This is the sort of thing that starts coming out when you lose the dressing room. Like Ole could have easily sold Matic/Donny/Lingard/Tuanzebe etc and bought a DM but we’ve hoarded players to such an extent that we have the biggest wage bill in the league again and look directionless. I think player power is a huge factor here this season. The players have stopped playing for every manager post Fergie and I want those players who stopped playing for Jose and Ole out now. I think his hands are tied though to an extent. Reckon Ronaldo was forced on him. We certainly look like we’ve no idea what to do with him anyway.
Players do not stop playing for the manager, it almost never happens. In fact, it does not happen in other professions though.
What happens though is: if there is a manager/group leader who is good at his job and innovative, he will be able to direct his underlings to do top jobs. He will give them good directions, keep them in high spirits (by providing them interesting jobs, being fair and impartial), know what job to give to what employee, and know how to help those who are struggling. Very often, this means that the team will overperform and be greater than the sum of its parts. On the other hand, a not so good manager would give confusing directions, put wrong tasks in the job (in case of football that might mean wrong training/tactics), not be impartial (some players like Maguire for example won't ever get dropped regardless of their performances, some like VDB won't ever start regardless of their performances) and essentially demoralize the team, making the team members not believe in themselves.
So, it is almost guaranteed that this is what it is happening, rather than players suddenly deciding, 'you know what, I decided to not bother today in the pitch, and will just not play good cause I do not like Ole'.
And even in the worst-case scenario when players have really decided to do so, then the real question should be how much is takes to replace those players compared to how much it takes to replace that manager. Let's assume that the cost of those (admittedly great players) is 300m, why should we replace them, take a 300m hit in order to keep an extremely underperforming (and let's face it, utterly clueless) manager in charge, when upgrading him would both cost a fraction of replacing the players, will be a clear upgrade, and will make those players play good, thus better results.
At the end of the day, United is (or at least should be) a football club with the goal of winning, not a religious cult of the manager. If you want a religious figure, and admittedly, many United fans seem to want so, it is probably better to choose Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha et al., rather than
MoyesOle, the manager.