Ralf Rangnick | ex-interim manager | does anyone rate him?

[VP89]

???

‘I see. So, I’ve increased the sample size, adding inferior competition, and you still don’t like the numbers, so now we need to argue about PL matches only?

Let’s just agree to disagree and move on. For some reason, defending Ralf / the club is paramount to you and you’re going to ignore facts that tell a story you don’t like.

Do you understand statistics? You can't just give Ralf a sample size that's 10% of others and draw conclusions. The answer is there isn't enough data, or you compare him with a relatively close sample size. You were called out on the Conte one for chatting shite and then tried to compare him to other managers who have played 150ish games.

What a hilariously daft take - if you took Tuchel's last 13 games do you know what his record is? Hint, it's not great. Same for Ole's last 13 before he got the sack, and Jose's. You really are struggling.

 

[romufc]

That for me is the problem though.

The start of the season was so bad, that somehow that has become a measuring stick.

With the players brought in in the summer we should have improved on last season.

Are we any better now than we were last season under Ole? In my opinion no.

I'm not sure we've had a better performance under Rangnick than the Carrick/McKenna game against Villareal.

I mean that is how you judge a new manager right? based on what we were watching before his arrival.

I have written this season of actually. I do not think we can make top 4 or challenge for CL.

After watching our results to Villa, Wolves, Burnley, I think 6th is best we will get this season. We still have to play all the big boys, we have not played a top team under Ralf and we are struggling.

We struggle to score goals and our defence can only concentrate for 45 mins per game.

 

[VP89]

I mean that is how you judge a new manager right? based on what we were watching before his arrival.

I have written this season of actually. I do not think we can make top 4 or challenge for CL.

After watching our results to Villa, Wolves, Burnley, I think 6th is best we will get this season. We still have to play all the big boys, we have not played a top team under Ralf and we are struggling.

We struggle to score goals and our defence can only concentrate for 45 mins per game.

I reckon we'll get top 4, maybe even top 3. The Optimist I am

 

[bond19821982]

Hey there @bond19821982 you’re clearly a smart fella, smart enough to come at me, personally, after a pretty innocuous post that just states managerial statistics.

I think you need a time out. I get it, you and @VP89 are staunch defenders of Ralf. And it’s tough when someone has a different opinion. But please, grow up. You’re getting way emotional about this.

Apologies if you thought I was going personal. Never meant anyway.

You wanted to talk facts ? The original post was how Xavi and Conte was flying with their new teams. I proved it with stats that it was a pure hyperbole.

Did you really add any value to the discussion? You just added some meaningless conference matches and twisted the argument that he has a worse record ? You also compared 3 years of Ole,Jose,LVG with 2 months of Ralf and said he has a worse record of all of them. Can you also take Klopp record for first 10 and say, he is worse than Ole ?

You want me to consider that as a different opinion ? Sorry mate, but that's wum to me.

 

[VP89]

Apologies if you thought I was going personal. Never meant anyway.

You wanted to talk facts ? The original post was how Xavi and Conte was flying with their new teams. I proved it with stats that it was a pure hyperbole.

Did you really add any value to the discussion? You just added some meaningless conference matches and twisted the argument that he has a worse record ? You also compared 3 years of Ole,Jose,LVG with 2 months of Ralf and said he has a worse record of all of them. Can you also take Klopp record for first 10 and say, he is worse than Ole ?

You want me to consider that as a different opinion ? Sorry mate, but that's wum to me.

You've done a much better job at being pleasant than I could.
I can't believe he's taken 13 games of Rangnick and extrapolated lazily to Jose/Ole/LVG as a representative. We can all cherry pick 13 games under these managers to paint a different colour but there's no point going there.

 

[bond19821982]

@DSG - one more thing - I will support any manager who comes and not just Ralf. Everybody needs some bedding time before they can be criticized. But hey, that's just me.

 

[DSG]

Bit confused - you said Conte has had a great start at Spurs and got called out when his points per game is similar to Ralf.

And now you are telling us to grow up after falling on your own facts (which you wrote in capital letters like a keyboard warrior).

Not surprised you are confused. If we boil down points per game, Conte is still better than Ralf. And the Spurs had Liverpool and Chelsea in their PL run of fixtures. Plus, they played Chelsea twice in the Carabao cup. On the other hand, we’ve had Burnley twice, Norwich, Newcastle and CP and Wolves.

‘These are facts. I’m sorry if my interpretation of those facts means I draw a different conclusion than you do about Ralf’s performance. Get over it already.

 

[phelans shorts]

I don't think Rangnick threw anyone under the bus, at least not on purpose.
I just think he doesn't realize or care that his giving out information ends up being encroaching on his interacting partners.

Which goes back to his communication skills being abysmal, because he absolutely did do that and the players were well within their rights to call him out publicly for his attacking them publicly.

 

[VP89]

Not surprised you are confused. If we boil down points per game, Conte is still better than Ralf. And the Spurs had Liverpool and Chelsea in their PL run of fixtures. Plus, they played Chelsea twice in the Carabao cup. On the other hand, we’ve had Burnley twice, Norwich, Newcastle and CP and Wolves.

‘These are facts. I’m sorry if my interpretation of those facts means I draw a different conclusion than you do about Ralf’s performance. Get over it already.

Points per game goes into the Premier League. Why on earth are you counting Carabao up in this? Both their points per game in the league is 1.9.

You're just adding random matches to try and dress up your argument.

 

[ti vu]

I mean that is how you judge a new manager right? based on what we were watching before his arrival.

I have written this season of actually. I do not think we can make top 4 or challenge for CL.

After watching our results to Villa, Wolves, Burnley, I think 6th is best we will get this season. We still have to play all the big boys, we have not played a top team under Ralf and we are struggling.

We struggle to score goals and our defence can only concentrate for 45 mins per game.

Some posters are being funny.

Successful managers also have worse following season after their previous highly successful one. They don't get sacked in those worse season as if it's not sackable offense.

If Ole were on course of top 4, this Mates FC board would not have sacked him. Ole should do better with his improved squad? Sure, but it's not sackable for him. They sacked him because he proved to fail by then ( the sacking still came a bit late too).

Ragnick was hired as interim to stop the rot of this season. Not improve on last season fortune or continue Ole's whatever vision, after Ole himself failed with his team. Did we tell our signings last summer that they're signing to play under Ragnick? They are not his signings. Why holding him, an interim manager accounted for previous signings?

 

[bond19821982]

You've done a much better job at being pleasant than I could.
I can't believe he's taken 13 games of Rangnick and extrapolated lazily to Jose/Ole/LVG as a representative. We can all cherry pick 13 games under these managers to paint a different colour but there's no point going there.

He has been wumming since Jan 13th that's just after 4 weeks and the team had to struggle with a covid outbreak.

I understand not everyone has to like him but come on let's have some meaningful and sensible conversation. Like @el3mel didn't agree with the subs yesterday.

 

[chiz2kul]

Do you people use some sort of generic post generator to post these 'thoughts' of yours?

At least try to develop a point instead of posting the typical ABU media blah, blah, blah nonsense.

Yikes. Ok then.




hope thats a developed enough point for you.

 

[Fts 74]

God help a new manager on here if we're not blitzing teams 4-0 every week after 10 games.

Ralf has stopped the slide under Ole, he's working with what he's got I couldn't care less if we don't get top 4 I just really hope maybe just maybe behind the scenes attitudes are changing and they know what's needed.

We need to stop these comparisons with conte,klopp etc Ralf is an interim nothing more and imo he's done a fine job so far.

 

[Hansi Fick]

Which goes back to his communication skills being abysmal, because he absolutely did do that and the players were well within their rights to call him out publicly for his attacking them publicly.

In his mind, and arguably also objectively, he wasn't attacking them though.
He just gave information that might have affected them in that it prompted others to attack them. I'm not sure just to which degree this is really all his fault and also to which degree all these sensibilities should matter or be indulged. Probably they shouldn't.
It matters obviously, because it's all noise that isn't helpful, but I wouldn't go so far as to make too big of a deal out of it. Ultimately, the noise is always in danger of being there, and in danger of spawning from the tiniest causes, when a team like United doesn't win enough.
You got unlucky in the last 2 games, you might have easily won them (and would have in 9 of 10 cases) and then the noise wouldn't be perceptible and those things wouldn't matter.

 

[tomaldinho1]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

This is what we have to look at, bigger picture thinking rather than the emotional match by match love/anger we get on here.

	United v Palace	Norwich v United	Newcastle v United	United v Burnley	United v Wolves	Villa v United	Brentford v United	United v WHUM	Burnley v United
Result	W	W	D	W	L	D	W	W	D
xG	0.87 v 0.52	0.99 v 2.1	1.27 v 1.76	1.81 v 0.87	0.77 v 0.84	1.83 v 1.35	2.08 v 2.06	1.76 v 0.24	0.77 v 1.83
Shots on target	5 v 2	5 v 5	8 v 4	6 v 3	2 v 6	9 v 6	8 v 5	3 v 1	3 v 5
Scored	1	1	1	3	0	2	3	1	1
Conceded	0	0	1	1	1	2	1	0	1

Simple truth is our defence has stabilised and despite some poor errors we are still doing enough to win games. It's not convincing by any means but we have stopped getting outplayed for long periods, Wolves, Villa and Brentford (1st half) were the some of the worst I have seen us play but we have been the better team the last three games (inc. Borough). It's a small sample size but it's all we have.

We've only conceded more than 1 goal in a single game and the focus really has to be now on improving our attacking play - this is basically where we were with Ole and he had three years in charge, if you ignore the results our xG is slowly improving as well, we haven't had under xG 1 since the Wolves game and even though we drew this game versus Burnley, we actually out performed the 3-1 win home win.

I think we're a long way off and there are still huge issues with our team setup but there is no reason for some of the negative hyperbole on here. Ragnick isn't even that renowned a coach and signs are that he's gradually improving us as it stands, imagine what a top coach will do in the summer.

 

[phelans shorts]

In his mind, and arguably also objectively, he wasn't attacking them though.
He just gave information that might have affected them in that it prompted others to attack them. I'm not sure just to which degree this is really all his fault and also to which degree all these sensibilities should matter or be indulged. Probably they shouldn't.
It matters obviously, because it's all noise that isn't helpful, but I wouldn't go so far as to make too big of a deal out of it. Ultimately, the noise is always in danger of being there, and in danger of spawning from the tiniest causes, when a team like United doesn't win enough.
You got unlucky in the last 2 games, you might have easily won them (and would have in 9 of 10 cases) and then the noise wouldn't be perceptible and those things wouldn't matter.

Objectively he did throw them under the bus, especially when it turned out that on both occasions what he said wasn’t even accurate. It paints him in an awful light and as I’ve said, goes a long way to showing why he’s never quite made the big steps in management and has been more successful with the relatively hands off role as DOF. It’s just an assessment of his skill set based of the evidence we’ve seen in the last month or two.

I’ve liked our performances, and he definitely deserves a lot of praise for the extent to which the ship has steadied, but that’s not to say he’s been perfect and pointing out the flaws is definitely fair. What I’ve seen of Ralf the manager so far just solidifies that he’ll be very good in this DOF/consultancy role, but it also solidifies that he absolutely shouldn’t be the manager.

 

[DSG]

Apologies if you thought I was going personal. Never meant anyway.

You wanted to talk facts ? The original post was how Xavi and Conte was flying with their new teams. I proved it with stats that it was a pure hyperbole.

Did you really add any value to the discussion? You just added some meaningless conference matches and twisted the argument that he has a worse record ? You also compared 3 years of Ole,Jose,LVG with 2 months of Ralf and said he has a worse record of all of them. Can you also take Klopp record for first 10 and say, he is worse than Ole ?

You want me to consider that as a different opinion ? Sorry mate, but that's wum to me.

I was never the original poster on Conte and Xavi, I just replied to your post with all games managed.

Conte and Xavi were the original comparison. I added post SAF managers as a reference, and said so. I also said it was a small sample size. These are still facts, are they not?

Another fact. Career Ralf Rangnick managerial statistics:
Total matches, 734. W351 D170 L213. Win% 47.82

Look, you seem to think that great tactician = great manager…. There is much more to it than that. Let’s judge RR on results. No doubt he ushered in / brought prominence to a tactical system that influenced many managers, but that doesn’t mean he’s the right manager for us, at this moment.

So far, I’ve been underwhelmed by his performance as a manager. There is quite a bit of quantitative and qualitative data to back this up.

 

[DSG]

You've done a much better job at being pleasant than I could.
I can't believe he's taken 13 games of Rangnick and extrapolated lazily to Jose/Ole/LVG as a representative. We can all cherry pick 13 games under these managers to paint a different colour but there's no point going there.

Says the guy who cherry picked 9 PL matches? Against pretty poor opponents?

You’re the type of fella that can use a small sample size when it suits you, but rail against it when someone puts it out there themselves to make a point.

Feel free to take your shots. As I’ve said previously, I was excited about Ralf joining us. The last two months, I’ve seen nothing that makes me think we will make top 4. That is bare minimum for me, with this squad.

I honestly hope I’m wrong.

 

[DSG]

@DSG - one more thing - I will support any manager who comes and not just Ralf. Everybody needs some bedding time before they can be criticized. But hey, that's just me.

Ah, the Top Red argument.

 

[VP89]

Says the guy who cherry picked 9 PL matches? Against pretty poor opponents?

You’re the type of fella that can use a small sample size when it suits you, but rail against it when someone puts it out there themselves to make a point.

Feel free to take your shots. As I’ve said previously, I was excited about Ralf joining us. The last two months, I’ve seen nothing that makes me think we will make top 4. That is bare minimum for me, with this squad.

I honestly hope I’m wrong.

I didnt cherry pick 9 PL matches. I took all PL matches for Conte and Rangnick and pointed out their points per game is the same.

And what are you on about when it suits me? You do know when using stats you need to be consistent right? You can't take small sample sizes for one manager and compare it to a large sample of others. This is things they teach in year 6 of school, I am quite astounded at your inability to use statistics.

 

[DSG]

Points per game goes into the Premier League. Why on earth are you counting Carabao up in this? Both their points per game in the league is 1.9.

You're just adding random matches to try and dress up your argument.

I gave you managerial statistics for all three managers. Is that not relevant?

The manager is in charge for all matches and has accountability for picking the starting 11, subs, in game tactics for all matches, does he not?

I included all matches for all managers, are cup matches now not relevant? Aren’t we trying to win titles?

As a side note, for just the PL matches, our schedule was objectively easier, yet you’ve chosen to ignore this fact.

I really don’t get why it bothers you so much that I have a different opinion on Ralf.

 

[DSG]

I didnt cherry pick 9 PL matches. I took all PL matches for Conte and Rangnick and pointed out their points per game is the same.

And what are you on about when it suits me? You do know when using stats you need to be consistent right? You can't take small sample sizes for one manager and compare it to a large sample of others. This is things they teach in year 6 of school, I am quite astounded at your inability to use statistics.

Last time I checked, 13 matches, the entirety of Ralf’s stint here, is larger than 9 matches, his PL matches managed. While still absurdly small as a sample size, 13 is still larger than 9. I mean, where did you go to school?

I absolutely do agree that there is a huge difference between comparing 100 matches to 13. I specifically included those numbers for reference purposes, andsaid so In the post.

 

[VP89]

Last time I checked, 13 matches, the entirety of Ralf’s stint here, is larger than 9 matches, his PL matches managed. While still absurdly small as a sample size, 13 is still larger than 9. I mean, where did you go to school?

I absolutely do agree that there is a huge difference between comparing 100 matches to 13. I specifically included those numbers for reference purposes, andsaid so In the post.

Dont post stats. You have no idea how to actually evaluate them.

You mindlessly posted 13 games under Ralph against 150 odd games against 3 other managers.

You then tried to use a points per game argument to include Carabao Cup and Europa Conference league games. Its evident you have no understanding of any statistics, so there's no point using or even understanding them.

 

[DSG]

Dont post stats. You have no idea how to actually evaluate them.

You mindlessly posted 13 games under Ralph against 150 odd games against 3 other managers.

You then tried to use a points per game argument to include Carabao Cup and Europa Conference league games. Its evident you have no understanding of any statistics, so there's no point using or even understanding them.

Here’s a stat:

VP89
Messages: 21,446
Coherent messages: 0
Drivel% 100

 

[copen1945]

Ralf dropped Ronnie. I think he was right in this decision. Ralf had dropped Shaw, and Shaw didn't do much to reclaim his place over Telles. I am curious as to what Ralf will do with Ronnie and Shaw in the coming days. Despite his interim tag, I hope he has the bravery to pick the starting XI per his decision.

 

[bond19821982]

Ah, the Top Red argument.

Exactly, not like someone who claims to be !

 

[bond19821982]

I was never the original poster on Conte and Xavi, I just replied to your post with all games managed.

Conte and Xavi were the original comparison. I added post SAF managers as a reference, and said so. I also said it was a small sample size. These are still facts, are they not?

Another fact. Career Ralf Rangnick managerial statistics:
Total matches, 734. W351 D170 L213. Win% 47.82

Look, you seem to think that great tactician = great manager…. There is much more to it than that. Let’s judge RR on results. No doubt he ushered in / brought prominence to a tactical system that influenced many managers, but that doesn’t mean he’s the right manager for us, at this moment.

So far, I’ve been underwhelmed by his performance as a manager. There is quite a bit of quantitative and qualitative data to back this up.

So now you comparing Ralf whole managerial career now- point being ? Honestly mate, I decided not to respond to your posts but sometime ,just can't help it.

As laughable as it can get.

 

[Halftrack]

Do you people use some sort of generic post generator to post these 'thoughts' of yours?

Nothing in that tweet is wrong. We are not scoring enough and it's costing us. Far be it for me to defend OGS, this is simple facts. It's also a fact the defense has improved but we are not getting enough points to achieve what we want.

At least try to develop a point instead of posting the typical ABU media blah, blah, blah nonsense.

Remember that time you got so angry about Lingard scoring an inconsequential goal for us that you caught a temp ban? That was pretty funny.

 

[Kopral Jono]

In the long run we should be aiming better than Rangnick, and to the naysayers I will even admit that he probably talks better than he coaches, but what many have overlooked is he came in as an interim to steady a fast sinking ship and instil a playing style more resemblant to a modern football club after three years of vibes and inshallah under our previous manager, or longer if one includes the failings of Mourinho and Van Gaal. We've also found out in the process that player power is very much a thing at our club and this complicate things further.

He's done reasonably well all things considered.

 

[DSG]

Exactly, not like someone who claims to be !

Yawn…

 

[DSG]

So now you comparing Ralf whole managerial career now- point being ? Honestly mate, I decided not to respond to your posts but sometime ,just can't help it.

As laughable as it can get.

Honestly, best not to continue. Let’s seriously hope I am dead wrong, RR closes out the season with a brilliant run, and we make top 4.

We’ll enjoy monitoring his managerial record as we go along, won’t we?

 

[romufc]

Some posters are being funny.

Successful managers also have worse following season their their previous highly successful one. They don't get sacked in those worse season if it's sackable failure.

If Ole were on course of top 4, this Mates FC board would haven't sacked him. Ole should do better with his improved squad? Sure, but it's not sackable for him. They sacked him because he proved to fail by then ( the sacking still came a bit late too).

Ragnick was hired as interim to stop the rot of this season. Not improve on last season fortune or continue Ole's whatever vision, after Ole himself failed with his team. Did we tell our signings last summer that they're signing to play under Ragnick? They are not his signings. Why holding him, an interim manager accounted for previous signings?

I really don't get it sometimes. Its just criticism for the sake of it.

We were getting battered 4-1 by Watford, every game we went into we looked open, that is what you look at, not what he did a year ago.

Also, I do find some people in the fanbase quite hypocritical.

I remember people saying even if we don't get results, if there are signs of us playing better, they'd take it.. here we are signs of better football and more complaints.

If we can compete with the likes of City, Liverpool, Chelsea and win those games, I will say there is improvement. We also need to beat Athletico in the CL.

 

[Bilbo]

The top two threads on the main United forum

1. Arguing about Ole
2. Arguing about Ralf

 

[Strats]

I hope he has the balls to drop Maguire and give Lindelof a run of games next to Varane.

Despite Lindelofs defensive flaws I can see him have a greater impact on possession with his passing abilities.

He’s had a few lovely passes between the lines and the assist for Rashford against Leicester comes to mind. Would think Lindelof is a better fit for Rangnicks style of play in possession.

Can’t remember Maguire doing the same where he regularly mishits long balls and squares it to nearest fullback or centreback.

 

[Mike Smalling]

I hope he has the balls to drop Maguire and give Lindelof a run of games next to Varane.

Despite Lindelofs defensive flaws I can see him have a greater impact on possession with his passing abilities.

He’s had a few lovely passes between the lines and the assist for Rashford against Leicester comes to mind. Would think Lindelof is a better fit for Rangnicks style of play in possession.

Can’t remember Maguire doing the same where he regularly mishits long balls and squares it to nearest fullback or centreback.

Absolutely. Lindelof has much better passing. Just off the top of my head he also had very good assists against Leeds in the opener and against Sheffield United last year.

I think Ralfy has shown much more determination in changing the team based on performances than Ole ever did, so there is hope that he will drop Maguire.

 

[Bestietom]

This is what we have to look at, bigger picture thinking rather than the emotional match by match love/anger we get on here.

	United v Palace	Norwich v United	Newcastle v United	United v Burnley	United v Wolves	Villa v United	Brentford v United	United v WHUM	Burnley v United
Result	W	W	D	W	L	D	W	W	D
xG	0.87 v 0.52	0.99 v 2.1	1.27 v 1.76	1.81 v 0.87	0.77 v 0.84	1.83 v 1.35	2.08 v 2.06	1.76 v 0.24	0.77 v 1.83
Shots on target	5 v 2	5 v 5	8 v 4	6 v 3	2 v 6	9 v 6	8 v 5	3 v 1	3 v 5
Scored	1	1	1	3	0	2	3	1	1
Conceded	0	0	1	1	1	2	1	0	1

Simple truth is our defence has stabilised and despite some poor errors we are still doing enough to win games. It's not convincing by any means but we have stopped getting outplayed for long periods, Wolves, Villa and Brentford (1st half) were the some of the worst I have seen us play but we have been the better team the last three games (inc. Borough). It's a small sample size but it's all we have.

We've only conceded more than 1 goal in a single game and the focus really has to be now on improving our attacking play - this is basically where we were with Ole and he had three years in charge, if you ignore the results our xG is slowly improving as well, we haven't had under xG 1 since the Wolves game and even though we drew this game versus Burnley, we actually out performed the 3-1 win home win.

I think we're a long way off and there are still huge issues with our team setup but there is no reason for some of the negative hyperbole on here. Ragnick isn't even that renowned a coach and signs are that he's gradually improving us as it stands, imagine what a top coach will do in the summer.

I for one am not knocking Rangnick. Our biggest problem is a lot of our players are not good enough for United and the players that are good enough are not trying enough. We have weak players in many areas of the team and they are letting us down most games. Then you see others when the head goes down and they just don't bother. No matter who the manager is, this will happen until we change them, which will cost a lot of money.
I have seen teams right up from 1959 some good some bad but some of the players we have now wouldn't get near most of those teams.

 

[tomaldinho1]

I for one am not knocking Rangnick. Our biggest problem is a lot of our players are not good enough for United and the players that are good enough are not trying enough. We have weak players in many areas of the team and they are letting us down most games. Then you see others when the head goes down and they just don't bother. No matter who the manager is, this will happen until we change them, which will cost a lot of money.
I have seen teams right up from 1959 some good some bad but some of the players we have now wouldn't get near most of those teams.

I don't think it will cost a lot of money, it just takes proper scouting and coaching. I agree though it's about effort and general player abilities - we have signed Maguire, AWB, Cavani, Ronaldo, James, Bruno, Ighalo, Telles, VDB under the previous manager who wanted to build a pressing team an the only player who fits that mould (highly mobile, fast, good work rate and attitude) is James who we sold. You can argue VdB can also play that way given he did it previously but we simply don't know. We have too many older players, to many slow or less dynamic players but it's not all doom and gloom.

Look at the Soton game last night, that team is cast offs and bargain buys, either players who can't break into PL first teams or Championship players and they battered Spurs away from home, it was completely one sided bar a short period in the second half. Every player has a defined role, every player runs themselves into the ground and you can look at other teams like Brighton and Wolves who also do this (albeit Wolves do actually spend decent money).

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

We performed alright recently and should have won the Boro, Villa and Burnley matches considering how many chances we missed in those matches and how vs Villa we shouldn't had blew the 2-0 lead. Should have never waste too many easy chances. That's the only positive sign.

 

[RuudTom83]

With the outgoings last month, plus the departures of Pogba, Lingard, Matic, (potentially Ronaldo/Cavani) in the summer, I don't think you can just use previous managers/squads to compare anymore. It is a total restart in my view.

Ralf is doing ok/fine with his brief, top 4 is still a possibility (not that I care about the race for top 4 in anyway) and he has at least installed a structure which every member of the team needs to fit into.

Other than that I don't know what fans expect given the last 10 years.

 

[2 man midfield]

We performed alright recently and should have won the Boro, Villa and Burnley matches considering how many chances we missed in those matches and how vs Villa we shouldn't had blew the 2-0 lead. Should have never waste too many easy chances. That's the only positive sign.

It’s definitely a silver lining. The one thing I struggled with under Ole, Jose and Van Gaal was that we just had no clue how to attack and would frequently go entire games without creating a single chance.

We’ve showed clear signs of progress so far.