Wrong. I was insulted and prefer to respond. Another who has it upside down. One doesn't have to live in these arbitrary extremes. Being able to control football matches doesn't mean you have to play like LVG's United. This is the second time that's come up and it shows how warped some views are on possession football. Having to chose between the two, I prefer watching teams that go for aggressive approach, however, it is important that, no matter what approach you take, you're coached into being excellent on the ball, as two/there passes won't always score you a goal. It's how every great team builds it's foundation - to be able to win matches through both control and initiative. Which you choose to do more of them is up to the situation and preference of the manger. But these are basics and for some reason it's offending many. As if, possession play is some distasteful evil that must never be mentioned. We aren't Mourinho FC (I refer to his disdain for "pretty" football) this is Manchester United.
You are talking about not having to live in extremes but then you are mentioning Mourinho FC.
Not every team which plays possession football plays it the way Pep does.
And not every team which plays counter attacking football plays it the way Jose does.
And not every team which plays attacking football plays it the way Wenger did.
For you it all comes down to the fact that you just don’t like / rate Ole so you won’t admit we are improving. Hell you even managed to downplay his achievements and importance as a player in another thread a few weeks ago.
In the end it has never been and it will never be as simple as possession vs counterattack. What I want us to focus on is attack. By that I don’t mean we go all gung ho and just play only one of McT or Fred against good teams (like some posters want us to do). Neither of those are good enough on their own against good opposition.
Some possession managers are actually defensive managers and I don’t feel they play attacking football.
Where I feel you are right is that we need to improve our passing / ball control, but no coach in the world is going to turn Fred or McT or even Pogba in Scholes, Keane or Carrick. That leads us back to better recruitment (responsibility of manager and board). I am not claiming that Ole can’t improve our coaching, but I feel we have already improved (and hopefully with a couple of additions and a full pre season / more time to properly train together will further improve).
It’s obvious that with Scholes and Keane you will be dominating possession, but our aim even back then was direct and attacking football. I would say this is similar to what we are trying now, but back then we had one of the best managers ever and better players.
Now back to present: I believe we are trying to be an attacking side. But somehow if we win the ball and try to counter attack it is seen as something negative by some fans. Maybe we should pass the ball back to DDG, be so nice and let the other team reorganise and then decide to attack to prove a point.