What went wrong this year for Ole?

[GoldanoGraham]

The bottom line is Manchester United shit the bed when they thought Ronaldo was going to join Man City.

They prevented that - but at what price?*

Now, there are people on here who won't agree, there are people on here who follow Ronaldo with a sort of religious fervor because of the player he became and because of where he started out (I know he came from Sporting Lisbon in 2003 - but you know what I mean). But the fact is - my son was born in 2003 & he isn't a boy now, he's a man - that is how much time has past. Ronaldo is too old, too expensive and too fecking arrogant and he never should have been re-signed.

I sometimes wonder if City never really wanted him in the summer, but they just started a rumour to see what would happen and Man Utd. fell for it hook, line and sinker. The noisy neighbours must be laughing their heads off.

And don't get me started on what has happened today - an interim manager until they get an interim manager, what a joke.

*(and I don't just mean £2 million a month).

Spot on - panic set in when it was rumoured that Ronaldo might go to City - but like the recent fuel crisis - all made up probably by Mendes to make Utd react and panic - this signing was based on a commercial decision rather than a footballing one…….it’s no coincidence that our performances have nose dived since as this was never ever in the seasons planning…..I mean wtf have we signed and done with Sancho? Cavani was awesome last season (albeit) when fit - now we have an ever present that has been shoe-horned into the team at what cost?

 

[skc_18]

Many factors but main one is the players letting him down and not giving more than 100 percent. We had a very easy fixtures at the start and if we had a good start probably things would have been different.
His main mistake was relying on those same players even when we did not get the results. Also underestimating fatigue. His preferred 11 played most of the matches last season , and they were on the Euros and now this season playing most of the games. He should have rotated especially the midfield.
I hoped he would have started VDB vs Watford , but he didn’t. So I don’t think anything would have changed even if we gave blank cheque in January and sacking was a right decision. Because tactics and coaching were wrong. Just Baffled why club did not do over the break.

 

[Mick1]

I think the Cristiano deal ended Solskjaer's career here. Fact is, we don't have the playstyle, personel or tactical set up to allow for a passenger, especially from a defensive point of view, lose support in midfield in the buildup and just playing a more counter attacking style ( Ole's forte ). Also we have a player that covers less than half what other players in his position cover, without a team capable of covering for this. Fact is, pressing turned out to be important.

I knew the moment Ronaldo was announced that Ole would not last, and any incoming manager will suffer because of it. I loved him coming here, but I thought it was with the understanding that he is 37 and will be rotated in and out of the team. No matter how many goals he will score, having Ronaldo on means we will get outworked every single game, and the stats with him vs w/o him in the team proves that.

Team isn't good/dominant enough for a passenger, the league's overall pace and the goal output will pay for itself in loss of battles all around the pitch due to being outworked.
I genuinely don't think Ronaldo would start often for City or Liverpool, maybe even Chelsea, because the tacticle drawbacks of having one of the least defensively responsible players of this generation ( possibly 2nd after Messi ) are too heavy. A 37 year old GOAT is still 37.

Hope we get a caretaker for the season. The Ronaldo issue is Nuclear and I wouldnt want a permanent manager to have to tip toe around this. I think the season is not salvageable.

Fergie coming out and saying Ronaldo has to start ended any fighting chance Ole had. Think he d have finished the season otherwise.

 

[Reapersoul20]

Combination of a few things.

- Ole also did not punish mistakes and rotate the team often enough. This may be the most significant factor in his downfall. Players like Shaw and Maguire have been under-performing for months now. They both should have been dropped for their perfectly adequate and available replacements. The reason Shaw did well last year was because he was worried Telles was coming into steal his spot. Right now, Telles deserves that spot. Out of form players were played in every game, unnecessarily because Ole didn't have the balls to rotate.

- Trying to transition the team from a counter-attacking unit into the more in-vogue high-press, high-defensive line kind of team. Last year, people criticized we couldn't break down deep-lying teams who sat back and absorbed our attack, so the change did need to happen. It didn't work though and It's the reason 'pool cunted us 5-0. The players weren't drilled well enough in this. After the 'pool loss, we reverted to the defensive approach vs City and the players just looked lost.

- Related to the above, McKenna taking over from Phelan running training/as head coach looks to (a) have caused the players to lose respect and question the training (fully understandable - a 27yr old pontificating to Ronaldo about football? Come on) and (b) didn't work as the new system they tried to play was implemented very poorly.

- Also, CR7 coming in late and unexpected probably threw off Ole's plans, and harmed the integration of Sancho. I think it's very incorrect assessment to say that Ronaldo cannot work in this system or weakens the team at all. Even in a high-press team, one player can easily afford to take it easy as long as it's done intelligently. The object of high-press doesn't need to be to win the ball back high up the pitch, but to force mistakes from the opponent high up the pitch. This is an important distinction to make. You don't need to be Tevez or Rooney, chasing down defenders throats. You just need to side-step intelligently to stop a defender making an easy pass. All of this is related to the above two points. Could work; poorly coached; didn't.

 

[Mr. Ant]

Since he didn't do much coaching himself if at all I think the lack of quality coaches around him finally caught up to him.

He couldn't incorporate players like VDB, Sancho and Ronaldo as great as he is brings his own tactical dilemmas.

When Cavani played last season we had better balance in the team.

Also I think our coaches tried to change our defensive game this season and as we all saw it failed massively.

That alone could have been the most decisive factor why it all went wrong this season.

Last season we weren't great but our defence was good enough and we scored just enough as well. So basically the whole tactical plan when to shit.

Hopefully the club will find someone who will know how to fix our defence as soon as possible. Even if we don't create much Ronaldo doesn't need many chances to score goals.

 

[skc_18]

Spot on - panic set in when it was rumoured that Ronaldo might go to City - but like the recent fuel crisis - all made up probably by Mendes to make Utd react and panic - this signing was based on a commercial decision rather than a footballing one…….it’s no coincidence that our performances have nose dived since as this was never ever in the seasons planning…..I mean wtf have we signed and done with Sancho? Cavani was awesome last season (albeit) when fit - now we have an ever present that has been shoe-horned into the team at what cost?

I really can’t understand this criticism. For last two seasons we complained we did not have no.9 and moaned that our forwards drop back. Now we have a very good no.9 who is excellent in finishing and really a fox in the box. And now we want a forward who can do everything. There is no one in the market by the way. Our problems are nothing to do with Ronaldo they were there last season too and we did not get exposed because other teams played bad. He is better than Martial , Rashford , does not get injured and always available.
There are always two opponent CBs marking him so it’s really other 10 of our players vs 9 of theirs. And our 10 are not playing good enough.

 

[the_cliff]

For me what went wrong with Ole is ironically the same as what saved him his job in the first place. Bruno Fernandes.

Bruno Fernandes has a detrimental effect on our midfield. The reason why last season we were a lot better is Fred having a worldie and Cavani's movement, whenever Bruno was out of position Cavani would always make sure to support our midfield. The gaps Bruno creates and having not one (like last season) but 2 (Ronaldo and him) players practically non-existent in supporting our midfield is the main reason we look so open. Now I would assume that maybe it's Ole's instructions but seeing Bruno for Portugal and how the manager always drops him for another midfielder whenever they play a team that's ranked 30 by FIFA or above shows it's probably just Bruno.

We would've been a lot more solid with a midfield 3 of DVB-Matic-Fred, I'm actually very surprised Ole didn't try it as a 4-3-3 with that midfield and DVB as the more attack minded midfielder could potentially work really well. I do however, understand why Ole persisted with Bruno, he did save him his job in 2019-2020.

I think many of our fans will be shocked when a new manager comes in and completely removes Bruno from our midfield. I'm not saying Bruno won't play as he could potentially play as a False 9 or as a creative left sided/right sided attacker. As part of a midfield however, I'm quite sceptical, his ball retention and positioning is terrible. Ten Hag and Zidane for example would find it hard fitting Bruno in unless he changes his whole game and listens to instructions.

 

[Artimities]

Fine lines. Ole started with a fire and it sparked the team early on. The fired slowly burnt out over the last 2 1/2 years.
We gave up early goals consistently and that is on the manager not firing the team up any more. I love the guy… but it takes an elite mind to work elite players.

look at Conte today. When is the last time you have seen ole do that?

 

[Dominos]

1. He allowed the squad to get too big in certain areas which means he can't give players any game time which caused unrest in the camp
2. Refusal to drop underperforming players caused unrest for those on the bench
3. Increased expectations in the squad to win the league with the new star signings means poor results and performances have players looking to the manager to blame
4. Years of poor coaching finally catching up with us, the players recognising that the coaching standard may have been enough to scrape the bare minimum in previous seasons, but to win the league it takes a lot more.
5. Ole's attempts to switch to a more adventurous play style earlier in the season with players higher up the pitch despite not having any idea how to coach that way of playing, and the players recognising his tactical failings resulted in them losing faith in him.

 

[lex talionis]

Many others have said this, but I’ll say it again:

Ole refused to hold his players accountable for poor performances.

There’s a lot more, such as poor tactical planning and in game management, but at the end of the day it was his over-reliance on Bruno, McFred and Maguire even when they’ve been on poor runs of form that did him in more than anything else.

 

[Dahmmy]

Many others have said this, but I’ll say it again:

Ole refused to hold his players accountable for poor performances.

There’s a lot more, such as poor tactical planning and in game management, but at the end of the day it was his over-reliance on Bruno, McFred and Maguire even when they’ve been on poor runs of form that did him in more than anything else.

for whatever reason, he didnt have the sense to rotate players... like sticking with greenwood, greenwood as good as he can be is still young..integrate sancho into the team
rightback use Dalot
left back use Telles..
stop playing McFred, give VDB a few games..
for Strikers give one half to Caviani one half to Ronaldo etc....etc

he just didnt see it... love the guy but hes not a Elite manager..
and at the end it took the players who came out and said, Ole doesnt know what hes doing... hurts but true.

 

[largelyworried]

Simple really, he never got the basics right. We were never competent in possession, can't play from the back, never had a consistent press, always vulnerable to opposition press, poor at set pieces and never had a plan for how to break down teams. All problems of coaching, either in the the plan or the execution.

He just relied on individual talent to make up the gap and stacked the squad with it instead of properly coaching the team. When the individual talent fell short, confidence dropped and it it became harder and harder for players to find those individual moments. A classic doom spiral. At that point we had nothing to fall back on, no method, no structure, no plan. Just hoping for more moments.

We've struggled for several spells under Ole, but this time it combined with a rough run of fixtures, and defeats begat defeats. Then it just became a simple crisis of confidence that can hit any team.

 

[Acheron]

He was always a mediocre manager so nothing changed in that regard, but at some time he needed to show real progress which never happened. I also think the team benefitted from playing in empty stadiums and rivals where all over the place, but now Chelsea and Liverpool got their shit together. So yeah, nothing really changed regarding Ole, ha wasn't going to turn into a good manager all of a sudden.

 

[GoldanoGraham]

I really can’t understand this criticism. For last two seasons we complained we did not have no.9 and moaned that our forwards drop back. Now we have a very good no.9 who is excellent in finishing and really a fox in the box. And now we want a forward who can do everything. There is no one in the market by the way. Our problems are nothing to do with Ronaldo they were there last season too and we did not get exposed because other teams played bad. He is better than Martial , Rashford , does not get injured and always available.
There are always two opponent CBs marking him so it’s really other 10 of our players vs 9 of theirs. And our 10 are not playing good enough.

No - our problems for many years was that we had zero penetration down the right - we’ve a terrible RB for forward play and we finally signed the player that would enable us that right sided penetration to aid our forwards better - and then out of nowhere we sign Ronaldo that was never in the planning. I’m not saying Ronaldo is a bad player but he was a bad signing for Ole…..a player that was too big for him to manage and someone that required a change to the team setup that Ole had planned for this season

there is a big difference in saying that Ronaldo changed the dynamic for Ole’s plans and saying Ronaldo isn’t a good player….

That’s not to say that the next manager won’t get a tune out of these players but Ole wasn’t strong enough to deal with this change in dynamic in the dressing room…..

 

[AshRK]

I feel he never had a clue on how to use Ronaldo. It was more of a luxury signing.

 

[captaincantona]

I’m happy to put my neck on the line...Bruno’s advanced role this season is definitely more advanced than ever before. This has made our midfield easier to play through. Same players in midfield last season and their performances seem quite similar to me. So the issue has been Bruno’s more advanced role. It’s too pronounced to be poor positioning or just to be down to being undisciplined. He is undisciplined by nature but not this extent and if it wasn’t intentional then even Ole would have reeled him in a bit...but even at Watford he was too advanced...so the question is why?

As far as I am concerned it’s simple...it is to try and provide support for Ronaldo (we know he needs a strike partner) and to cover for Ronaldos lack of contribution out of possession.

I don’t care who jumps on me...that’s what I see happening...when a more mobile striker plays we see Bruno deeper and arriving late. The midfield is still an issue but we just didn’t see Bruno running beyond Cavani or Greenwood as much last season. IMO that’s why we are weaker.

The answer is either change formation permanently to get the best out of Ronaldo or bench Ronaldo and use him more sparingly...I would go for the latter with Greenwood at 9 and Rashford and Sancho either side. It’s not that Ronaldo is the problem...its how we need to play to get back to being at least a solid defensive unit.

Ronaldo fans...back off...it’s just my opinion.

 

[Someone]

Overall I think a clear lack of foresight was his downfall:

1. He bought Sancho for a specific position and ended up being a luxury signing, since he wanted Greenwood on the right.
2. He bought Ronaldo even though he was never in his plans
3. He kept players that he never had the intention of playing, and promised them they'll have plenty of chances.
4. He only seemed to trust certain players no matter how bad they performed, and never trusted the players on the bench to make any impact.
5. He neglected to address our midfield in the summer.
6. Tactically he was found out big time

All in all I think the above created a very unbalanced and unhappy squad. Poor performances would have no consequences for certain players, while for others 1 poor game and you're never to be seen again. I find it amazing that in the past month he kept playing all the poor performers over and over again while expecting difference results. Ole was too naive and a lot of players on the team have let him down big time.

 

[AFC NimbleThumb]

Should have gone after Sevilla. Nothing actually changed, the excuses simply ran out.

I don’t blame him because we saw in previous seasons he was never going to be good enough, the constant reasoning of each failure is a club wide issue.

He failed himself as much as the club & really blew a great opportunity.

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

The signing of Ronaldo, all went gradually downhill from that point onwards. Structures fell apart.

 

[Member 101269]

What went wrong? Increasing divergence from knowledge of other managers through players and views of Oles strategic and player management limitations, along with an amount of luck which should never be relied upon.

 

[Wing Attack Plan R]

What went wrong was the other managers worked out that Ole had no plan if teams got up in our faces, if they pressed Fred or Maguire we were bound to cough up the ball or an easy chance on goal, that our back line couldn't handle crosses, that we had no attack up the wing, and our game plan consisted of relying on individual magic.

Beyond that, Ole could not affect anything in game if things needed changing. He was tactically naive, he made subs too late, he stuck with out of form players, and he refused to rotate even when it was bleeding obvious players' heads were not right.

Also, Own Goal, or best player, just didn't turn up.

 

[thejtrain]

This was bound to happen... maybe not the string of results we've had, but the terrible run of form. "Go out there and enjoy yourself", "chest out and express yourself as a ManUtd player" et al. can only work to a certain extent — football is more complicated than that; otherwise, clubs won't be spending so much time and money on coaching. You come up against quality opposition and you get exposed brutally like that.

 

[red4ever 79]

No penalties. Only 1 this season compared to 17 and 22 the previous two

 

[VanDeBank]

Ronaldo.
The money spent on wages probably could have squeezed in another midfielder

The weird thing is, if he wanted a DM he could've gotten one instead of Donny or Sancho, or he could have shipped of Lingard, Martial or Pogs and gotten one.

There's a good chance he really rates McFred and it wasn't a priority for him.

 

[.Phil1968]

When he got the caretaking gig he got a back room team in to support him for a few months. When he got the job full time I think he should have scoured the earth for the best in the business and been ruthless with Phelan Carrick etc.
Probably far too nice to manage at the top, need to be a bit of a bastard to succeed.

 

[Matt851]

Just bad luck really , he was close,very close. A few more things on the training ground and it would have been alright.

Close to what? He was never anywhere near the title

Performances were often crap last season. The difference this season is the results have more closely reflected these performances.

Ole has also seemed to try and transition in playing a more high pressing style of football. Something he is entirely incapable of doing

 

[Adebisi's Hat]

Slow starts to games was such a hallmark of his team over his time, ok they often came back but it should have been coached out of the squad early on.

 

[arthurka]

This didn't start now we went into this season in a terrible form.

 

[Ralph1386]

He ran out of luck. The cracks were starting to show last year. Coupled with bad squad management and unfair favoritism.

 

[Hackman2210]

Baffling team structure - 4-2-4, Diamond, 5 at the back, false 9, high press - bin all that bollocks and lets go 4-4-2. 2 wingers, big man, little man up top. Why complicate it? DDG, Shaw, Varnae, Maguire, AWB, Pogba (Lm) Mct (CM) VBD (CM) Sancho (RM), fernandes and Ronaldo up top. Theres enough quality there to go top 6. If Pogba goes - play someone else LM - Linguard, Diallo, Greenwood. We just lost our identity and tried copying other teams but with the wrong personnel. Its been a depressing few months as a UTD supporter. Next appointment is massive - please do no feck it up!

 

[ObscureBaguette]

I actually think Ronaldo - even at 36 - has plenty to offer, but as so often with this club, there was no planning for his arrival. It was a panic buy to prevent the sight of him parading around in a City shirt. Whatever plans Ole made this summer were completely disrupted. Bruno and Greenwood started the season so well, but the arrival of Ronaldo saw Greenwood shunted wide (and Sancho shunted down the pecking order), and all of a sudden we lost mobility in attack. Movement, pace and mobility in the final third was one of our strengths, but we lost it when Ronaldo arrived. That's not a criticism of Ronaldo, who I'm sure sets high standards and has done his best as far as I can tell. Unfortunately, absolutely no work was done on how to incorporate him into the team, given the way in which he arrived.

Of course, none of this explains why we defend like absolute amateurs.

 

[VanDeBank]

Spot on - panic set in when it was rumoured that Ronaldo might go to City - but like the recent fuel crisis - all made up probably by Mendes to make Utd react and panic - this signing was based on a commercial decision rather than a footballing one…….it’s no coincidence that our performances have nose dived since as this was never ever in the seasons planning…..I mean wtf have we signed and done with Sancho? Cavani was awesome last season (albeit) when fit - now we have an ever present that has been shoe-horned into the team at what cost?

The signings itself weren't a problem in isolation but why the feck didn't we move on some players? For example, adding Ronnie and Sancho makes more sense if you sell Martial and Lingard. or sell Martial and loan out Amad and Elanga.

Ideally you have 2 players for every position and 2-3 fringe players that are happy barely playing for positions you don't have good academy prospects in. We easily have 30+ players and that's not including someone like Elanga who would put in a much sharper performance than Martial if we had 2-3 injuries for a game or or two.

I used to think Ole was just paranoid about squad depth and shite with the youth, but now I'm starting to believe he was too much of a nice guy to ship off players.

 

[skc_18]

No - our problems for many years was that we had zero penetration down the right - we’ve a terrible RB for forward play and we finally signed the player that would enable us that right sided penetration to aid our forwards better - and then out of nowhere we sign Ronaldo that was never in the planning. I’m not saying Ronaldo is a bad player but he was a bad signing for Ole…..a player that was too big for him to manage and someone that required a change to the team setup that Ole had planned for this season

there is a big difference in saying that Ronaldo changed the dynamic for Ole’s plans and saying Ronaldo isn’t a good player….

That’s not to say that the next manager won’t get a tune out of these players but Ole wasn’t strong enough to deal with this change in dynamic in the dressing room…..

But if you put any player in place of Ronaldo I don’t think results would have improved.
You are right that attack on our right was weak but we did not play the player we bought to solve that problem and instead preferred Greenwood which was same as last season. In the 2nd half against Watford, Sancho put very good crosses. On top of that this season our right side looked better because Shaw is having bad season and Rashford was out at the start.

 

[LazyGoal]

1. Ronaldo. Great striker, but not what we need. We cant play with 10 men for everything but finishing. Thats why we rightly sold Lukaku.
2. It may seem strange. But, selling Daniel James. We allmost never lost with him in the team. Pre-Ronaldo we where fast and abel to move the ball. With exit James and enter Ronaldo -1 + 1 became -3 for some strange reason.
3. Varane beeing injured.
4. Me opening an account here, and the mods not deleteing even do I sent them an email to do this after the Liverpool game.
5. Buying Sancho over Rice.
6. Not releasing Pogba a year a go. He may be a good and happy bloke and all, but it is just to much noise and lost balls. He should go asap regardless of Solskjær.
7. Not giving a proper answer to Klopps comment about us getting to many penaltys. We did not, but after that — that was the impression. On top of that we stoped moving fast and dribbeling in the box.
8. Fernandes missing that penealty right before full time.
9. Not selling Lingaard. When its done its done.
10. Giving into the idea that we where ready to challange one year early - forgeting all about Chelsea and Liverpool’s misfortunes last year as it was our achivement. Crazy.
11. Keeping Dalot (should have let him go on a free), and not buying Trippier.
12. Spending on Amad and Pillestri. Those money should have gone into Rice.
13. Playing out from the back, allmost playing into our own net.
14. Not playing Cavani more, in combination with Cavani beeing unavailbel whenever he got flowing. Not enough Cavani in other words.
15. Two first years Ole always talked about running the most, and doing the hard and gritty work properly. This year not so much for whatever reason.
16. Beeing afraid of playing at Old Trafford.
17. Not selling/moving on Mata and Matic. Just not good enough anymore. When its done its done.
18. Not getting Rashford to take that operation before the Euros.
19. Not doing summer prepertion properly. Say
    what you want, but this hurt last year and this year.

 

[steffyr2]

The weird thing is, if he wanted a DM he could've gotten one instead of Donny or Sancho, or he could have shipped of Lingard, Martial or Pogs and gotten one.

There's a good chance he really rates McFred and it wasn't a priority for him.

Ronaldo signed at the end of the transfer window. It's not like there was ever a decision to make between a midfielder or Ronaldo. Ole didn't go for a midfielder, didn't want one, didn't think he needed one -- apparently.

 

[red4ever 79]

He ran out of luck. The cracks were starting to show last year. Coupled with bad squad management and unfair favoritism.

Ran out of penalties also. Only 1 this season compared to 17 and 22 the previous seasons

 

[YouknowNani]

Not buying a DM and sticking with his favourites despite awful form. Unfortunately him being a nice guy and having a friendly relationship with some of the players has cost him in the end. He consistently played Mctomminay based on passion and personality, when he's a squad player at best. He consistently played Maguire and named him captain despite him being an absolutely awful player. I do like Ole and think he did a good job up until this season but any top manager would be far more ruthless with dropping players out of from and wouldn't even have the likes of Maguire in the team in the first place.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

He’s not a good manager, he was horrendous at Cardiff and loads of us tried telling you our finishing position was papering over a shit tonne of cracks. Eventually those cracks were always going to turn into a chasm, nothing about this season is surprising at all to anyone who was paying attention and didn’t have the nostalgia blinkers on. The hope for us was that the Summer signings would make the squad good enough to pull a good season off even with poor management.
It’s more surprising that his squad have somehow pulled the last two seasons off after god awful starts, and god awful spells in mid season. Some individual brilliance, a shit tonne of luck and Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal in tatters has fooled many into thinking Ole was “onto something”.

 

[glazed]

It was McFred basically, combined with no tactical structure.

 

[city-puma]

1. Busy summer for our core players due to international games so that many of them have been out of form or out due to injuries
2. Not to add a new midfielder
3. Arrival of Ronaldo leads to unbalanced team on pitch
4. Lost steam mentally to many players due to the loss to the finals
Ranked in order from the most to the least significant factors.