But how much of this was and is down to Poch or Levy? Levy can't be the easiest person to work with. He did have chances to win trophies but just because he didn't doesn't mean he never will. I've never understood that. How likely was he to win a trophy at Southampton or Espanyol? He came so close with Spurs. I've just never agreed with the argument that his lack of trophies to date means he'll never win one. There was a time where SAF hadn't won a trophy, a time where Pep hadn't won a trophy. Just because you haven't doesn't mean you never will.
Would you sack or keep Ole? (Poll reopened)
- Thread starter MrSingh2002
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
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Yep, but as usual its the "penandes". It is weird that we won a CL final with a penalty shootout. Should we not count that as a CL win then? is it worth less than other CL titles?
I just done a quick comparison. This season
Bruno passing accuracy 77.5%, KDB 78.5% Harry Kane 71%
Ofcourse the people who are moaning about his stats have an agenda.
We have Woodward. Hahahahaha. He signs players our managers clearly don't want. What does he know about football?
On this I totally agree
I know, right? Crazy.
Some people have the impression that, if you don't think Ole is a good coach then you're not a Manchester United fan, just cause of his legendary status. Nepotism to all its glory
I just hope he won't be here come Christmas time or that we famously turn that damn corner we keep hearing about.
The difference is that they bought Robertson for 10m and now he costs over 60-70m, in the meantime let's say Maguire was bought for 80m (still can't believe we payed that much) and now probably worths less than 40m.
How can we get rid of the likes of Lingard or Rojo if their sell value plummeted along with skills but their wages are no good for a team let's say Soton, Burnley, Brighton etc? There won't be an Everton for every Shneiderlin we trying to offload.
When Mourinho was in charge he had Lingard playing his best football with something like 10 goals 9 assists (didn't bother to look it up).
So his value went up because he was a coach that could get the best out of the current player. Now we can't get anything from this player in football or transfer value.
Ole hasn't improved anyone in the current team and to all those who claim about Martial or Rashford let me remind you that :
Martial had his best season at 19 years old with Van Gaal and Rashford maybe experienced but still relative young, so their best years were and are ahead of them.
I sure can't give this to Ole, he had no choice after all after selling Lukaku. The only thing he did was play them more often.
It is very clear that the plan was all along to bring someone(Ole) so that we protect these "assets" like Pogba and Martial, who Mourinho wanted to sell.
That went well.
We were battered against Palace, Brighton (very lucky) and Spurs shortly after the disappointments of being well beaten by Chelsea in The FA Cup semi-final and failing to beat Sevilla (despite having enough chances to do so). There was also the horror show in Istanbul only recently. WBA could easily have been a draw as well. These are all things that should go against Ole over the past 6 months.We've actually improved our results significantly from this time last season. Sorry
Finishing 3rd on the back of an unbeaten run and beating PSG & RB Leipzig being the positives over the past 6 months.
Instead of capitalising on finishing 3rd, we had a poor start to the season and our form has been rocky. Luckily for Ole, City are also very up and down. At the moment, Liverpool, Spurs and Chelsea look set for a top 4 finish.
That leaves Leicester, Everton, Wolves, City, Arsenal and United battling it out for 3rd/4th.
If we were to go on a bad run of league results between now and January, we will find it very difficult to repeat last season's finish. Our next few league games are Southampton (A), West Ham (A), City (H), Sheffield (A), Leeds (H), Leicester (A), Wolves (H), Villa (H). That takes us up to January 2nd. Sheffield is the only easy game on paper out of all those fixtures. And we also play PSG (H), Leipzig (A) and Everton (A) in The CL and League Cup between some of these games.
This will really be a make or break 6 weeks for Ole.
Ffslook at Ole‘s body language! ...either sat on his arse staring into space or head in hands, face like a smacked arse, he looks beaten even before they‘ve kicked off....
He needs a holiday ....a very very long one
This is the biggest problem at the club. We can keep blaming the managers but who appoints them?
Who signs of on players? on contracts?
We can all say why did Ole give Jones / Lingard contracts up to 100k? but the problems happened before too? Shaw got 200k a week before Ole. Alexis.
He also hires managers who have contracting styles to the previous ones.
LVG was possession
Jose was pragmatic
Ole - Does woodward know what style he plays?
I take it you're talking about VDB, who was an intricate member of a very fluent Ajax side? If what Ole says is true (why should we doubt him? ) about playing fast attacking football then shouldn't VDB be a key member of the team? Just because Ole doesn't seem to know what to do with him doesn't make him a bad signing. Even if it was Woodward who gave the go ahead.
We went into the new season serveral weeks behind these clubs. Not the least bit shocked United and City have had slow starts.
Palace had played 2 friendlies, 1 league game and 1 Carabao Cup game before they played us. We were set up to fail from the PL.
Alright Ole.
Whilst you’re here gaffer. Can you confirm why our successful starting 11 after lockdown is no longer good enough as our main 11 for this season?
Successful 11?
Didn't we draw and lose quite a few games at the end of the season? Westham (H), Saints (H), Copanhagen (ET win), Sevilla (loss)
We had 3 or 4 games where we won handsomely. The other games the formation didn't look all that good. Our fullbacks were constantly left exposed.
look at Ole‘s body language! ...either sat on his arse staring into space or head in hands, face like a smacked arse, he looks beaten even before they‘ve kicked off....
He needs a holiday ....a very very long one
Wow,
You keep em posts coming
You're seeing what you want to see. Being United manager is one of the toughest jobs in football. Of course there is pressure.
look at Ole‘s body language! ...either sat on his arse staring into space or head in hands, face like a smacked arse, he looks beaten even before they‘ve kicked off....
He needs a holiday ....a very very long one
What I'm saying is there is no apparent pressure from the board. All this talk about being one game from the sack is based on nothing at all
Ole is pretty much similar to Jose. I would say the only difference is the slider for Ole is set to 6 attach while Jose was set to 4.
Ole fanatics are always good for a laughWow,
You keep em posts coming
Exactly. Why are we better with Ole. He's won nothing of note. I know he won in Norway, but maybe Poch or any other manager you care to mention would have as well. Hodgson for example won loads of trophies in Scandinavia.
I love how it's now considered 'fanatical' to be satisfied with 3rd place last season or to be of the opinion that 8 games isn't enough to conclude where we'll be in May.
How come after how many games now our form is still up and down. Surely the players have been match fit a while now
Maybe because we're not Sir Alex's United anymore and our fans are still finding it hard to comprehend that. We went 26 years without a title before Sir Alex came along. It wasn't all rainbows and sunshine for us.
We've won our last 2 games as well haven't we? We've definitely looked 'better' since getting hammered 6-1 to Spurs. It would have been hard to be worse tbf I will grant you.
I feel like people aren't fully understanding how this season is going at all. It's a strange old season.
Not really true. We were visibly fatigued up until the Newcastle game and have clearly improved from that point and onwards.
When visibly fatigued(3 league games):
2 losses, 1 win(lucky). This equals 1 point per game on average.
After visibly fatigued(5 league games):
3 wins, 1 draw, 1 loss. This equals 2 points per game on average. The loss came after a stupid Pogba penalty against a team that created very few chances.
International break. How do you build rhythm when after every 2 weeks there is a 2 week break?
If you actually look at it, maybe it is an excuse but alot of our players have had niggles which is making it hard to get consistency.
But now there should be no excuse for up and down form, we have a big enough squad to deal with the fixtures.
It is now 100% down to the manager, the next 5/6 PL games will show us where we are.
I'm just going to see how the remainder of this first half of the season goes. If we are still inconsistent both in performances and results then this is Ole and what he brings to the table. There's no new manager bounce or Bruno in January to help us go on another unbeaten streak. I'd like to see more of Cavani and Greenwood back in the 11. I think they will really improve our attack
It won't show us much of anything due to the inconsistency in the team. We could just as easily win the next 5 games as lose them, and that's the problem, we have no idea which United is going to show up from one week to the next.
The inconsistency has been a staple of Ole's management from the day he took charge of the club to the current day, and our fans reflect that inconsistency by changing their votes God knows how many times in this very thread.
We cannot continue in this vein. If Ole cannot get the team to perform consistently from one week to the next (relatively) then we need to find a manager who can. No two ways about it.
This is such a lazy comment rolled out time and again, it's the same as the people that criticised Rashford (and Welbeck before him) constantly but claimed that he was above criticism just because he was a local lad. It is clear that Ole is not above criticism as he is subject to a persistent campaign from some high profile "fans" and a raft of posters on internet forums that think he's doing a bad job and shouldn't be here.
From what i can tell these people had made their minds up long ago and every opportunity like a poor result / performance confirms their bias and because they've become engrained in their position its more important to shout again and again about how right they always were rather than applying patience and balance. Which all of sudden reading some of the posts in this thread are things we should now abandon on the hope that we might stumble upon a winning manager if we keep churning through them quick enough. This might work where there is a strong structure to the football club (i.e. Director of Football) but we don't have that so sacking Ole would probably lead to another directionless appointment ala going from possession based LVG to completely the opposite with Jose.
From my point of view, the idea that Ole's job should be in question at the moment is madness. Taking his time in charge as a whole:
Season 1 - half a season of which half was fantastic and a breath of fresh air and then the other half awful after half the first team got injured due to the terrible conditioning of the previous management. Left with the squad players at the time (ala Perriera) who clearly were no where near good enough, and a complete loss of form for De Gea (how many mistakes did he make in this run, i can think of three howlers from the top of my head at Barca, Arsenal and at home to Chelsea but sure there were more) we slipped and just missed out on fourth.
Season 2 - left short in the summer, he clearly wanted and needed Bruno and probably a CF but we were left with nothing after selling Lukaku and signing Maguire last minute. Even so, started the season well but lost Martial for c.6 weeks, Pogba got injured and were left looking very blunt and at this time it looked really bleak for him. Still, finally backed in January things picked up with Bruno coming in and our form for the rest of the season was excellent and we were clearly the third best team of the league (and much closer to City and LPool over that period). The nay-sayers suggest a big part of this was because of lock-down, i think this does have something to do with it as we were able to get Rashford, Pogba and Greenwood into the team, but this ignores that before lock-down we were the in-form team. Anyway, overall a good season with a strong finish, the semi-finals were a disappointment he got it wrong against Chelsea (but let down by defensive errors too) and we really should have beaten Sevilla but had one of those days in front of goal.
Season 3 (so far) - couldn't imagine a worse close-season. We had no pre-season playing just one friendly, the club captain got arrested and charged for assaulting police in Greece, Pogba getting covid and Greenwood got sent home from England duty. I don't think it is unreasonable to look at these as big big factors as to our poor form in those first few games, we were clearly physically off the pace against Palace and Brighton (though got v. lucky) and Maguire was absoloutely terrible during this run, his poor form peaking with the red he got for England.
I've not mentioned the Spurs game which was obviously horrendous, but for me fitness, Maguire form played a huge part to play in the result before even mentioning the injustice of the red card.
Since this point we have been ok, but inconsistent, Maguire's form has improved massively and we look a much more solid team getting notable results against PSG and Leipzip. Chelsea completely nullified us but we were overly cautious because of what happened against Spurs. We set up wrong against Arsenal in the first half (but everyone before the game thought the diamond was the solution after Leipzig so only hindsight Harry's can point the finger at Ole for this) and Pogba gave them the W. I do think we've missed the crowd in these big home games, but it helps us away from home (when we're usually at a disadvantage because crowds turn-up when we're in town). Istanbul was really poor, no excuses but we bounced back beating a good Everton team when the knives were well and truly out.
Finally, we beat West Brom, it wasn't great but we won and really should have scored more after an international break and having basically one-day of training with the squad before the game compared to our opponents who had the majority of its squad together for the full two-weeks.
On top of this, we can point to a big drop in the individual form of two key players Pogba and Martial during this period, both of which have some mitigating factors (injuries and suspensions).
Get these two players and Greenwood back to reasonable form plus Cavani, VDB and Telles settling in i think we've got a strong squad a few noticeable "holes" that can be fixed in another one or two windows (fast CB, attacking RB alternative/competition (had hoped for Laird but he is always injured), RW (Diallo maybe...hopefully...). We'll also almost inevitably need to replace Pogba and Matic during this time too.
We've been fairly consistent since the arrival of Bruno. It's been 35-40 games since then, which is a pretty long time in football. If we look past the first 3 league games where we were visibly fatigued from lack of a preseason, our point average is somewhere between 2.0 and 2.1(if we include the cups). It's not quite title challenger form yet, but it's pretty consistent.
Excluding the last couple years, a typical champion needs to average about 2.3 points per game. To get there we need to be less wasteful against the weaker teams. We still have a little too many draws and losses, even with Bruno in the team. I personally think an additional 2 top players in the starting XI(an attacker and a defensive midfielder) could close the remaining gap. Our bench is strong enough and most of the starting XI is good-ish.
Fergie really spoilt us with how successful he was for such a long time. Now fans can't comprehend a 3-4 managers failing here in 7 years You'd think we've gone through 10 world class managers when out of the 4, two were underqualfied and one was past it.
I agree. We cannot go into football matches not knowing what United will turn up. We are not even confident of seing a good performance against winless WBA.
That's where i'm at too, if we're still inconsistent and struggling once the CL games are over then perhaps it's time for a change, I think he can still easily turn it around, but we need our forwards to find some form. I'm also hoping we'll bring in another forward come Janaury.
I know people like to shit on Ole about inconsistency, but we're pretty much identical to all the other top clubs in league form for this year (2020). I put Arsenal in this table to demonstrate what a proper inconsistent club should look like. That's a Manager that managed to win an FA cup and yet their league form... no comment.
Club | W | D | L | Win % | GD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Manchester City | 11 | 3 | 4 | 61.1% | +29 |
Tottenham Hotspur | 11 | 5 | 2 | 61.1% | +19 |
Chelsea FC | 11 | 3 | 4 | 61.1% | +15 |
Liverpool FC | 11 | 4 | 3 | 61.1% | +12 |
Manchester United | 10 | 4 | 3 | 58.8% | +15 |
Arsenal FC | 9 | 2 | 8 | 47.4% | +3 |
They don't want to hear the truth.
They want him sacked before he's even had a chance to fail. Ole hasn't failed at anything as of yet. Only 1 full season and he got 3rd. This new season is barely started and they want him out.
If we finish outside of the top 4 then they will have a case. Until then it's just moaning for sake of moaning. The way back to the top is a long road. There's no magic solution sadly.
I'm more referring to the players' performances when I talk of inconsistency. Take Martial, Pogba and Rashford for example - three immensely talented players who, before the arrival of Bruno, were solely responsible for our attacking threat - they epitomise the term inconsistency. They're hot one week, cold the next - Pogba's cold 90% of the time but he's a separate issue altogether.
I feel the lack of competent coaching plays a part in this inconsistency. Watching them during the game, you get the impression that they have no idea what they're supposed to be doing at times. It's almost as if they're being forced to act on instinct rather than an effective gameplan.
I don't think it has anything to do with Sir Alex Ferguson or being spoilt up until 2012.
If you look at the facts, and assume we started from 2012, look at our stature as one of the richest clubs in the world, biggest club in England and our sheer pull - then consider we have failed to muster a single title challenge in 8 years despite spending one of the most out of anyone + changing philosophies every 3 years - you'd be struggling to argue against reasonable frustration.
It's got nothing to do with Sir Alex Ferguson. After he left football, a small club like Leicester won in 2016, Chelsea won with Conte debuting in the league, Liverpool won under Klopp with a tiny net spend and Pelligrini was winning titles too. We did nothing whilst we saw other clubs mount a challenge at least once. We spend and spend, we chop and change philosophies and now we are seeing what is quite literally a punt on an ex-player trying to navigate the club against the 2 best managers in the world. It's got feck all to do with being spoilt. It's everything to do with poor decisions and an inefficient allocation of resources.
We don't have to pull a plug now, but waiting until he's mathematically out of the top 4 like you suggest is an odd argument. If you can see a ship leaking, do you plug the gap before it's too late or let it sink before saying "I know we are drowning but just want to be sure"?
I've always been of the opinion that coaching only is 20-30% of what determines the results. Even less so when it comes to attacking players.
Thierry Henry had a pretty good talk on this. He essentially said that Pep doesn't coach his players on what they should do in the attacking third of the pitch. Once you're that high up the pitch, all that matters is instinct, talent and creativity. Telling top attacking players to follow a certain game plan up there is counter productive. They need full freedom.
You really think that? We have good midfield depth and Telles has improved our LB depth, but our RB, CB and Forward depth is flimsy. I feel like a long term injury to any position would result in us falling apart.
Our forwards in particular are pretty weak, Rashford needs to step up another gear, Martial is a purple patch player, Greenwood is still an inexperienced kid. All three have top potential but none of them have reached it yet. That's been my big worry, we don't have a consistent forward and we don't have the numbers in our forward line to replace players struggling with form. If one of Martial or Rashford has a bad game ooour attack is utterly fecked. Cavani will hopefully help this, but we're gambling on a 33 year old to provide us a bit of depth. Beyond that we're looking at players who are clearly not United standard in James and Ighalo. That should be a priority in Janauary, bring in another forward with goal threat.
There are only 7 spots on the bench anyways, and all of our starting attackers are versatile so that makes things easier. Assuming no injuries:
First bench:
Henderson, Bailly, Telles, Matic, Pogba, VDB, Cavani
Second bench:
Grant, Tuanzebe, Williams, Mata, Lingard, James, Ighalo
Potentially coming in soon: Pellistri and Diallo
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I don't think we can complain too much about the bench now, honestly. But the starting Xi is obviously not PL winner quality(outliers obviously not included). We still need 2 top players, imo. An attacker and a DM preferably, but our defense could also use some strengthening. But that should be the second priority.
I'm talking about how fans are afraid of another change in manager. How fans have this strong belief that changing the manager again means we are in an endless cycle. You really don't hear that from other fans of top clubs. Our fans find it difficult to swallow the possibility of a 4th manager failing here in 7-8years and I think this is because of how successful we were under Fergie for so long.
Well said. Ole has been here 2 years now and our form is as erratic as it was when he came in. Maybe get shut of the coaches and get some quality additions in might help him. So far we have 2 novices and an old hand who was useless elsewhere.
Look at that first bench, none of them with the exception of Cavani are goal scorers and whether Cavani can do it for us is still doubtful. If we're chasing a game and need a game changer to come off the bench then we're screwed. That's ultimately the issue with us right now. No goal threat outside the first team.
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