It’s a race to the bottom amongst some fans. . .
Minimum Bar for Continuity in Ole's Third Full Season
- Thread starter Raveneye
- Start date
Thank you for the deep dive, I found it fascinating! And I agree on the season expectations too.
If we were judging an individual season in isolation I would agree that finishing in the top four should be enough for a manager to keep his job.
As another in a line of trophy-less seasons though? At some point the minimum expectation for the manager to keep his job has to be that we actually challenge for major titles in the upcoming year. Otherwise we could go on for years finishing in the top four and not challenging, with the manager not getting sacked because he has technically hit the single-season minimum expectation each time while the overarching expectations go unmet.
Obviously Pep wouldn't lose his job for not challenging, as for him this season would be viewed in the context of previous successful seasons. Ditto Klopp last year. Solskjaer doesn't have that credit in the bank so there's more for him to prove. Eventually we have to reach a point where Solskjaer either wins something or is gone.
As another in a line of trophy-less seasons though? At some point the minimum expectation for the manager to keep his job has to be that we actually challenge for major titles in the upcoming year. Otherwise we could go on for years finishing in the top four and not challenging, with the manager not getting sacked because he has technically hit the single-season minimum expectation each time while the overarching expectations go unmet.
Obviously Pep wouldn't lose his job for not challenging, as for him this season would be viewed in the context of previous successful seasons. Ditto Klopp last year. Solskjaer doesn't have that credit in the bank so there's more for him to prove. Eventually we have to reach a point where Solskjaer either wins something or is gone.
Title challenge until at least March, finishing 2nd with CL QF, or a close 3rd with CL SF please.
Don't care about winning a tin pot cup, although the FA cup would be nice.
Don't care about winning a tin pot cup, although the FA cup would be nice.
That sounds like a very reasonable standard.
(if you add a little leeway for the cup competitions in terms of whether you draw a strong team early and then lose narrowly etc.)
But most people are talking about a credible title challenge, not necessarily about winning it. Liverpool challenged City for the title in 18/19 and finished second only one point behind a City side that amassed 98 points. This City isn't superior to that one at all, let alone 'infinitely' so it shouldn't be impossible to challenge them.
Having said that, I still think the bare minimum should be 80+ points in the league, regardless of what that gets us. Consistently good performances are the only reliable indicators of quality and progress.
Ole has used money. But so is City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. It’s an ultra competitive league where nothing is guaranteed. Plenty of clubs have high ambitions. Under the so called top teams there are very good clubs like Leicester, Spurs, Everton and Aston Villa. All of them ambitious.
Yes, the bar should be set high for a manager of Manchester United. But it’s foolish forgetting this is the most competitive league I remember in the 25 plus years I have watched. On top of that City that already have the best team are making very, very good signings.
I understand how difficult the league is. All i am saying is that it's the same for all managers and teams. United's team is good enough to win the title in the coming season. We now has one of the best defense in the league, a very good midfield (average DM i know and we will probably address that area as well in this window) with the best or second best creative midfielder in Bruno and a terrific attacking line with many options.
Now it's up to the players and the managers. No more excuses for Ole to set up the team to defend and counter attack from now on, we MUST play good football and also should at least challenge for the league & CL and win one of them. Top 4 without at least challenging for the league is a failure for next season and Ole should be replaced with someone better in that case.
No more excuses and special treatments.
The OP said the following ''The absolute minimum if you were in charge of hiring and firing for you to keep Ole for another season. Go.'' He is asking for my minimum, not the clubs minimum, and I have given that.
And it's mad. Glad we've cleared that up.
A Trophy AND
Good run in the CL (Semi final) AND
Top 3 in the League
Good run in the CL (Semi final) AND
Top 3 in the League
Expecting the manager of Manchester United to show progress and deliver a trophy after 3 and a half seasons in the job and spending a fortune is apparently mad. The spending power and strength of our rivals will be the same 1 year from now, 2 years from now, 3 years from now. It is not going to change. If Ole can not elevate us to that level like Klopp did for Liverpool then he is not the man. Ole needs to prove that he is a special manager, like Pep, Klopp and Tuchel are. If he is just an ordinary manager who cannot elevate the team beyond it's individual parts then he is not the man.
By a distance is definitely a stretch. Ederson last season got found out more than once, they have very good CBs like we do. I'd have Shaw any day of the week over Zinchenko or Mendy, AWB over Walker although probably not over Cancelo.
Rodri is still capable of the odd brain farts like our own DMs, Fernandinho is 36, De Bryune is the obvious stand out but then again so is Bruno and it's possible B Silva is on his way. I'll give you Gundogan although only playing in a more forward role because when Pep plays him further back he's more a liability than anything else.
Foden is a great player but then again so is Rashford. Sterling on last seasons form wouldn't get into our first 11 and would you take Jesus? Mahrez I like as a player but he's very hot and cold and that leaves Grealish who we still don't know will be the automatic success many think he'll be as we've found out over the years ourselbes that great players in one team don't translate that form in another.
If you had of said the biggest standout at their club is their manager then I'd agree even though he's capable of his own brain farts but their squad being light years ahead of ours couldn't be further from the truth.
Never happy with United not challenging for the title. We should always demand this.
However, with the squad that Ole has, top 4 and get out of CL group should see him stay in a job.
We need to sign a right back, a central midfielder and a striker to really challenge. Our goalkeeping is probably a bit off the required standard too. So we are at least two good windows away from a genuine challenge.
Laughing at the lads setting minimum points targets. Some seasons 85 points puts you in the race, other seasons it leaves you as an also ran. It really depends on the strength of the teams in the bottom half of the table relative to the top teams.
However, with the squad that Ole has, top 4 and get out of CL group should see him stay in a job.
We need to sign a right back, a central midfielder and a striker to really challenge. Our goalkeeping is probably a bit off the required standard too. So we are at least two good windows away from a genuine challenge.
Laughing at the lads setting minimum points targets. Some seasons 85 points puts you in the race, other seasons it leaves you as an also ran. It really depends on the strength of the teams in the bottom half of the table relative to the top teams.
The minimum for me is for us to still be in the title race until the last three games of the season at least. I don't really care about the cups although it would be a huge failure to end up in Europa again.
Points totals are the ONLY sensible way of setting a target in the league because you don't have control over what other teams do.
Over the last 10 years, here are the average points totals for the first three positions in the league:
1st: 90.8 points
2nd: 82 points
3rd: 73.4 points
My minimum expectation, 80+ points, would have seen us in first or second in nine out of ten seasons. Only once, in 2014, did the third-placed team get over 80 points (Chelsea with 82). An 85 point season would have been a respectable title challenge in six of the last ten seasons.
Similarly, not even getting to 80 points after three and a half years in charge (with €400m spent) indicates you're unlikely to ever win the league. The last time a team won with 70-something points was in... 1999, twenty-two years ago. So if even that modest target is beyond Solskjaer (barring a freakish injury crisis, of course) then we should absolutely part ways because that would mean we're going nowhere.
We have shown progress and were a penalty shootout away from silverware last season.
I don't even really disagree with most of that post and have my own reservations about Ole being the man to make us take that next step, but in the context of a minimum bar for keeping his job, being in contention for the treble (which is what the poster I initially responded to was calling for) is an insanely high bar and frankly ludicrous. This is what I've been calling mad.
If you want to say "win a cup" that's fine, but I just don't think it's necessarily fair given the level of competition you can face. The league is what he'll be judged on, and if we start slipping backwards his job will rightly be under threat.
Ok, so if we get 79 points and finish second, what then?
I'd look for a new manager, unless we win the Champions League or at least get to the final. That's simply a poor performance after three and a half years in charge, it indicates insufficient progress after spending €400m.
Again, all this obviously hinges on a reasonable amount of injuries. If we lose Bruno, Shaw, and Sancho for 8 months each, for example, then obviously I'd view top 4 as a remarkable achievement.
And what if we finish 2nd on 79 points and 1st finishes on 80?
What if we get knocked out of the CL by PSG in the last 16 who go on to win the thing?
Constant steady improvement of the squad....Good style of play for the entire course of the season....Finishing in the top 2 again with a trophy....This would be my expectation.
Proper title challenge, more improvement.
Tbh I'm more than happy with Ole. Unless wee look total trunks, I'd be happy if we scoring plenty of goals, and holding our own in the bigger matches which we have been doing.
At same time, I think we are going to win the league this season, bookmark it
Tbh I'm more than happy with Ole. Unless wee look total trunks, I'd be happy if we scoring plenty of goals, and holding our own in the bigger matches which we have been doing.
At same time, I think we are going to win the league this season, bookmark it
And if we get 81 points but finish 5th, by your thinking that’s OK??
Anyone can change their perspective with certain condition. 81 points is basically guaranteed top 4 for sure because I don't see Arsenal, Spurs, Leicester, West Ham, Leeds are capable to achieve 80 points this season with the squad they have. When was the last and first time a team finished 5th with 81 points or plus?
That never, ever happened in the history of the league. Seriously. It's that outlandish.
If it's a freak season like that, I'll reevaluate. But it's much more likely to be a normal season.
I'd still look for a new manager in this hypothetical scenario. If you think about it, it'd be pretty damning: we signed Varane and Sancho only to not be able to beat a team that got only 80 points, the lowest total for a winner since 2011 (when, incidentally, the runners-up did sack their manager afterwards). That's an absolutely massive missed opportunity. Would City, for example, likely to be that bad again any time soon?
As with a lot of the posts in here, I don't disagree with the sentiment, but I would argue that an obvious replacement would need to be available, and I'm not sure who that would be.
It's all well and good calling for Ole's head, but there needs to be a proper plan for replacing him.
At least 80-85 points, if we are really going to challenge for the title we need a team capable of getting 90+ points.
Yeah, I agree with that. I very much hope the club does keep tabs on great and potentially great managers, much like they must do on players. Trusting the incumbent is all well and good but we should always have plans. The club must always have a vision of the type of manager they want, and look for those.
And if the only option is, I don't know, Roy Hodgson, then obviously an underwhelming but consistent manager is better. But if there's some hot young thing on the market who fits our vision? Go for them instead.
I’d assert that OgS wasn’t ‘an obvious replacement’ when he replaced his incumbent.
That’s not me saying sack him & have no alternatives lined up but his replacement [should we need one] may be employed elsewhere so waiting for a Pep, Klopp or Tuchel to be out of work could leave us in a spiral where we don’t move on because there’s no ‘obvious replacement available’.
No offence but neither you nor I are working on the day to day running of the club so the fact we can’t name his a prospective replacement isn’t relevant. Succession planning should be at the forefront of the businesses mind.
If at some point during his tenure he is deemed to not be performing, keeping him around because it’s ‘better the devil you know’ would be a terrible idea. All this said, I think this team will go places this season so hopefully this isn’t a discussion for some time to come.
This thread makes me happy that fans don't get a say in hiring and firing managers.
Yeah, bring on the post Wenger years. They're good
A points total isn't really a bad way to gauge how Ole is doing. The league is still basically made up of, 10 teams we should beat twice, a few teams we'll struggle to beat away, and the top teams. This year we should be setting our sights at the below minimum targets.
1. Win 17/20 against the bottom 10. With the quality available to us now we should be dominating these boys.
2. Win 5/8 against 7th to 10th. We should still come out on top more often against the best of the rest.
3. Win 4/10 against the top 6. Usually a lot of draws in these games but this year we should look to win 4 of the big games.
That would lead us to 78 points. Adding draws would bring us up into the mid to high 80s
Regardless of what other teams do if we hit the above targets, it'll be another year of progression.
1. Win 17/20 against the bottom 10. With the quality available to us now we should be dominating these boys.
2. Win 5/8 against 7th to 10th. We should still come out on top more often against the best of the rest.
3. Win 4/10 against the top 6. Usually a lot of draws in these games but this year we should look to win 4 of the big games.
That would lead us to 78 points. Adding draws would bring us up into the mid to high 80s
Regardless of what other teams do if we hit the above targets, it'll be another year of progression.
You think the fans would do worse than Moyes - LVG - Mourinho - Ole?
Probably a fair assessment and for me regardless of what other teams do is key. A lot of people seem to think points don't matter and bring freakish scenarios in as a counter argument. I can't understand how points don't make a good metric at the end of the season. We win more games than last season with less loses and it's obvious our points tally is going to be higher which is where your regardless of other teams comment is all important. We concentrate on ourselves, get 4 or 5 more wins than last sesson which as you say will bring us to mid/high 80s and I'll see it as a successful season in the league.
Absolutely. What makes you think a fan knows more than professionals about football beyond playing FM?
Look, Leicester won the league in 2016 with 80 points because it was an open, competitive competition. That’s why points targets are nonsense.
Every season is different in terms of attrition and competition and a league winner on 80 points is no less a winner than a winner with 100 points.
Annoyingly, due to City and Chelsea - a top 4 finish, QF of the CL. I can’t be excited for winning the LC/FA.
I couldn't agree more.
In any case, we can argue about the minimum requirements for Ole to keep his job until we're blue in the face, but the fact is if we finish inside the top four, he'll keep his job without question. The Glazers and Woody have been clear on that front.
