signed or something.
C) Managers can’t improve players or tactics. All a manager does is oversee signings and select a starting 11. They aren’t responsible for what happens on the field, and players can’t become more effective through training or drilling them into a certain system.
D) A manager is unable to do their day to day job properly if the board above them isn’t adequate. People blaming woody and the board for transfers is fair enough, but they have no influence over what happens on the training ground or in the matches. I’ve seen loads of people imply that a manager can’t do any facet of their job properly if they’re not working under the proper people.
Feel free to add to the list.
Jury is still out on that. We signed the two most obvious defensive signings anyone could have come up with in AWB and Maguire. We overpaid for both and the defense as yet is not an improvement on last season. James is basically equivalent to an Obertan or a Tosic right now, but time will tell. Bruno was again an obvious choice and clearly being scouted by the club pre-ole.
But being a DOF is about being responsible for/oversight of the manager, the coaching staff, the general playing philosophy, player acquisitions, contract renewals, agent relationships, agent networks, scout networks.
Ole has none of the above. He has no experience in any of it on the right scale. His agent network consists of one norweigan guy after all.
The only ex United player who has shown any of the above is VDS at Ajax. Any other ex united player linked with a dof role would just be more sheer idiocy from Woodward and the board.
The fact they even seemed to be considering Fletcher, Phelan or Rio speaks to just how intellectually bankrupt they really are about football. And in that sense we’re lucky we dont actually have a DoF yet.
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Don't think the club would be willing to pay £12m when they only have to wait 3 months until the end of the season. May seem like small change to a club our size but as we've seen in past Windows with our net spend £12m is quite a large chunk and with the Bruno money coming out of the summer budget it could make a big difference.
Can honestly say I have not looked at the league table more than 3 times this season. Surprised to hear we are 8th. We were 5th just a couple of weeks ago.
Look at the table after a month. We will be 12th.
That's over simplifying it, but we could maybe do with an organisational coach like Faria or Carlos Queiroz in the mix to work alongside Carrick and McKenna.
You and 95% of the Cafe*
*myself included
He shouldn't stay beyond this season if there isn't a huge upturn in performances and results to salvage this season.
I was thinking more along the lines of obscurity when I said mediocrity. In any case, either predicament is exactly where each one of them belongs.
The rebuild is still very much on and an unavoidable reality for us, because regardless of who is in charge next season, they wont get much mileage out of the likes of Lindgard, Pereira et el.
Bad results or not, the deadwood still has to go
Maybe yes, maybe no. However what changed at the time was Faria out and Carrick/Mckenna in. Then our performances plummeted, Mou got sacked, Ole came in and after some decent months we are back to square one. We keep talking about progression when all we see is regression. This start is the worst since 1989.
Also I am not comfortable with inexperienced coaches coaching a top club just because they used to kick a ball at the club. We should aim for people with the best coaching CV. If that guy happen to be a former player then that's a bonus. I am sure that as players, the likes of Carrick and co wanted to be coached by the very best who could take them to the next level both in terms of medals and talent. Surely they didn't want to settle for mediocrity simply because some former player was bored being outside OT, he wanted some way in and the club gave him a coaching job to keep him busy
We’ve already wasted our season unless we hit the Europa League & FA cup hard.
The damage is already done in the league. We’ve had a disgraceful last month.
Him and the coaches have to win the EL at a minimum; and personally I think they need the FA Cup as a bonus to keep their jobs.
The fans have been super lenient already. It’s going to become a farce going into another season with this coaching setup.
The damage is already done in the league. We’ve had a disgraceful last month.
Him and the coaches have to win the EL at a minimum; and personally I think they need the FA Cup as a bonus to keep their jobs.
The fans have been super lenient already. It’s going to become a farce going into another season with this coaching setup.
The best coach we had during SAF's time at the club was Steve McClaren yet most fans thought SAF had lost the plot when he brought him in, not enough experience, hasn't been at a big club ....
And you can bring the most tactically gifted coach in but there's not a lot he can do once they cross that white-line if the players consistently can't get the final pass right, or the forwards fanny about instead of getting shots away.
I’m sorry but you are wrong. This thread shows that if we only sacked Solskjaer we would be universal Galaxy Champions next day. That is what I’m being told by Solskjaer-Out warriors.
One or the other will be more than enough to keep them in their jobs, and rightly so
That moment when statistics, facts and logic are being thrown in your face, and you can only manage to retort back with sarcastic nonsense. Enjoy the moment, friend.
More then one year in charge and almost every metric has a negative trend.
We have spent 200m and we still are short of quality in two, probably three key positions.
We have huge problems to attract top talents. Key players make noises about jumping the ship. According to Fred we have a divided squad and lack harmony inside the locker room.
Our results speaks for itself. Depressing or horrible? Take your pick.
The worst part is that we have all the evidence right in front of us and some still don’t see it.
We have spent 200m and we still are short of quality in two, probably three key positions.
We have huge problems to attract top talents. Key players make noises about jumping the ship. According to Fred we have a divided squad and lack harmony inside the locker room.
Our results speaks for itself. Depressing or horrible? Take your pick.
The worst part is that we have all the evidence right in front of us and some still don’t see it.
What's with the hate, man?
Also post one quote of someone saying we'll win the league next season. Either that or stop making strawman arguments because you're offering nothing now other than lies.
Actually Mclaren was considered one of the most promising assistant managers in English football. He was instrumental as no 2 to get Derby back to the EPL and was one of the first to bring technology into football.
Don’t take me wrong sir alex had his share of nepotism which he could afford since he was a genius from a gone era were managers did everything. He always brought people from outside the United pool to give him ideas. Smith, Rene, queroz, Mclaren all had real power at the club enough to take down Roy Keane.not to forget that those who made it on top had a real career progression. They weren't thrown in the deep end from day 1 like Carrick did
I don't see that career progression and new ideas coming in at the moment. Ole and Phelan are Sir Alex accolades, Carrick is inexperienced and also a Sir Alex accolade, mckenna has no experience managing older players while the new guys being brought in from outside the club are as inexperienced as our own manager. It's the same tired ideas rehashed over and over again which is a shame considering that our inexperienced manager needs all the help he can get. That goes against the United way who was always revolutionary and aimed for success.
You dont have to drop to the relegation fodder to start rebuilding. Ole was suppose to rebuild from the 6th position and progress to higher positions not plummet us to 10th.
Also I can't argue about Lingard or Pereira but when Mou was around he actually transformed Lingard into a somehow desent player (just look at his stats when we got 2nd place). That's what great coaches do. That's what Klopp did with Henderson.
Imagine someone as unconvincing as Ole in the DOF role 
its so stupid, it probably will happen knowing this daft club.
its so stupid, it probably will happen knowing this daft club.Ole hasn’t even started a rebuild, just bought and sold a few players and kept playing terrible football. Rebuild is just an excuse for a terrible performance and trying to buy time , whoever follows him is going to have to do the real work of finishing in the top four (and then progressing), whilst changing the way we play and buying/selling players.
Due to his history people are desperate for him to be connected to the club in some capacity, but this ludicrous idea that he should become our DoF needs to stop.Imagine someone as unconvincing as Ole in the DOF role
At best he'll be offered some ambassadorial role if/when he's relieved of his duties. Even then I would find it a strange move and it would, IMO, be nothing more than a PR stunt to appease fans were it to happen.
Not going to defend the results on the pitch here, because we should be doing better than we currently are, but i still firmly believe we did the right thing regarding the players who have left. We had(have?) the second highest wage bill in the league and about half of the players in our squad had no business being here. 8 have left on permanent/loan, and imo another 6-7 players should leave the next few years.
Step one of the rebuild was always going to clear out the unwanted players, there is no two ways about it. Now you could argue we could have done it more gradually, but imo it was better to just go full pelt and tear up the squad and do it quickly, despite it obviously was going to hurt us in the short term
Imagine walking into your new job to learn on your first day that your supervisor, the person who will judge your performance, is the previous occupant of the position who was removed from his role because he had produced some of the worst results in over 30 years during his tenure. Nepotism at its worst... But yeah, knowing Ed, it all becomes about saving face in the end, so i wouldn't write it off.Imagine someone as unconvincing as Ole in the DOF role
Disagree, step one was getting rid of deadwood, and quite a few have left already.
Not going to defend the results, because they are clearly not good enough and the squad is better than we currently display, but it still does not change the fact that way to many in the squad are far below the level we should be aiming for.
If Poch or whoever is manager in 5 months time i still would want him to get rid of Lindgard, Pereira, Baily, Shaw, Mata, Matic and Martial. Most of them have played under 3 different managers now and its not like they suddenly turned to shit this year.
It does but those deadwood players are still better than some of those at the likes of Sheffield United who are above us in the table there’s really no excuse.
We shouldn’t be sat in 8th position.
It's weird that you keep saying this but still so vehemently defend Ole. Surely if you acknowledge that the results have been poor under him then you're admitting that he's done a poor job?
I constantly see this from people on here now. "OK, look, the results have been crap but whaddabout this and this and this!". Like, it's all well and good talking about those other things but if a manager can't deliver results to an acceptable level of what he has at his disposal then that's pretty solid proof that the rest should be largely irrelevant because he's not up to the job in the first place.
I don't know who's telling you that, or maybe you just want to project hyperbole like all Ole fanboys do (yes I did say fanboys because at this point you guys are Ole fans more than Man Utd fans). Perhaps a better manager/coach will have these players getting results against the likes of Burnley and Watford, so that we can stay within the champions league places.
If you go back and check threads around the time of Joses 3rd season the vast majority of posters complained about the quality of players, complained that at least a third of the squad needed selling. Now that its happening, people are still complaining. The fact so many of our players needed selling should indicate that we were going to struggle short term as it would have a huge impact on squad harmony along with squad cohesion.
Whoever is appointed the next Manager will benefit massively from Oles acceptance that the squad was shit. This will get overlooked I imagine given our results right now, but this had to happen, the issue has been the club hasn't backed the process by bringing senior players in to replace the ones we're selling. It's the boards failing ultimately.
Either way, still more work to be done and more deadwood needs selling. Going to be a fun Summer window.
Problem we have is, Woodward said it's hard to sign 3 players in a window. If that's the case this rebuild will take many years. There are clubs that sign 10-12 players in a year but somehow we struggle to sign 3 players.
Well, if we get in 2 senior players this Summer then we'll have brought in 5 (Maguire, AWB, Bruno, ?, ?). With the addition of De Gea, Rashford, Martial, McTominay, Lindelof we'll have a small core group now with plenty of younger players trying to break in. It's not great, but it's much better than what we had two years ago. Making sure the next 2 signings are correct is the big thing for me, if we get those correct then I think we'll have a solid base for the first time in years.
I'm discounting Pogba because I think it's inevitable he's sold in the summer. Hopefully we can bring in 4/5 players in the Summer though and push forward. I do think the squad is heading in the right direction (finally). Although I will probably self combust if we don't bright in a right forward.
I think most fans have been in agreement for years that the problem is two-fold, the players and the management. The problem is STILL two-fold and simply buying better players isn't going to improve us because our management team is sub-par. Likewise, firing Ole and bringing in say Pochettino to manage this exact squad will see very little improvements, also.
I think most on here would've got rid of most of the players Ole has.
Personally I would've got rid of, Lingard, Young, Jones, Darmian, Sanchez, Pereira etc but I wouldn't expect to be given credit for something that was obvious.
Personally I would've got rid of, Lingard, Young, Jones, Darmian, Sanchez, Pereira etc but I wouldn't expect to be given credit for something that was obvious.
We have few very good young players and with few good additions we will have very good first 11. We need to replace lot of players to fill the numbers, players like Andreas Pereira, Mata, Lingard, Jones, shouldn't be part of the squad. With already thin squad all these players should be replaced and add few more. We should close the deals quickly, one more summer window like the one in 2018 or 2019 would be disaster for the club.
We need first choice LB, CM, RW and even CB. On top of that we need squad positions for AM, CF too. We need to sign players quickly instead of taking up whole summer for 1 signing. We should also improve our recruitment when it comes to targeting players who are worth the money. I don't remember when was the last time we made good use of release clause from midtable La Liga clubs, last or only signing I remember is Herrera.
Agree with your point that we need 4/5 players in the summer and that's minimum we need. Hopefully Pogba stays too, it will make it even worse to search for one more CM to replace him.
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