Could you elaborate?
United have never won every trophy so they’ve never been the ‘be-all & end-all’. Winning trophies is in the ‘DNA’ of this club.
You can win trophies & not follow the Chelsea model.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
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United have never won every trophy so they’ve never been the ‘be-all & end-all’. Winning trophies is in the ‘DNA’ of this club.
You can win trophies & not follow the Chelsea model.
There was an expectation. Moyes and Van Gaal put pay to that, and we’re still recovering from the effects. We need to stop thinking we’re still the same club that we were when Ferguson was here. That club left when he did, and we’ve been trying to get back up there ever since.
Also the reason there's no patience towards players IMO. Too many flops between 2013-2018 and now if someone doesn't hit the ground running the majority would get rid way too fast.
I personally think the club see stability as the answer to Chelsea and City. There has been too much chopping and changing since Sir Alex Ferguson retired.
I agree it remains to be seen if Ole will return the club to past glories but I just don't see the point in harboring a negative and toxic atmosphere around the club everytime points are dropped. He is here to stay and he himself knows better than anyone he has to deliver silverware. Sections of the online fanbase have become very tiresome in their constant whining.
Fair point bolded but we’re still a club outspending 99% of the footballing world full of good players.
The turnaround from Moyes & van Gaal is worse than a ship at anchor; the excuse can’t always be placed at managers far removed from their post.
This squad regardless of history/club name is full of talent; it isn’t Moyes fault we lost to Villarreal & Sevilla in embarrassing fashion.
I agree. The club is clearly backing Ole to be a longterm manager and accept he has to learn on the job, which he has done to this point. I do not see much merit in calling for him to be sacked everytime points are dropped. This is the process the club is going for. The club tried the Chelsea model between Moyes and Mourinho of sacking managers and rebuilding squads - it proved to be expensive and largely a waste of time. The decision makers at Man Utd are money men.
I don't think that will prove the answer. Stability will not achieve what genuine excellence will. SAF offered stability because of his (unmatched) excellence rather than the other way around.
The negativity and supposed toxic environment is natural. What other club has spent such obscene amounts over the past 8 years with such little to show for it (top 4+a few cups). Ole is here to stay only if he performs. If there's a consensus that he isn't capable, he will go. Pressure and criticism at the biggest clubs on the planet is normal. Nothing unique and crazy about it.
We are close to having a really good side, so we dont need four or five new players. A CM and a RB. Then we have to see how our striker performs.
Ole has been backed with good players so if we underperform, it is down to Ole i feel.
Ole has been backed with good players so if we underperform, it is down to Ole i feel.
No it’s up to Ole now of course and any failures we have now rest firmly on him. However I disagree when people say we’re Manchester United we should be winning such and such, when that hasn’t been the case for years. We’ve been trying to get back up there and acting like we’ve always been in the position to challenge isn’t really accurate.
It's funny. Before Tuchel took over at Chelsea, everyone here felt we had a better defence and attack than Chelsea. Midfield in the engine room they were ahead and number 10s we were superior. Now, supposedly we've gone back to the narrative of "we need XXXX to compete with Chelsea" despite us having spend 100 million on two excellent players and them having signed a quality 9. The difference is that the same squad of theirs is viewed in a much better light - that's what top managers do. Now Chelsea's awful defence is a strength. Their midfield and possession play is more refined and their attack, while not great prior to Lukaku, got the job done in the CL.
The bolded genuinely can’t be stated enough.
The blind optimism is commendable at best.
Just have to keep throwing money at it in the hope that signings can plug the managerial gap in class between Ole and the big three
Fair enough. All points I can either agree with or at least make enough sense even if I disagree.
But I'd still suggest the people who are vehemently Ole Out at least see out the games till Christmas, which would be a better indication of where we are as a team. We still played our last season team the first two games, and we *just* got a set piece coach who also needs time for players to implement his plans on the pitch. Once varane comes in and sancho becomes a starter, it'll be a whole different mood here, I'm sure of it.
Ole won't be sacked this season. For better or for worse, we are stuck with him no matter what the opinion of the fanbase. I have trust enough in his managerial abilities to know that we will get CL qualification at the minimum this season. But if that's all we get, then yes he should get the sack. But that still has to happen at the end of the season. Calling for his sack before that, and ridiculously 2 games in, doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
I'm not comparing Ole to SAF - but it's weird how SAF can take more than 3 years to win an FA cup upon appointment whilst Ole is expected to win the title in 3 years in an era where he is competing with AbuDhabi rich FC, Abrahomvic FC and the likes of Liverpool, Tottenham, Leicester and Arsenal as generally good clubs.
I was just reading about SAF'S history a bit and it was talking about how he wasn't winning things. Season 1986 low table but improved finish upon appointment, 87 nothing but improving the squad by signing some top quality players, 88 nothing but signing some furthermore quality players - season 89 bought some more good players & it just clicked for the first time and won things. The rest is just history. We have seen that improvement in quality happen here at United - I wonder if we are just one transfer window/couple transfers away from it clicking all of a sudden.
I was just reading about SAF'S history a bit and it was talking about how he wasn't winning things. Season 1986 low table but improved finish upon appointment, 87 nothing but improving the squad by signing some top quality players, 88 nothing but signing some furthermore quality players - season 89 bought some more good players & it just clicked for the first time and won things. The rest is just history. We have seen that improvement in quality happen here at United - I wonder if we are just one transfer window/couple transfers away from it clicking all of a sudden.
I think the frustration with many is that we clearly see an opportunity with this soft part of our schedule to create momentum and force ourselves into the title conversation. So far Chelsea and Liverpool have taken care of business yet Ole’s tactics and selection on Sunday screamed of someone who wasn’t ready to cease the moment. Again its all subjective because we don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes, but Ole isn’t helping himself. How is it that a potentially world class midfielder, highly regarded by his old club and country, played in a double pivot for both, not afforded the opportunity to get in over Matic? Ole’s treatment of VDB is borderline negligent. He deserves the start at Wolves after the woeful performance of Fred and Matic.
I think some kind of middle ground would be my preference between Chelsea and Man Utd. We are too far on the other side where every manager is given 3 years to prove their worth when it is shown repeatedly it doesn't yield the outcomes we want and the other model has been rather successful for clubs like Chelsea and Real.
Elite players need elite coach. Usually with top coaches, you see what they want to play from the very beginning and then think "wow, this looks really good, imagine what could happen if he had better players available". People call Guardiola a checkbook manager but you can be completely sure that you would immediately recognize his style even if he trained a mid table club. We'll never see it but things like positional play, runs, pressing resistance and so forth don't require world class talent and other coaches have proven that you can implement those basics regardless of the player quality. My impression from watching you play and following your transfer activities in the media is that Solskjaer is a manager, not a coach. He still understands his job as assembling a team and improving the players, not dictating the style and the tactics.
And that's only taking you so far. It will never get the best out of all the players because there's too much randomness and not enough shared purpose in the attacking patterns. If you watch Tuchel, Klopp or Guardiola teams, you see that the goal of the system is too constantly bring players into situations in which they can utilize their strengths. I don't get that feeling from watching you play. I see a team consisting of brillant individuals who play brillantly when all things align and look totally lost the other day.
As a club, you sometimes need to make unpopular and harsh decisions. Right now, there's probably no elite coaching talent available but if this changes, I believe you better not hesitate.
Very good post. You are spot on.
Dropped points to the likes of Southampton are so crucial in the end because Chelsea and Liverpool will be in monstrous form this season. Nothing less than a title race until the last 1-2 matches for me is the minimum.
The in-game management is still poor - what was Matic doing in the first half and Martial starting? Baffling. DvB not being brought on and Lingard being brought on ahead of him is perplexing.
Anyway, I just find the coaching to be odd too. Not much of a system at play. And who has improved above and beyond under him? Shaw? 100%. Other than that?
Coaches like Klopp and Conte squeeze everything out of their players and then some. I would have liked to have seen significant improvements in Fred, Lindelof, AWB and James's games but I see nothing. Coaching just isn't there. I see no Conte-Lukaku or Klopp-Salah/Mane/Robertson/VVD.
We're still lacking in a Defensive Midfielder that we crucially need. But I have a bad feeling this season could be trophyless, yet again.
The in-game management is still poor - what was Matic doing in the first half and Martial starting? Baffling. DvB not being brought on and Lingard being brought on ahead of him is perplexing.
Anyway, I just find the coaching to be odd too. Not much of a system at play. And who has improved above and beyond under him? Shaw? 100%. Other than that?
Coaches like Klopp and Conte squeeze everything out of their players and then some. I would have liked to have seen significant improvements in Fred, Lindelof, AWB and James's games but I see nothing. Coaching just isn't there. I see no Conte-Lukaku or Klopp-Salah/Mane/Robertson/VVD.
We're still lacking in a Defensive Midfielder that we crucially need. But I have a bad feeling this season could be trophyless, yet again.
He is not an elite coach and unless something drastically changes he won't become one. Having said that I also don't think people here should call him a PE teacher or a failed Cardiff manager either as I feel he has done a good job of bringing a stability to the side.
Tactically I still think he is average but I feel even with that we have seen him doing well against the likes of Pep or Tuchel.
It's true but even he wasn't above criticism and skepticism from United fans. Look at us between 2004 and 2006. We won an FA Cup and a League Cup but looked miles behind Chelsea and were way off the pace in Europe. You had half the fanbase and just about every journalist calling for SAF's head and saying he was being left behind by the likes of Mourinho, Benitez, Wenger etc. If we were following the Chelsea model then he would've been sacked in 2005 and we would never have seen the end of the rebuild where we went on to win three league titles in a row and a CL. Winning trophies is in United's DNA but our model is different to Chelsea's. Unless we end up with an owner like Abramovich it will likely never change.
It will be Fred and McTominay back in midfield for Wolves. I was very surprised by the Matic selection, playing him against a high pressing like Southampton was a big mistake. He should've gave Donny a go.
The one thing that really rattles me about him is how he talks abut being a Fergie disciple but yet is not open to bringing in more inexperienced coaching whereas Fergie was always open to the constant changes needed to keep ahead of the game
It's actually the model of almost every big clubs in the world. United's model is the one that kinda odd, with nothing to show.
I don't know about that. Is Zidane an elite coach? Is Luis Enrique an elite coach? These lads have been hyper successful because they've had great squads. I think that's the most important thing. This talk of coaches and tactics is seriously overplayed.
SAF had pedigree, United hired him and could point back to recent success at the very highest level. Same for Liverpool when they hired Klopp or Spurs when they hired Poch off the back of his So'ton work, even when you drop down to lower league teams they usually recruit from a major league. One issue every United fan (whether Ole in or out) has is we cannot point to any evidence of Ole building a team in a major European league/CL challenging team. I don't think it's worth even discussing the Cardiff stint.
More importantly, you're implying United when SAF came in were the same level as United when Ole came in...that's very far from the case. There have always been big spenders and newcomers in football, just because a club's spending looks paltry now doesn't mean it wasn't huge back in the day i.e. Blackburn, Newcastle, Leeds etc. Maybe one day we won't be able to financially compete with the oil clubs but, much due to SAF's brilliance, we still can and just look at our first XI on paper + the general squad and there's really not a huge amount in the top four. Chelsea won the title under Conte with a weaker overall squad than City, Pool did as well, both of those clubs have also won the CL in recent years...why can't we?
Yeah I agree it is overplayed. City, Chelsea etc. still have super squads so it’s not like their managers are coaching Leicester’s squad to glory.
However it also depends on the players and how much coaching they need. When Zidane and Enrique arrived at Real and Barca their teams were already serial winners so most of their players were already excellent both technically and tactically. In such a case a decent (but not necessarily great) coach and at the same time a very good man manager can carry a great team to success for a few years.
Whereas in our case we do have some relatively young players and a lot of our players (including some experienced players) are not intelligent enough tactically and positionally.
It could still work out and I hope it does, but if not then we might indeed need someone with more focus on coaching.
1. That recruitment is down to Ole though. He goes deeper in to the profile of the players he signs and not just look at what they do on the pitch. He also doesn't settle for cheap targets and will wait for the right man like he did with Sancho.
2. You can think that and that's fair enough but Ole has shown in his head to heads with these managers that he has something about him. Tuchel before he came to Chelsea would have been viewed in the Rogers bracket and Poch was seen as the heir apparent, this grass is always greener sentiment doesn't always ring true.
3. I disagree that the other teams like Chelsea and City would need first team additions to the extent that Utd do. We have a gaping hole through the whole squad in midfield. City might need a striker but considering what they had last year was good enough to win the league at a canter, I suspect they'll be just fine with Grealish coming in. Likewise, Chelsea's one big issue was goalscoring and they remedied that with Lukaku and are looking at bolstering their already strong defence with Kounde. Us on the other hand, had 3 (arguably 4 considering Cavani's off this season) gaping holes in its squad, where we essentially have had squad players or square pegs playing. We rectified two of those but the most important one hasn't been fixed. And next season we will still need for it to be resolved, along with a proper striker. The teams around us only have to add a touch here and there, like replacing Mendy as the backup LB at City while we're still trying to build our first XI
Yeah you're spot on with this
Gary Neville comparing Ole with Klopp on MNF 
Carragher has properly destroyed his argument. Neville basically standing up for his buddy . The fact is that with any other manager United would be expected to be fighting for the title . It is impossible to get a perfect squad in the league . Liverpool had Gomez & Matip as second & third choice in their season while Chelsea right now have Rudiger,Christensen etc who were considered trash before Tuchel
Yes, they're.
Clearly you didn’t watch Spain at the Euros. They ran rings around the eventual champions Italy and were incredibly exciting to watch
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So just because Jose and Van gaal failed doesn't mean we should stop hiring top managers. Just because Ole is your buddy doesn't mean you just make stupid excuses for him.
We no doubt got better at it last season as the season progressed, but on yesterday i thought the whole backline + Fred were poor in that regard as there were a lot of misplaced passes and unnecessary turnovers from pretty much all of them
I think these are the kind of comments that are the reason people (myself) included believe there will always be a constant stream of excuses and moving of goalposts when it comes to Ole. There will literally never be a time where we can fairly judge him with this logic . He will literally need a 23 man squad of hand picked, world class 50 million plus signings.
The idea that this time a year ago Chelsea just needed a centre forward would be disingenuous so why would it be the case now?
You talk about bolstering a strong defence, I don’t remember anybody raving about Chelsea’s defence last year until Tuchel came in. Christensen and Rudiger are regular starters atm. Absolutely nobody was describing these players as being part of an ‘already strong defence’.
The reason you’re saying now it is because of Thomas Tuchel, you just don’t seem to be aware of it.
I also remember talk of Chelsea needing a winger to replace Hazard. They still haven’t replaced him.
Tuchel simply utilised what he had, changed formation and now they don’t need one.
Liverpool you could easily argue need another centre back, a central midfielder to replace Wijnaldum. They’ve arguably needed a number ten for some time and Firmino is another player Liverpool could upgrade on if the funds were there. Luckily they don’t have the funds so won’t be. But it deffo isn’t a “touch here and there”.
And city “might need a striker” is one hell of an understatement. I mean I’ll fall short of feeling sorry for them but you can’t play it down like you have whilst trying to make out it’ll be a huge thing for us next summer. They literally have one senior striker in their books and essentially played without one half of last season and you’ve acknowledge they managed to win the league without it last year but again this is partly due to having a world class manager who adapted and managed without one. We have four senior players on our books capable of playing centre forward.
Id also add if you’re short a centre midfielder and striker it’s probably not a good idea to spend 45 million on an attacking midfielder who you then never use.
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That's the crazy part for me. We have a squad with Varane, Maguire, Shaw, Sancho, Cavani, Pogba, Bruno, Rashford and Greenwood then you get some guys here trying to shut us up whenever we say it's an absolute must to challenge for the title this season.
We have signed Sancho and Varane this summer but Neville is blaming the club for not signing Kane as well this summer as well. Crazy.
We do need a striker but Ole still has to do better as a manager. Just blindly hoping he turns out like Klopp is idiotic. I agree with Neville where he says why don't we let go of Mata Lingard and Martial. What is the plan in just stockpiling these players. Just get rid of them and get a quality striker.
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