Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion

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Samid

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These kinds of posts from you aren't at all repetitive.
My previous three posts in this thread. You're completely right. They aren't repetitive.

I totally see his point of view regarding the subs. After lockdown he simply had to do it this way or else there's no chance in hell we'd be in a position where we control our top 4 destiny before the final game. The subs simply aren't good enough. The drop off in quality is staggering the moment we try to rest even a single player.

So who do people want to see instead? We can't start the likes of Mata, Lingard, Pereira, James, Ighalo in must win Premier League games. Not one of them. We simply can't. The only players we're then left with are McTominay and Fred.

McT has had a good season on personal levels. He has played to the best of his ability but the reality is that he's a limited player. Against the calibre of opposition we've faced post lockdown he's pretty useless. Just watch some of the games from earlier in the season. He's not a DM, he doesn't have the defensive awareness. We were leaking goals while he was playing and as soon as he got injured we starting holding clean sheets. Not a coincidence. He's not a proper B2B mid either, doesn't make those driving runs, simply isn't attack minded. It's not a coincidence either that his best games have come against better opposition. We defend in bigger numbers so his defensive frailties are masked. We run around more and play with a higher energy, his best attributes. And the onus isn't on us to dominate the ball so his attacking frailties are also hidden.

Fred is a weird one. He clearly has the ability but a bit like Carrick it takes him 6-8 games to hit form. But Carrick was a nailed starter, we could afford playing him into form. Fred is nothing more than a rotational player when everyone is fit. Rotational players need to be able to slot in immediately and do a job. They need to be ready whether it's a sub appearance or they're handed a start for injury/fatigue reasons.

So no complaints from me regarding the starting lineups in the league. Has his use of subs been good enough? No but then again, look at the options. Fred got 30 mins vs Soton and we barely touched the ball after he came on. Lingard vs Palace has probably been our best sub the last month or so and he did nothing apart from running around and be... Lingard. Our bench options are simply hideous.

Only sub I feel he should have done was bring on Ighalo vs Soton for his hold up play. He did Bruno > McT but Bruno > Ighalo would have been so much better. Bypass their press by hoofing it to Ighalo, with James, Martial, Rash providing support to keep the ball in their half. Yes the Williams injury was unfortunate but we got into our shell and ultimately paid the price with two dropped points.

Where I'd say Ole got it totally wrong was the FAC game. He got caught up in several minds: 1) He speaks highly of the FAC, it's a competition he loves and wants to win. Heart says go with a strong team. 2) CL is more important, more trophy opportunities will come down the road, plus we have 48h less rest than Chelsea. Head says rest as many players as possible. 3) Don't make too many changes or else it will get sluggish like the Norwich game. In the end the approach wasn't one or the other. He made some changes

The last few games haven't been pretty but if we get over the line on Sunday it'll sure be worth it. Ole is sending a quite obvious message that he'd rather run the 11-12 best players into the ground than trust fringe players that simply aren't good enough. In the summer there needs to be serious discussions between him, Woodward and the hierarchy regarding the squad depth. Look at Chelsea's bench last night. Look at the two players they've already signed. Look at the player they're almost certainly going to sign. And then look at our bench. We're 3-4 class players short. We simply have to invest.
Yeah not really. Mourinho was throwing players under the bus in public, creating toxic rivalries between young players, and was a self-obsessed sourpuss at all times. Amongst many other things. And if you did as little as one small thing that he didn't like he'd blacklist you for the rest of his time at the club.

Ole is the complete opposite. You won't hear him say one bad word about his players in public but behind the scenes he's phasing out players that don't deserve to be here. He's not holding grudges against anyone, if you deserve to play you'll play. Matic and him had a few disagreements at the start of the season but they sorted it out like grownups should be doing.

If you look at the 18 man squad from the Everton game, 12 of those players are either already gone or aren't even trusted to play a single minute at home against West Ham. We had 5 subs last night but only used 2. Shipping all the deadwood takes time, you can't sell them all overnight. Pool still have Lallana on their books and he has been surplus to needs for quite a while now.

The difference between now and the previous 6 years is that we're seeing a definite plan. Under Ole there's a method to the madness in the transfer window. Yes Maguire was overpriced and he isn't the best CB in the world but him along with AWB have shored up the defence. We've conceded 18 fewer than last season. Maguire is 90 minutes away from becoming our first ever present outfield player for 25 years.

Bruno doesn't only improve us quality wise but his work rate and character is also great. Under the previous regimes we had back-to-back-to-back windows where we signed Fellaini, Mata and Di Maria. Three completely different players who prefer to occupy more or less the same positions on the pitch. No real plan, no background checks, just random stabs in the dark and hope something works. Gross mismanagement for so many years.

Mourinho's was a complete misfit for Manchester United. If it was up to him we'd be seeing Perisic and Willain on the flanks hoofing it to Lukaku and Feliiani in the box right now. Rashford and Martial would be tearing it up for other teams and be our versions of Salah and KDB. No one outside of the club would have even heard of Greenwood.

Players like Sancho are willing to join because they can see A) a great environment for young players (which was one of the main reasons he joined Dortmund in the first place), and B) a solid team in the making which will start challenging for trophies in due course.
Haters can take a break for a couple of weeks.
 

lysglimt

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Oh, how could I forget. The guy that got 291 minutes in the entire season, playing with the reserves and mainly out of position. Huge chance wasted, clearly not good enough. Good thing we have Lingard, Pereira and Mata that have been great for ages.
It's basically the same with Garner and Chong who played just a little bit more.
Just answer me this - Lille signs Gomes and immediately ships him out to Portugal - now why would they do that ? Maybe because he isn't physically ready to play in France (or England for that matter)
 

lysglimt

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Fergie had Rooney and Ronaldo doing press conferences. This guy has Williams. Shows how much standards have fallen.
Could be worse - at least he didn't have Sanchez, Fellaini, Schweinsteiger, Darmian or Schneiderlin
 

Yagami

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I think he deserves credit for some in-game management tonight.

Up until either the water break/half time, we were playing that annoying formation in the build-up phase that always causes us problems. This one:

Romero
Bailly Maguire Fred

Pogba


AWB Greenwood Bruno Martial Rashford Williams
Leaving Pogba alone in midfield as Fred becomes a 3rd cb and Fernandes partners Martial up front, thus making it too easy for the opposition to press us.

Thankfully, unlike against Southampton, he realised this wasn't working and changed it before it was too late, and we looked better as a result.
 

Tony247

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I am not sure how is planning to make a well oiled team of say 15-16 players when he insists on playing same 11, same formation. I can understand this season but would be interesting to watch the rotation in the coming season.
 

Wumminator

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I am not sure how is planning to make a well oiled team of say 15-16 players when he insists on playing same 11, same formation. I can understand this season but would be interesting to watch the rotation in the coming season.
The first eleven we played for so many matches in a row didn’t include Fred, Bailly, Williams or Romero. There’s 15 for ya.
 

Web of Bissaka

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The Mata sub is a well-though decision making. He's useful in breaking good organised low blocks.
As does the Lingard one if I'm being honest... tough to admit that.

That aside, is Ole aware yet the consistent glaring weaknesses of this team?
Not seeing any rumours of new attacking coach nor a change of systems... just a tryout experimentation of the same system with different players... dull.

Once the Bruno purple tap dries out, we're back to the same mess and problem of last year. Individual quality still save the day but even that will run out eventually.
 

#07

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Honestly, Ole has exceeded most of my expectations and a big part of me wanting us to finish in the top four was to guarantee his reign would continue. I am very pleased with how he's doing and, mostly, what I want from him is to start wearing glasses and chewing gum on the sidelines. :p
 

steve.crowford

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I think Ole's done a decent job this season. When you look at the absolute mess Mourinho left us in, there was serious work to be done. There was an awful lot of deadwood (Fellaini, Rojo, Jones, Mata, Sanchez, Lukaku) on massive wages to get out, and so far we're phasing them out of the squad and club quite well (it was Ole who signed on Jones and Lingard, but our squad was so thin we couldn't just get rid of everyone in one go. I really wouldn't have extended Jones given his injury issues, though).
We went from a geriatric lineup of Sanchez-Lukaku-Mata up top to the exciting trio of Rashford-Martial-Greenwood. The development of the forward players has been exceptional under Ole - we nearly lost Martial under Mourinho, Rashford was on the bench and low on confidence while Greenwood probably wouldn't have ever seen the light of day.
Obviously Bruno was a huge turning point, and one of the reasons we finished so strongly. But he was Ole's signing, someone we'd been after since last summer. Post-lockdown also aligned with almost all of our players coming back from injury (seriously, we were so unlucky with the stretches we lost Martial, Pogba and Rashford for), it wasn't just Bruno that made us a top 4 team. Last summer's transfers were decent too. AWB was badly needed and is improving going forward all the time. I know Maguire isn't popular here and definitely isn't worth £80m - he gets beaten by tricky players far too easily - but he was a big upgrade and is very robust (brilliant in the air at the back and no injuries (a rare boon in our defense)). James is out of form now but a decent squad option, possibly a long term upgrade on Lingard.
Our defense gets a lot of flak, but it is the third best in the division, conceding just three more than Liverpool's. The age of our backline is 22 - 27 - 26 -25, so I think we'll see them improve further as the seasons progress if they're held together (as Ole seems to want). Obviously De Gea's been a major issue, many goals we concede being howlers from him, and I think Henderson will be our #1 by 2021.
Going forward - our transfers this summer look massive. Sancho and Grealish would be exceptional buys. Grealish for depth would be such a massive upgrade and he has great press resistance, and a front 3 of Rashford-Martial-Sancho with Greenwood in reserve is arguably the most exciting on the planet. IMO we need a long term Matic replacement (or is Ole hoping McTominay will grow into the role?) and Ole has a big keeper call to make (I think we'll get one more year of DDG then Henderson after another loan will be our #1 from 2021).
There's a lot to still improve. Ole's in-game management is poor (we rarely recover from poor starts, and it's almost as if he's scared to make subs, they come so late) and we burn out far too easily from overplaying our best XI. But with Sancho on the way and others sure to follow, something very special seems to be building at the youngest squad in the league.
I'd give Ole a 6.5 for the season, up to 7.5 if we win the Europa. There's something very good brewing and we're improving all the time. Hopefully, with strong improvements this summer, as well as cleaning out more of the Ferguson-hangover deadwood, we can challenge for the title next season and put together a good CL run, incorporating more of our promising youth in the national cups and some league games.
DDG
AWB Maguire Lindelof Shaw
Matic Pogba
Bruno
Sancho Martial Rashford
How many teams on the planet are there with first XIs better than that?
Even if it all goes to shit next season, we start horribly, are ninth in December and Ole gets the boot, he's still built a phenomenal squad for the next manager, compared to how Mourinho left the team. Seriously - imagine having Perisic, Mata, Young, Boateng, Alderweireld, Sanchez and Lukaku in the lineup, with no Bruno or Sancho and Martial off the books altogether. I hope we never hire a manager that plays dour football again. Picking up a few tinpot cups wasn't worth spending hundreds of millions on garbage and turning the fanbase against some of our best players. Luckily, we seem to finally be moving in a long term direction.
I'll be honest, back in December/January I thought Ole was finished, I would have gladly taken Poch on then. But full credit to Ole, his signing of Bruno, development of our attackers and getting players back from injury really helped us kick on. I'm far more excited now than I ever was under Moyes/van Gaal/Mourinho. We're incredibly young (only DDG and Matic are over 30 in our XI), and I'm very excited to see where we end up.
 

Fluctuation0161

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If Woodward doesn't sign us 2-3 good players then there is little chance of us doing well next season. With the lack of rest pre season and the more condensed post COVID19 fixture list, we need a deep squad and ours is the opposite right now.
 

anant

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Think Young needs to get his ear checked. Unlikely that Ole would have said that as he hasn't given any youngster chances except Greenwood and Williams.
Am I doing this right?
 

Leonzo1

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If Ed won't get him 2-3 quality signings there is little Ole can do to better this season results. Maybe about 8-10 more points max, 3rd and a couple of semis is the best the current squad can achieve, yet you can be sure the pitchforks will be out come Christmas.
 

anant

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Bastard white text :lol:
I remember some user had posted some stats and pointed that Ole hasn't given chances to youth. Don't remember who it was else would have quoted that post here
 

Berbasbullet

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I’m sure there was a debate here about how Young wanted to go and he wasn’t trusting youth.
 

Foxbatt

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We should get Jordi Cruijff as DOF but Woodward would never do that. He has played for big clubs and dealt with big egos. Let Ole coach the side so even if we get another manager the team plays the same way.
I still don't think Ole is the man to win us trophies. I will be most happy to be wrong. You look at the way the top teams play. They move the ball so quickly. Their set pieces are practiced. They know how and when to press.
It does help to have a great set up.
 

#07

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Only coach to take an English team to a European semi final this year.
 

Gandalf Greyhame

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Lot of time left, but he needs support from the board in terms of signings to improve this team. Looking at the insanely hectic schedule for next season, going into a new season with the squad depth we currently have is going to be disastrous.
 

Foxbatt

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I remember a banner I think it's was against West Ham in the old days saying " we will have Whiteside on his backside".
 

Yagami

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I don't think we'll ever see us playing progressive football that allows us to inflict our game on the opposition regardless of their ability under him.

He either doesn't want to or can't. It's counter attack or bust. For that reason, I would prefer another manager. Flick has come in and transformed Bayern in no time. We're nearly two years in still relying on individuals and penalties, and still unable to press as a team and keep possession against good teams.
 

UnofficialDevil

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I'm not anti Scottish, I just wanted Moyes out.
I don't think we'll ever see us playing progressive football that allows us to inflict our game on the opposition regardless of their ability under him.

He either doesn't want to or can't. It's counter attack or bust. For that reason, I would prefer another manager. Flick has come in and transformed Bayern in no time. We're nearly two years in still relying on individuals and penalties, and still unable to press as a team and keep possession against good teams.
Agree 100%
 

UNITED ACADEMY

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I don't think we'll ever see us playing progressive football that allows us to inflict our game on the opposition regardless of their ability under him.

He either doesn't want to or can't. It's counter attack or bust. For that reason, I would prefer another manager. Flick has come in and transformed Bayern in no time. We're nearly two years in still relying on individuals and penalties, and still unable to press as a team and keep possession against good teams.
Whether he's the right man or no, our manager only had 1 summer transfer window to fix 6 years problem. Your comparison is ridiculous. Flick has world class squad, top starting XI with solid bench, what does Ole have?

Today we dominated the game against a team of CL level. 20 shots in total with 7 on target while they only had 9 shots with 3 on target, DDG wasn't busy and did nothing and we pressed very well today so I don't know what game you were watching. We had lot of chances to take 2-1 lead but we didn't take it.

Rashford & Greenwood are still young and that's why they are often making wrong decision in the game which is why we need better bench option like Coman & Coutinho quality at least so the manager can make the impact sub. If you want to compare Ole & Flick, do it when we have the same quality of squad as Bayern.
 

AltiUn

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I don't think we'll ever see us playing progressive football that allows us to inflict our game on the opposition regardless of their ability under him.

He either doesn't want to or can't. It's counter attack or bust. For that reason, I would prefer another manager. Flick has come in and transformed Bayern in no time. We're nearly two years in still relying on individuals and penalties, and still unable to press as a team and keep possession against good teams.
Flick has some of the best players in the world at his disposal including the unquestionable best striker on the planet, they have a wealth of talent in pretty much every position. Kovac had them massively underperforming, Flick's done a fine job but it's not like he's taken over a group of plucky underdogs.
 

Yagami

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Whether he's the right man or no, our manager only had 1 summer transfer window to fix 6 years problem. Your comparison is ridiculous. Flick has world class squad, top starting XI with solid bench, what does Ole have?
What does Ole have? One of the most expensive teams in world football.
Today we dominated the game against a team of CL level. 20 shots in total with 7 on target while they only had 9 shots with 3 on target, DDG wasn't busy and did nothing and we pressed very well today so I don't know what game you were watching.
I don't think we dominated at all. There were periods where we couldn't get out of our half.

I don't know how you could think we pressed well. It's so disjointed and easy to play through. We only press as individuals; not as a team.
We had lot of chances to take 2-1 lead but we didn't take it. Rashford & Greenwood are still young and that's why they are often making wrong decision in the game which is why we need better bench option like Coman & Coutinho quality at least so the manager can make the impact sub.
We had a sub that won us the game just one match ago. The fact that Ole waited so long was silly when we all saw the impact Mata had for us so recently.
 

GDaly95

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What a season he's had. Basically impossible to finish higher in the league.

He had injuries, he wasn't properly backed until Jan, he developed youth as well as existing first team players.

Immense effort. Can't wait for next season.
 

Yagami

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Flick has some of the best players in the world at his disposal including the unquestionable best striker on the planet, they have a wealth of talent in pretty much every position. Kovac had them massively underperforming, Flick's done a fine job but it's not like he's taken over a group of plucky underdogs.
It's just a recent example. If you're a good coach, you can coach a team to play your style relatively soon. Pochettino had Southampton become one of the best footballing sides in the league as soon as he took over, and got Spurs playing his way in no time, too.
 
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