Out of interest which managers are currently raising average players’ level?
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
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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.
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The ones I know off the top of my head are the standard German managers (as that seems to be their M.O over there), and the Atlanta manager. There have been shouts here and there but a lot don't last. Obviously Klopp is the standout.
Wilder and Nuno as well have done good work in our league, and Pochettino in the past.
This is a load of cliched nonsense I’m afraid.
That's funny because it sure looked like he got away with it today.
Nuno and Wilder play nowhere near the kind of football you’d expect at a big club. Great teams tactically, but not good to watch. I’m shocked so many people seem to view wolves as good to watch.
I think Ole did the right thing today. It wasn’t far off the team I was expecting, if the likes of Mata and Lingard didn’t play today, when would we have rested the first team. The schedule is packed.
Do you think it's not an ability? Our own Sir Alex displayed it a lot of times.
And this ability Sir Alex had, do you think Ole has it?
Cheers. I’ll have to take your word for it.
I think he started with a very unbalanced side with one or two players who need to be moved on. That’s it.
True, there are managers like that who get exposed at the biggest clubs with their tactics.
As for Ole, I don't think he can handle so many average players starting, as has been evidenced throughout the season. Not every manager is good at everything, and I think it isn't his strength. But yeah, maybe the schedule demanded it regardless.
Well obviously regularly like SAF used to.
That may be true for this game, but what about the rest of the season we've just witnessed? We've struggled in general to score goals with average players on the pitch.
That should be evidence enough, it's quite a few months of evidence.
A poor day at the office for Ole and the team today. Other than starting Pogba and benching Bruno and maybe Williams for Shaw, it was about as close to optimal team for the tie. We should have played a heck of a lot better than we did.
such a bizarre stick to try and beat Ole with.
he can improve good players, young players, and world class players - but clearly he’s training marginalises the average player and he can’t improve them. Golden analysis.
I don't think any fan wants to see a nervy performance but with regards to the number of changes made in the team, I don't think you can get away with not doing that with games on Wednesday, Saturday, and Tuesday. People really underestimate the effects and realities of rest time for players and how a lack of it can severely impact performance.
There's no need to be defensive as it's simply an observation. I understand Ole is a touchy subject.
I just think as evidenced by our season prior to Bruno, we should look to play our average players as little as possible, and under as little pressure as possible, until we can build a stacked team. IMO that's where Ole can shine best.
I don't see anything wrong with what he did today. Most of these players needed match fitness and our starters needed rest. Plus we were facing the worst side in the PL so the line up made sense.
I just think that the match highlights the horrible depth we have rather than Ole being at fault. Lingard is absolutely shit, somebody asked when last he had a good game. Mata needs to be moved on. Mctominay and Fred pairing is bad when we have most of the ball. Dalot is midtable quality at best.
I just think that the match highlights the horrible depth we have rather than Ole being at fault. Lingard is absolutely shit, somebody asked when last he had a good game. Mata needs to be moved on. Mctominay and Fred pairing is bad when we have most of the ball. Dalot is midtable quality at best.
I said he overdid it. Never said he should not have.
Quite obvious that we had a severe lack of creativity in the squad.
SAF built squads and teams that got the best out of everyone. He didn’t just take any old crock and turn him into a world beater.
he’s not going to be able to get the likes of Lingard, Mata, Perriera, Jones, Bailly playing fantastically well. Fergie was able to do it because there was an ingrained structure and culture around the club, and a great deal of stability.
I agree with the latter point about SAF; for the former, it depends on what you mean by creativity.
Creativity can come from different areas, not just CAM, depending on the team's setup. For instance Liverpool's fullbacks vs Guardiola's AM's: two different setups, same creativity.
Since Sir Alex Retired:
Joint 15th highest run now for Ole. Shame we couldn't get the clean sheet today but onwards and upwards.
He's only 3 games away from equaling Pochetinos best run with Tottenham.
Joint 15th highest run now for Ole. Shame we couldn't get the clean sheet today but onwards and upwards.
Club | Manager | Games Unbeaten | Start Date | End Date | Goals For | Goals Against | Clean Sheets | Win % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
City | Guardiola | 28 | 27.04.2017 | 03.12.2017 | 78 | 18 | 14 | 86% |
Chelsea | Jose | 23 | 04.05.2014 | 03.12.2014 | 53 | 16 | 10 | 74% |
Arsenal | Emery | 22 | 25.08.2018 | 13.12.2018 | 50 | 19 | 8 | 77% |
City | Pellegrini | 20 | 30.10.2013 | 29.01.2014 | 69 | 22 | 7 | 90% |
Liverpool | Klopp | 19 | 12.01.2019 | 26.04.2019 | 44 | 12 | 10 | 74% |
Arsenal | Wenger | 19 | 20.08.2016 | 27.11.2016 | 45 | 14 | 8 | 68% |
Liverpool | Klopp | 19 | 22.09.2019 | 14.12.2019 | 44 | 18 | 5 | 84% |
Chelsea | Sarri | 18 | 11.08.2018 | 11.11.2018 | 38 | 12 | 9 | 78% |
Chelsea | Jose | 18 | 27.01.2015 | 10.05.2015 | 25 | 12 | 8 | 61% |
Liverpool | Klopp | 18 | 28.10.2017 | 14.01.2018 | 55 | 16 | 8 | 72% |
Tottenham | Poch | 17 | 23.12.2017 | 03.03.2018 | 40 | 12 | 9 | 65% |
Manchester Utd | Jose | 17 | 06.11.2016 | 21.01.2017 | 36 | 10 | 7 | 71% |
City | Guardiola | 16 | 22.09.2018 | 04.12.2018 | 49 | 7 | 10 | 88% |
Liverpool | Klopp | 15 | 23.08.2016 | 29.11.2016 | 40 | 10 | 6 | 80% |
Liverpool | Klopp | 14 | 18.12.2019 | 15.02.2020 | 26 | 4 | 11 | 93% |
City | Guardiola | 14 | 03.02.2019 | 06.04.2019 | 38 | 7 | 9 | 93% |
Arsenal | Wenger | 14 | 12.04.2014 | 13.09.2014 | 27 | 10 | 7 | 64% |
City | Pellegrini | 14 | 08.11.2014 | 10.01.2015 | 32 | 13 | 5 | 79% |
Manchester Utd | Ole | 14 | 26.01.2020 | 27.06.2020 | 35 | 4 | 10 | 71% |
He's only 3 games away from equaling Pochetinos best run with Tottenham.
There was many terrible cup games with rotated sides under SAF.
Yeah tbh I'm not sure how managers like Fergie do it to that level, I think it's less simple than structure and culture but I don't know what it is exactly. Seems like magic at times.
But in any case I don't think Ole can get much out of these players, so unless it's absolutely necessary, I'd rather he avoided playing them. Someone said that he probably had no choice but to rotate today which is true, but I'd rather start the starters and let the average players run around after we've gotten a goal. Seeing names like Lingard on the team-sheet nowadays just guarantees poor performances and lack of goals.
exactly. so many matches that were instantly forgettable.
the Only thing that matters is getting through to the next round. When you make so many changes it always disrupts they performance - I don’t understand why people are getting their knickers in a twist about today. Aside from Maguire, Bruno and Shaw - every player likely to start against Brighton played nowhere near a full match today.
I certainly want to change my vote, been wanting to for ages.
This this this this this.
That's a very nice perspective. Like the fact that all teams tied in 14th we have the second most goals and clean sheets and tied for goals conceded.
It's been a good run, would have been better if some of those draws were wins but still much better.
Are you saying Liverpool and City’s squads were comparable to ours, when we had neither Pogba nor Bruno?
How many draws out of interest?
To many in the pl all season. 10 i think.
Youd rather win some and loss some more than that
SAF did this SO many times, even in FA cup semi finals which cost us.
Here'e the fixtures:
Worth pointing out we've played 9 away games in this run of 14 unbeaten.
| FA Cup | Away | Tranmere Rovers | 0:6 |
| EFL Cup | Away | Manchester City | 0:1 |
| Premier League | Home | Wolverhampton Wanderers | 0:0 |
| Premier League | Away | Chelsea FC | 0:2 |
| Europa League | Away | Club Brugge KV | 1:1 |
| Premier League | Home | Watford FC | 3:0 |
| Europa League | Home | Club Brugge KV | 5:0 |
| Premier League | Away | Everton FC | 1:1 |
| FA Cup | Away | Derby County | 0:3 |
| Premier League | Home | Manchester City | 2:0 |
| Europa League | Away | LASK | 0:5 |
| Premier League | Away | Tottenham Hotspur | 1:1 |
| Premier League | Home | Sheffield United | 3:0 |
| FA Cup | Away | Norwich City | 1:2 |
No, I don't recall ever saying that.
My point was that creativity can come from different areas depending on the shape of the team. When Liverpool had Coutinho he was their creative outlet, and most people thought losing him would be devastating. But Klopp changed the shape of the team to where the creativity then came from the fullbacks and they carried on. Another good example would be City using cutbacks from touchline-hugging wingers vs deeper crosses from KDB.
My point being that when we were unable to get a good AM in the window, I'd rather Ole changed the shape so we didn't have to rely on our very average AM's for creativity especially when we were struggling in midtable. I do think it's possible with the players we had at the time to have done better in terms of creating chances, and creativity in general.
Missed the nil nil. My bad ha4
Who should have been the creative outlets in our team? And bear in mind you can’t just dump that expectation on a wide forward without getting any service from deep.
Of course.
The situation is that Ole knows that he needs to rotate his options in games such as this. It’s a squad game, after all. The issue, which he will also know, is that our bench options (Lingard, Pereira; in the wrong team, Mata) are nowhere near good enough.
If Pogba and/or Bruno are injured then we’re up shit creek. Right back to square one. The people who don’t think we need another creative midfielder this summer are off their rockers.
But he did get away with it?
I'd have Pogba, Matic, and Martial as creative outlets before Lingard or Pereira. I always thought it was odd that one of those two always started in front of Pogba, especially after Pogba had that really good form as the furthest forward in a midfield 3.
After Pogba got injured, I'd sooner have Fred and Scott on either side of Matic getting forward and overloading the box on crosses, than have Lingard or Pereira there doing nothing. Martial as false 9 coming deeper, Matic as a deep playmaker, with legs in Scott and Fred. At least 4 players in the box every time a cross or cutback comes in.
Tbh, I'd do a lot of things before relying on those two to be the creative outlets for half a season. It doesn't make sense to me to rely on some of the least technical and/or composed players for that. But then again this is just me being an armchair manager.
I know I’m jumping in half way but all I see in this is more players in the box which isn’t fixing the creative aspect, who is crossing the ball? Who is playing the killer pass? We don’t have any decent wingers, we have strikers that we’ve played out wide for too long.
Pogba matic martial were being rested, this was a chance for others to come in and prove a point.
I think today just showed that we have few great players but there is finally some grit in this team
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