Or maybe they just aren't spoiled little rich kids.
The “Ole In” Brigade
- Thread starter Lentwood
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Only paupers support Ole, you heard it here first. Man of the poor. The robin hood of football.
Are you a pauper, it that why you're open to offers??
. You have dozens of posts where managers are mentioned who are better than Ole and are available. And you say that nobody mentioned any...Bloody hell
Yeah, calling Jose as shit was harsh. He wasn't good enough though, end of that day only that matters.
First of all I don't blame Ole for most of this mess. It's not his fault that our incompetent board gave the job to an inexperienced manager whose got no clue of how to manage an EPL level team let alone a juggernaut like United whose in the middle of a frigging crisis. Very few managers can manage a top club let alone a club like ours whose always in the media spot light, that is in a middle of a crisis, it had been saddled with a huge debt + a huge salary bill with so little talent to show for it and it lacks the infrastructure (football CEO, Head of recruitment, DOF etc) to get out of this mess. Everything at United stinks of mediocrity, from OT's roof that has yet to be mended, from our ridiculously high salary bill right to the amount of injuries we get year in year out and the terrible results at all levels (we're 8th at first team level, we got relegated at U23 level and we're 7th at U18 level). Most of that can't really be blamed on Ole.
However its equally ridiculous stating that a top manager won't improve us. Take last summer's mess. Ole blew 130m on a decent CB and a decent RB who can't attack which meant that we were left with an enormous hole in midfield, RW and upfront. He did so because he had no plan B to Longstaff (ffs) and he genuinely believed that the kids were ready to step up. Well he was wrong. The likes of Periera, Gomes, Chong and Garner weren't ready at all. Which meant that he had to run his ridiculously thin squad to the ground, often playing players 2 games a week and insisting on playing players while injured. Let's hope that RVP isn't right on Rashford's injury as that would mean that Ole had basically crippled the career of one of our finest talents since the class of 92.
A top manager would have kept his cards close to his chest simply because he would know that this club is uncapable of handling a huge staff turnover. That means that the likes of Smalling, Fellaini and Lukaku would have been given reassurances that they would get a fair crack of the whip unless of course the club is able to provide him with replacements. We would instead see the true deadwood leave ie the likes of Rojo, Jones, Darmian and probably Sanchez. A top manager would acknowledge that he's got an imperfect squad that can't take down the world. Hence high intensity training will be avoided to try to limit wear and tear + priority would be given to the Euros and the EPL instead of every single cup we can get our hands upon. Top players will be properly rested, Pogba wouldn't play at Rochdale, Rashford would not play against Wolves and we wouldn't go and play at Tranmere's potato's field with a near full squad as that is basically inviting injury. Not to forget that with a top manager in place, our coaching will improve. Our coaching staff is probably the least experienced in the EPL especially if its true that Phelan is more of a DOF rather then an actual assistant.
Ole has committed the same mistake he did with Cardiff. At Cardiff he lost focus on the club's current situation and the type of players that are needed for a relegation fight and had opted to implement his 'philosophy instead. In fact his signings were mostly flair players, his former players or youths who were as useful at a relegation fight as bull's tits. That's a rookie mistake which is given more spotlight at United considering that we've got amateurs all over the place from within the board right to management and the coaching staff.
This.
Proper manager would assess, coy, fool lukaku thinking he has a future, only sell him when he's ready.
Same with smailing. Proper manager would identify that smailing would do the job and that 80m would benefit the whole sum more if invested on a midfielder and a winger. Instead of stupidly blaming the board for not giving him 500m for a new xi.
Proper manager would hire a better coach, who he not only trusted but worthy of the job instead of some feel good appointment that offers no fresh idea.
Proper manager should know exactly his own weakness and strengt. Saf knew exactly what his swot are. He hires the right man, not the yes man.
Proper manager would correctly assess the team isnt fit enough to sustain a high intensity football for 50 games. He should then instill a different approach tactically to cover for his team. Mourinho plays defensive football with less runs, less injury. Pep utilizes a collective approach to make his players run less. I dont watch too many liverpool but you bet klopp have a few secret in his sleeves.
Proper manager would ask how much they can spend, and optimized it to the best result.
Proper manager can afford a rebuild without having to tear up the whole place, court relegation and naively thinks it's gonna be alright year 3.
Proper manager stands on the technical area. Barking orders, cheering his players at the very least, esprit d''corp management 101, ole and his 2 stooges just sit slumped on the duggout. It shows that he has no new instructions even when chasing a goal, it means that he fixes nothing. Its ok if you're winning but for the love of god even if it's only for show get up there and crack some whip.
Well, yes, if you go back that far you will see that plenty of posters were resigned to a pretty awful season as long as Ole was in charge and actually quite a-lot of posters believed he would be sacked by Christmas. Our form had turned to absolute shit midway through Ole's tenure last season and the majority felt that he just simply wasn't going to be a good enough manager, which seems correct.
Prioritising recruitment over league position? Ok, well let me start by saying this: I don't think our recruitment has been anything amazing and certainly not what it's hyped up to have been. I have huge expectations for Bruno Fernandes and I hope he can be that missing link between our midfield and forward line that has been sorely lacking for quite a long time now. I was never, ever a fan of Maguire and was pretty against the transfer. I found him to be mostly hype with little substance to back up the hype, and so far, he's been fairly meh. I mean, he will do, but considering he's the most expensive defender on the planet, I find him to be fairly average. Dan James? Not for me. Good price in today's market and hopefully he can be a decent squaddie as he's a likeable lad, but even to be a squad player, he needs drastic improvements. He shouldn't be a starter and we still need to sort out the right hand side. AWB? It seems to be en vogue to criticise him these days, but to be fair, I think he will come good however his attacking output needs a-lot of work. So, all in all, I would give our incoming transfers under Ole a 6/10. Could be 7/10 if Bruno really hits some good heights. As for Ighalo, well he's clearly just a short term backup, but I did like him at Watford.
Now to outgoings or as the Ole fans like call it, ‘clearing the deadwood’. Ok so yes, Ole got rid of some of the dross in the squad but failed to adequately replace them, much like what LvG done. He has tried to incorporate the likes of Pereira into the team as starters, however these players are simply nowhere near good enough. Selling Lukaku without a replacement was idiocy of the highest order, and to be honest, I don’t really see what’s so great about what he’s done here, he’s arguably sold players and made us a weaker side, even with the incoming transfers. Yes, I’m delighted some of these players are gone but I mean, I’m pretty sure any other competent manager would also have gotten rid of most of those players. I find this ‘clearing the deadwood’ rhetoric to be hugely overstated and a very poor rationale as to why we should keep a grossly under-performing manager.
So, would I prioritise recruitment over league position? Well I would to a degree if the signings had of been amazing and I could see huge progress in our style of play and a plan going forward. Unfortunately, I just don’t see any progress on the pitch only regression. Our results and style of play are honestly, the worst they’ve been post Fergie which is an absolutely damming indictment on Ole’s ability as a manager. That being said, other teams have often needed players/signed new players/gotten rid of players and still looked far better than we have this season. At the end of the day, Ole isn’t playing some bunch of Sunday league players, he has full internationals at his disposal who have cost an absolute fortune and are better players than that of teams ahead of us in the league. The fact is, Ole is totally and utterly out of his depth and every single damming stat and anyone with a pair of eyes can see that.
Finally, these lies about people thinking we will win the league with a new manager need to stop. Literally no one thinks that and it is an utter fallacy. However, most agree that a far more competent manager would be doing a far more competent job, which is bang on the money. With a better manager, we would have made a-lot more progress than Ole has made, I don’t see how that’s even debatable.
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Dude, we don't want him to fail he has failed.
I wonder how many clubs we have to be behind to have failed. Now behind Leicester, Wolves, Sheffield United, Everton and Spurs.
Not every manager has to do this BUT if you're a player struggling with your confidence and your performance and you look to the touchline for 'something', are you really going to be boosted by seeing that drab, lifeless set of coaches sat blank-faced in silence? No, 100%, no.
There is no motivation there whatsoever. Now, whether the players should need motiviation is another story because that would suggest they're weak......but again, this comes back to the man who apparently 'knows what it takes to be a United player' and is 'moulding the squad as he envisages it to be'.
Either way, he's doing a shite job.
This is the thing. Why should we coy or fool Lukaku and Smalling? The former was our most consistent striker in a team whose alternative were 2 players who were more comfortable on the flanks than upfront + a 17 year old. Meanwhile Smalling was our 3rd best CB with fans asking questions on whether Lindelof is truly better then him after all. Sure there were certain characteristics in their game that made them not ideal for the game which Ole wanted us to play. However a manager should be able to adapt his game to the players he's got and not viceversa. Also having a wide array of skills at one's disposal makes the team unpredictable. Take our 2nd CL win as an example. Our ability to switch from two modern strikers who could take down players with pace and skills to a more conservative approach made up of a big man upfront (Teddy) and a goal poacher (Ole) allowed us to win the CL against Bayern. Unpredictability is necessary else you end up to what we're now ie a one trick pony team. Throughout his time Sir Alex had all sort of strikers from fast strikers (ex Coley), to the traditional tall and strong striker (Teddy, Hughes etc) right to the allrounder type of forward (Saha, Yorke, Rooney etc), the typical goal poacher (Hernandes, RVN, Ole), the hardworking beast (Tevez and Rooney in their prime) and the talented geniuses who allowed the ball to do the talking (Eric and Berba).
Ole noticed his feck up. In fact in January he went for Haaland and Ighalo who are more of a Lukaku then a Greenwood or a Martial. But that's the problem with having such inexperience at all levels at the club. Fred describes in the most political correct way possible. Ole is great person and a great coach (not manager), its a new job for him, he's a young coach, he has his ups and his downs, like every coach and every player has but he's improving". That sounds more the description of a promising intern then Manchester United's manager.
This is just so utterly spot on. Agree with every single word.
After the amazing managers we've seen fail at United it amazes me that people still think simply replacing a manager is some kind of guarantee that things will get better.
Bloody hell
United clearly need continuity and a long term plan. Not rolling the dice again on a name.
Anyone know who is statistically the worst manager we've had for 30 years?
Asking for a mate...
Asking for a mate...
Wait, that argument is still on? If world class managers failed then lets go and hire dross manager? Shall we then replace Pogba with some midfielder from division two?
Jose was a short term win at all costs machine. Good football, squad morale, long term planning were all secondary at best. But what he forgot was that for Woodward, winning was also secondary - to profit. So the one thing he wanted to do, he couldn't even manage that.
To be fair in a lucky year he could have won title second season. But there aren't many of those these days.
I feel like if we do get Pochettino then it'll be a good sign we're planning long term. It certainly feels like a better transition between managers than the shite we've had before (LVG to Mourinho, I mean ffs).
Ole's clearing out the dross in the squad while bringing up a young talented side, which Pochettino will do well with (not to mention big money behind him to achieve his vision, unlike what he had at Spurs). I doubt it'll be an immediate success but I should hope there will be signs of a well coached side in the first season.
Exactly. I really hate comments like 'you want him to fail'. Why would any United fan want to see their club fail so a manager gets sacked? There is question marks over the manager because he is not performing well enough. And given the barometer of success that so many had over Mourinho (second not being good enough), why all of a sudden does Ole get given so much more slack, especially when so far his tenure has been a lot worse. People keep acting like's he spent no money. He already spent around £180m and we sit midtable with an awful run of fixtures in the next 6 weeks. I see us being 14th by the end of that period.
And we chose the worst manager out of them all to start this "continuity and long term plan" ? I'm willing to start this "continuity and long term plan" with Poch next season.
The extents people will go to defend Ole are shocking to say the least.
Here's the thing though, lets really go through those three managers and see how 'amazing' they were:
- Moyes - I mean come on, who actually wanted David fecking Moyes to be the next manager of Manchester United. My heart absolutely sank the day he was announced and I think the majority felt that we were instantly going to go into a massive decline which we did. And also David Moyes never was and never well be an 'amazing' manager.
- LVG - Funny one this. I'm going to be honest and say that when he was announced, I wasn't overly pleased. To me, he was a former great who was in semi-retirement at international management which tends to be the route plenty of once great managers take. I can admit though that I knew next to nothing about him bar his past achievements, some controversies and reputation. I will admit that I got excited about him from reading more informed posters opinions on him, but in the end, he was a failure. Still though, he managed a top four finish and an FA Cup.
- Mourinho - Yes, Jose. Ok, feck me I was wrong on this one. This is maybe the one manager who you could class as 'amazing'. Now, when we announced we had appointed Mourinho as manager, I felt that finally we could dine out again at the top table of world football. Oh yes, I was full sure Chelsea and Madrid were the problems and not Jose. I mean, the guy had success wherever he had gone and this just felt like the right job to get the Jose of old back; you know, the charismatic, cheeky scamp that was a winner above all else. I was wrong, he was a failure and it's now pretty clear that he's a has been and he absolutely had to go. Still though, a League Cup and a EL title.
Re your second paragraph, yes we do absolutely need continuity and long term planning. But the thing is, when we hired Ole as an interim manager things looked rosy. Big bad Jose was gone, the team was performing and the soundbites coming from the club was that a DOF would be hired prior to a permanent manager at the end of the season. Finally, it looked as though the club was going in the right direction and the people at the top were going to instill some actual planning into the next managerial appointment. Then low and behold, our club being our club, makes a reactionary decision and announces Ole as permanent manager when A) Results had turned to shit and B) They could have waited until the end of the season to see what would happen. The club totally reengaged on their initial promise of a DOF prior to any managerial appointment and furthermore, in the midst of some poor results when it was clear as day that the whole 'new manager bounce' was wearing off. It was a totally bewildering decision by the club built upon nothing more than sentiment and the inability to not react in a reactionary manner.
In saying all that, the club made a massive mistake hiring Ole as permanent manager and it was just that, a mistake. That doesn't mean that that the club shouldn't rectify that mistake as it's clear as day that he isn't the right man for the job. Our past managers should have absolutely no bearing on whether or not the Board deem Ole to be not good enough or not as the fact is, all three previous managers weren't of the required quality. There are zero footballing reasons for keeping Ole as results and our playing style has massively regressed since his early tenure as caretaker. We don't play football in a modern manner and our style of play is basically built around counter attacking which negates our players actually having to play football. It's simply not good enough nor are the excuses good enough. The squad at his disposal is not a squad that should be languishing where it is, there's no excuses that excuse that or some of shit show displays against far inferior sides with far inferior players. How any fans can be happy with his tenure is absolutely beyond me, his supposed fantastic signings has been massively overstated as has his supposed genius 'clearing the deadwood'. These two rhetoric's often contradict each other, to be completely honest. As in, praise Ole for clearing out players but blame everyone else for more players not coming in. How does that even work?
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I think we suffered not solely from appointing the wrong managers but from appointing the wrong managers at the wrong time. Moyes was a huge gamble (on Fergies part) in thinking that he could just slide in and keep the juggernaut just rolling along. Once that failed its been wrong decision after wrong decision while trying to play catch up and losing.
I still think had Mou come in straight after Fergie he would have handled the pressure and got us a title in his first 2/3 years before his meltdown. (We would have got him right after madrid with a point to prove). As it happened we got him after another massive blow following Chelsea and he just hasn't been the same since.
Ideal situation would have been Mou to steady the ship and deliver a post Fergie title, then he has his 3 year meltdown and leaves (as is custom) and then we could have built for the future with a progressive coach like Poch but hey hindsight is 20 20
Yup, I should have reiterated that regarding Jose. It's why I felt he was the only one that would be a success. I wanted him above every other manager when Fergie announced his retirement and I firmly believe had he come in immediately post-Fergie, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now. Appointing Moyes was the beginning of our spiral of descent.
Its getting harder and harder to be a reasonable Ole in guy, of course the cult will prevail but I suspect a lot of posters here will change to Ole out in a month’s time.
Relegation zone. In the Championship.
Why would people class lvg and jose as a failure?
They're not the holy grail, but definitely far from failure. If ole wins what they won we'd want him manager for life.
If you argue pep and klopp cant win with this squad under this regime shouldn't mourinho second be classed as a good season?
They're not the holy grail, but definitely far from failure. If ole wins what they won we'd want him manager for life.
If you argue pep and klopp cant win with this squad under this regime shouldn't mourinho second be classed as a good season?
If we are really looking into a "rebuild" then its in our best interest that we miss out on top 4 if thats the only way we´ll actually get a good manager. Of course no fan of ManUtd will wish that but I fear if by some miracle we managed to get top 4 the board would turn a blind eye on all the evidence that suggest Ole is a terrible mistake and will insist with him which will inevitably make us drown even more.
We claim them as failures because we used to have that high standard, if a manager didnt win IMPORTANT trophies such as the premier league or UCL then it was a failure, that used to be our standard. What we are seeing with Ole is beyond ridiculous but to argue that LVG and Mourinho werent failures because they won small time trophies such as the FA Cup or the Europa League is embarrasing.
That depends. People are generally happy with Oles signings and hes got Woodward doing exactly the same for him.
Our previous managers were bad appointments, not just because they were old glories or not good enough (Moyes), but also because they were very different between them. If you're signing LVG to develop his positional play, signing Mourinho as his replacement means that you're binning two years of time, of work in a concrete direction and thousands of millions to start from zero again. It means making it more difficult for everyone because they have to dismantle the previous basis before building their own one.
So yes, the managers haven't been good enough, but the lack of structure and football knowledge at the club have made them look worse than they are. And we're yet to improve in that regard despite the permanent failures time after time, expecting that the next manager will sort it out by himself. I mean, the current board must be Liverpool fans or something, there's no other explanation at this point.
So yes, the managers haven't been good enough, but the lack of structure and football knowledge at the club have made them look worse than they are. And we're yet to improve in that regard despite the permanent failures time after time, expecting that the next manager will sort it out by himself. I mean, the current board must be Liverpool fans or something, there's no other explanation at this point.
I also find it funny how the notions of Ole as our manager and long-term planning suddenly seem synonymous, when in reality he was hired off the back of a 3-month new manager bounce, a lucky win over PSG, and a catchy song about his being at the wheel. None of that really smacks of meticulous planning, in my opinion.
Agree with this. Jose was very much the right manager at the wrong time. LVG though i feel was just wrong full stop, brought in when tyhe club were in absolute panic mode post-Moyes, throwing money at the problem.
We never fully backed Jose though, there's always some parts of our fans that finds fault in everything that he does.
Even when he's the first manager post SAF that actually tries to push our players harder, any sort of critics he has on players is deemed as Toxic, throwing them under the bus. Now we have the smiling pat on the back Ole, do we see our player improve? Pogba's still unhappy, Martials' still shit, Shaw is still useless, at least with Mourinho he tries to get something out of them. Ole just resigned to losing Pogba without a fight.
No, we're just capable of remembering the past and taking a long term view.
Our style of play was worse under all 3 previous managers.
It's debatable because it's speculation. If we'd have kept hold of Lukaku and Sanchez we might be a bit further up the league, but we'd be further away from the squad we need in order to regain our position at the summit of English football.
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Embarassing that we won trophies... Never heard that one before.
United winning a European trophy was brilliant under Mourinho because for a club our stature we always bottle it in Europe. FA Cups are never to be sniffed at either, they all count.
You must be new here, dig back a year 2nd is loser, EL is a tin mickey mouse cup.
EL was the last trophy we needed in our collection so that win was sweet. I enjoyed that season.