If you are just going to post "because Ole is shit", please dont. Well, you can, but try and put a bit more effort into it.
The point of this thread is discussing and trying to figure out why it went so incredibly wrong this season and why Ole failed so spectacularly when many thought, or at least hoped, we would make a serious push for the big prizes. Maybe i'm a fool, but i was really brimming with confidence for our upcoming season in August, finishing second last season and adding two serial winners and a very promising young player, i honestly thought this year might be it. Also going by the caf, it seems many shared that optimism, where most posters saw a good run in the CL and a proper league challenge as the bare minimum
That didnt happen though and even though the clubs leadership are a bunch of indecisive plonkers, its clear as day that Ole is done and dusted as manager here. So, back to my original query, why did it all unravel in such a spectacular fashion this season?
1) Coaching: This has been discussed to death already, and yes, its clear this is one of the issues. Ole by his own admission is little involved in the day to day coaching and neither is Phelan, so its mostly Carrick and McKenna who is responsible for the coaching sessions, alongside of course the specialist coaches like Eric Ramsey. Now, i think even the most ardent Ole fan must admit we never have looked particularly well drilled under him, especially when you compare him to the likes of Pep and Klopp, but i'd still argue we have had periods where we generally looked pretty solid
Post lockdown and until seasons end we had a league record of 9-4-0 and we actually played some good stuff with Bruno pulling the strings and MMM scoring for fun. We had a similar run last season between the start of November and the end of January where we had a record of 10-3-0 before losing to SHU at OT
Now these runs are by no means evidence that the coaching is good or even decent, but imo they still are a stark contrast to the absoloute shambles we have seen this season, especially in defense where we at times have seen like a non-league team, just a bunch of lads having a kick about in the park. Now i did read a "leak" in Manchester Evening News that some of the players found the coaching sessions "uninspiring", whether its true or not i dont know.
2) Tactics/team selection: Did Ole suffer some sort of head injury during the summer? Now i think most would agree hes not a brilliant tactician, but during him time here he has pulled some really good tactical performances and i refuse to believe you can beat Pep H2H just on luck and "vibes" and despite having a good squad you dont end up 3rd and 2nd in such a competetive league if you have zero clue on how to set up.
This season though, its been a complete farce. A barely fit Maguire gets picked vs Leichester and produces a stonewall 1/10 performance and generally our tactics have been completely laughable this season. A front four that "presses" without really attempting to win the ball, leaving our midfield and defense completely exposed. Meanwhile, said midfield and defense have taken up positions in complete no-mans land, meaning that most teams we face can cut right through us with ease.
Its been slight better in attack, but not by much, and again and again we've seen players making greedy/stupid descisions instead of making an easy pass to a team mate in much better position. Now i am no fan of LvG tactics where he essentially wanted us to walk the ball into the net, but this season we seem to have gone to the other extreme where in attack its every man for himself like its a competition between our players.
3) The players have lost faith in Ole/downed tools: Now, i am pretty sure that after the Liverpool result, many have, and it sure seemed like it based on our performance, but its not like that was the first poor performance of the season. In fact besides a few games, we generally have looked like we could not give a feck if we lost or not, with several players strolling around, not comitting in duels and 50/50's and just looking completely detached.
The thing is though, despite all of this we had a second half against Atalanta that did not at all look like a group of players that had downed tools. In fact, it was a pretty familiar sight of a group of players giving their all when the chips were down and the manager were under pressure. Now we have seen countless "news reports" the last few days that talks of player unrest. Maybe (probably) some truth to some of them, but others have been exposed to be complete BS.
4) Ronaldos lack of defensive work rate creates problems: This one i personally dont buy because unless Cavani was playing, none of our other CF options were particularly hard working in that regard
Those are the four that comes to mind. If anyone have any other theory as to why it all went to hell this season i'd like to hear them