Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion

RUCK4444 said:

I'm trying to get to the crux of the issue, to determine the benchmark because I think there are huge contradictions across what our fans seemingly ignore as progress under Ole and pick out as major positives in opposition managers.

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Maybe they don't ignore the progress but they are not willing to jump on a, in their opinion, hypetrain where everything good is somehow connected to the manager and everything bad is completely separated from him. It is all relative.

RUCK4444 said:

The team Ole took over also needed a TOTAL rebuilding job, one of the biggest of any team in the PL in recent memory, plenty of overpaid shite players (thanks Mourinho) to get rid off and a lot of players we had to recruit and get it right first time in order to see any of the on field improvements we've seen. The latter being something Tuchel has not had to do in his first three months.

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Ole didn't have to do it in his first three month as well. He took a team and released them somehow to play great football for quite some time. Then he became the manager and then started to recruit. Personally I agree on your list of disadvantages, but I don't think, they are Ole-specific.

Any manager would have had to deal with these. If we would have got Poch, do you think, we would still play Fellaini and Young? Probably not, right...? We would still have tried to get rid of the deadwood. Would still have tried to find a formula to get as much out the players, bonding them together, instill good moral and chemistry, try to get good players in the transfer windows.

So if the problem isn't Ole specific, all we can do is respect and admire the way, Ole actually approached the issues and succeeded (because we objectively know he did). What we cannot/shouldn't do is to imply that another manager wouldn't possible also found ways to approach the issue. Hypothetically even better ways? Of course it is speculative - but is exactly the same amount of speculative as saying "there is no way somebody else would have succeeded just as much". There is no chance in proving one of these standpoints, yet you could get ridiculed on here for having the first one.

This might seem like nitpicking, but I think, it is a central root of nowadays Ole-In-Out-Battle. Even though it is fought as if the "Outers" simply dismiss that Ole is doing a good to great job, this doesn't seem to be the stance of many "Outers". From what I see in the relevant threads, they mostly agree, that he is doing a great job and that he exceeds expectations.
The actual conflict is that some "Outers" think/feel that another manager might have done an even better job (in some aspects) while the "In'ers" seemingly not even want to think that thought. At least, thats how I feel it.

And the discussion between the user Mainaldo and justsomebloke earlier today indicated exactly that:

" We are here but there is absolutely nothing that says if we didn’t just hire Conte we would be lifting a Premier League title like Inter now following his methods on how he seena rebuild "

" So basically if we had Tuchel and they had Ole with the same current resources. They would not only be in a FA Cup and Champs league final they would probably also be lifting the league. As obviously he would be outperforming Tuchel’s management team. "

We are talking about football here, having a squad of 30 players and a management team. There is an infinite number of possible explanation for every detail. Some more likely than others, most of them highly subjective from a fan standpoint. Its great to discuss the extent, likelihood or magnitude of some of these factors (Pogbas injury, Brunos form, weakness at set-pieces etc) without the omnipresent possibility of getting lambasted as soon as someone brings up Ole and his possible influences. I get it, some around here are traumatized from the negativity But you can make the step out of the darkness. Ignore the small minority that genuinely wants Ole gone. Its the internet after all. This fight cannot be won by fighting it.

RUCK4444 said:

Am I totally overwhelmed that Tuchel has beaten the two Madrid teams? No, not particularly. Both are pretty ordinary by their own standards (at this time) and Chelsea have some very good players, I'm more impressed with his win over City, but that's something Ole has done multiple times ironically.

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The two matches that actually meant something this season Pep came out on top, didn't he? City progressed in the cup and on Matchday 12 when it was 8. against 9. in the table and both teams didn't want to lose while City being the slightly better of two relatively dull teams. We won a match when they were 10(?) points clear, feeling so comfortable, that Pep tried to have a go at us while knowing, he could burn his fingers doing it and therefor adapted in the two other fixtures...

This sounds like bashing Ole, it isn't - it is just adding a perspective. I really enjoyed this season, to be honest, it felt so short, I cannot believe it is almost over. And it had some great games and great results, can't wait for the next season to begin. And this is undeniably due to Ole doing what he does better than his predecessors. But at the end of the day "better than predecessors" isn't equal to "best possible".

This thread is like a drug you want rid of, but you keep coming back for another hit, despite knowing how miserable it inevitably makes you.

Proper winds me up seeing Ole bashers.

Ole throughout his professional life has had no agenda except to make United the best it can be, (sometimes at sacrifice to himself), and we have cnuts here slagging him off.

In the time of mercenaries, we have one of our own managing us. I love the man to bits, and have done since he first pulled on a United shirt. He's done so much good for United, (and continues to do so), yet people seem to have one rule for him, and one rule for the rest. He doesn't get anywhere near enough credit from our "newer" fan base for the job he's had to do. When he took over from Jose, he was given a mountain to climb, but mountains are there to be climbed, aren't they, Ole?

I was getting completely disillusioned with our clubs direction, but Ole stepped back in as a super-sub, again, and steadied a sinking ship while bringing back our core values. We're on an upward spiral. We aren't far off challenging for the title and getting back to where a club of our stature should be, and it's all thanks to Ole.

Lay off him, ffs.

He'sRaldo said:

1st part maybe, but the 2nd definitely isn't given the amount of teams not called City which have won the league recently.

In any case, since we all rate Ole so highly, why not back him to get the 90+ points to win the league? No need for all these excuses next season.

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Because he's had minimal support from the club, with an average of two first team signings per season. Unlike Chelsea and City who have pretty much perfectly balanced squads, we have large gaping holes in ours. If you go through our team, player by player you can make the argument of almost half of the first team needing a clear upgrade. Other than the complete one off Leicester side of 2016, no team not managed by SAF wins titles under those circumstances. Just as Liverpool were transformed after VVD, Alisson and Fabinho came in, so too would Utd if a DM, RW and CB came in. It will likely not happen next summer but even if it was just two of them, we'd be so much more improved.

He’s a fantastic man manager but seems very limited tactically. It’s imperative that he’s given everything he needs this summer. We need to spend about £200m, anything less & it’s risking we go backwards. Chelsea will invest. Liverpool probably will too. We absolutely need more quality this summer.

Schmeichel's Cartwheel said:

He’s a fantastic man manager but seems very limited tactically. It’s imperative that he’s given everything he needs this summer. We need to spend about £200m, anything less & it’s risking we go backwards. Chelsea will invest. Liverpool probably will too. We absolutely need more quality this summer.

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Highly doubt anyone is spending $200m during a pandemic.

A net spend of $100m might be feasible with some outgoings.

Mainoldo said:

You are confusing yourself. I asked you who had the better team you said us. But you aren’t comparing players you are comparing managers? Is that what you are saying? So basically if we had Tuchel and they had Ole with the same current resources. They would not only be in a FA Cup and Champs league final they would probably also be lifting the league. As obviously he would be outperforming Tuchel’s management team.

Make it make sense for me please. You went off topic. But we was doing so well.

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We have better XI/main players than Chelsea at the moment thanks to Ole's coaching & man management but Chelsea have much better squad depth. Season counts the whole squad.

The fact you discount or forgetting how good their squad depth shows how lazy your argument is because their squad depth is the no 1 reason they are in FA Cup, UCL final and still surviving the top 4 race.

There is no common sense that if we swap the whole squad Tuchel would still be in FA, UCL final and lifting the league because he won't have Pulisic, Ziyech, & Hudson Odoi as his rotation option but instead he will have James, Mata & VDB. All day Pulisic, Ziyech & CHO over James, Mata & VDB to me. Surely you have to agree with that as it's a no brainer.

Did the right thing yesterday, sensible yet difficult decision.

justsomebloke said:

Self-damning, as in "makes it apparent that the person who wrote this doesn't understand what a viable argument is".

There are few things as time-consuming, galling and futile as trying to explain exactly what makes a stupid argument stupid. But if you insist:

We are here but there is absolutely nothing that says if we didn’t just hire Conte we would be lifting a Premier League title like Inter now following his methods on how he seena rebuild.

You're not only comparing reality with a hypothetical possibility that an alternative reality might have been even better, and taking this as indicative of shortcomings, you are also making an unwarranted extrapolation by assuming that since Conte won Serie A with one team, he would also have won the PL with a different team. No doubt you will say that you're not claiming he would, just that he might have. But that just brings you back to your first problem, which is that you're comparing a hypothetical achievement to a real one, with no proof of relevance, and drawing from that entirely unjustified implications. The only thing this shows is that you don't understand how an argument works.

After all he took enough of our players.

Okay, so there are a handful of players who used to play for Man Utd, and who is now part of a team that won Serie A. Which shows what, exactly? Well, it shows that these players are good enough to play for a championship team in Serie A. You think it shows that Antonio Conte is a better manager, which of course it doesn't.

All in all he’s done a good job for his standard. My standards are just different and I see a lot of things in his management that a believe a better manager wouldn’t have made

Let me rephrase that argument for you in a way that makes exactly the same argument with exactly the same degree of validity:

"He's a shit manager because I think he is, and I think he is because he is".

That's not actually an argument, or even a meaningful statement, at all.

You can bring up LVG and Mourinho if you want. But history shows how they manage clubs and there time under us is no big blimp in how they‘ve managed over the years. LVG was just a lot older and outdated and Jose well if you could do a line graph on performance you’ll probably just notice he’s getting progressively worse

This amounts to a jumbled claim that somehow, comparing OGS' results to those of his predecessors isn't relevant (while comparing it to what Antonio Conte has achieved with a different team in a different league somehow is). The reason being that LvG was "old and outdated", and Jose was just plain going downhill, so there. That's called "ignoring evidence which inconveniently fails to support your conclusion". Not a lot of people will read that and think "oh, that's a fair point".

Seriously, you're like that West Ham fan who insisted Moyes was shit and any manager would have brought West Ham to the brink of CL qualification. Because you know, the team is demonstrably doing well, and since Moyes is shit, it can't be because of him. And if it's nothing to do with him, anyone could have done it.

And please, don't make me say the John Cleese thing.

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looking forward to @Mainoldo 's rebuttal

UNITED ACADEMY said:

We have better XI/main players than Chelsea at the moment thanks to Ole's coaching & man management but Chelsea have much better squad depth. Season counts the whole squad.

The fact you discount or forgetting how good their squad depth shows how lazy your argument is because their squad depth is the no 1 reason they are in FA Cup, UCL final and still surviving the top 4 race.

There is no common sense that if we swap the whole squad Tuchel would still be in FA, UCL final and lifting the league because he won't have Pulisic, Ziyech, & Hudson Odoi as his rotation option but instead he will have James, Mata & VDB. All day Pulisic, Ziyech & CHO over James, Mata & VDB to me. Surely you have to agree with that as it's a no brainer.

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Well let’s do player for player shall we. All you have done it pick an area where they are stronger than us which is the wings. Even then there first 11 options aren’t better than ours so you are relying on mediocre vs very mediocre.

Schmeichel's Cartwheel said:

He’s a fantastic man manager but seems very limited tactically. It’s imperative that he’s given everything he needs this summer. We need to spend about £200m, anything less & it’s risking we go backwards. Chelsea will invest. Liverpool probably will too. We absolutely need more quality this summer.

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Come one mate. How can a tactically limited manager beat the great Pep Guardiola and other supposedly great tactical managers so regularly?

Unless tactics don't mean a hell of a lot.

You'll need to explain this one.

Mainoldo said:

Even then there first 11 options aren’t better than ours

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where?

People still manfully trying to eat soup with a fork, I see.

Olecurls99 said:

No I'm sorry I won't let you off with "he's done ok". Considering the absolute shitshow he inherited and where we are now, finally looking like we're on the right track, with players who are motivated and all pulling in the right direction, with a younger hungrier squad, I would say he's done a bloomin marvelous job.

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Sure I'll give you that we have more motivated and more balanced squad compared to before, but let's not kid ourselves whoever came after Mourinho would do a better job and there would be the new manager bounce (literally every team has, even West Brom with Big Sam did).

You're talking about the shitshow he inherited, the same shitshow that came 2nd 6 months earlier. I'm not suggesting that we had a great squad or anything like that, more like having some great players that didn't perform for x,y,z reason.

RUCK4444 said:

I'm not being pedantic, just pointing out that it seems to be one rule for Ole and another for other clubs managers. You mentioned Pep being the best manager of his generation, coupled with him manager the wealthiest club around who operate outside of any form of FFP, that makes it a very hard task for any current United manager to win the league. We came very close this year imo.

I'm trying to get to the crux of the issue, to determine the benchmark because I think there are huge contradictions across what our fans seemingly ignore as progress under Ole and pick out as major positives in opposition managers.

Tuchel has done well in his three months however if Ole's first three months coincided with him finding himself positioned well in multiple competitions like Tuchel has then it would look just as favourable in all likelihood as we went unbeaten for god knows how long, beating some big teams along the way. The team Ole took over also needed a TOTAL rebuilding job, one of the biggest of any team in the PL in recent memory, plenty of overpaid shite players (thanks Mourinho) to get rid off and a lot of players we had to recruit and get it right first time in order to see any of the on field improvements we've seen. The latter being something Tuchel has not had to do in his first three months.

Am I totally overwhelmed that Tuchel has beaten the two Madrid teams? No, not particularly. Both are pretty ordinary by their own standards (at this time) and Chelsea have some very good players, I'm more impressed with his win over City, but that's something Ole has done multiple times ironically.

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Again you are suggesting that United can't compete financially with City, I find this excuse ridiculous to be honest.

Teams rebuild and develop all the time, it's a continuous process. No team will say "ok next year I'm bringing 22 new players because we need to rebuild the squad and we will sacrifice a year for this to happen". The only team as far as I know that did this was Olympiacos by bringing 20 new players in a single summer. But we can't be compared to a Greek club with last 16 of Ch.League as their ceiling.

Tuchel didn't need to do such a thing (rebuild) cause Lampard did it for him.

If tomorrow Ole got the sack and a better coach came we'd be in a better position than post-Mou. The new coach would get a better and more balanced squad and who knows maybe we'd get in a ch.league final. It's all hypothetical.

The thing is what @NZT-One wrote, that we acknowledge the good job Ole has done but hypothetically if we got another coach he wouldn't be doing a great or a better job than Ole

NZT-One said:

What we cannot/shouldn't do is to imply that another manager wouldn't possible also found ways to approach the issue. Hypothetically even better ways? Of course it is speculative - but is exactly the same amount of speculative as saying "there is no way somebody else would have succeeded just as much". There is no chance in proving one of these standpoints, yet you could get ridiculed on here for having the first one.

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Withnail said:

Come one mate. How can a tactically limited manager beat the great Pep Guardiola and other supposedly great tactical managers so regularly?

Unless tactics don't mean a hell of a lot.

You'll need to explain this one.

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Gary Megson has wins over Fergie & Wenger. It doesn’t always work like that mate. It’s football, anything can happen. He’s adequate tactically & has good players, of course he’s going to pick up some good results. Just because you beat an elite tactician get doesn’t mean you’re elite tactically yourself.

Ole has even talked about being more of a man manager & less of a tactician himself.

Schmeichel's Cartwheel said:

He’s a fantastic man manager but seems very limited tactically. It’s imperative that he’s given everything he needs this summer. We need to spend about £200m, anything less & it’s risking we go backwards. Chelsea will invest. Liverpool probably will too. We absolutely need more quality this summer.

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What's this based on? He's beat some of the best managers in the game who are considered tactical geniuses. Surely he did more than give a Churchillian speech?

Agree with the spending though, this summer is huge if we're hoping to kick on from our current position. We're only a few players away from winning a league title

No manager can win trophies by themselves they need top players for it too. The only question is can they add that bit of extra to give their team and edge over their competition. And Ole has proven that he can. He has surpassed everyone barring City this season, and bettered Chelsea in the league twice now despite having similar quality of players and investment. He has faced a challenge of a very inconsistent team which happens when your key players are that young.

Schmeichel's Cartwheel said:

He’s a fantastic man manager but seems very limited tactically. It’s imperative that he’s given everything he needs this summer. We need to spend about £200m, anything less & it’s risking we go backwards. Chelsea will invest. Liverpool probably will too. We absolutely need more quality this summer.

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"Very limited tacitally" is basically on the same lines as PE teacher. Until managers are control freaks, showing intellectualism and have names for their concept of the game, they are branded as that. I bet you lot would have said the same about Fergie.

Withnail said:

Come one mate. How can a tactically limited manager beat the great Pep Guardiola and other supposedly great tactical managers so regularly?

Unless tactics don't mean a hell of a lot.

You'll need to explain this one.

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Surely it's not that hard. Even the man himself acknowledges he isn't a tactical coach.

Getting wins over a more tactical coach does not somehow prove Ole is a tactical genius. Its always been widely recognised, on here, in the media and seemingly within the coaching setup that Ole focuses more on the human nature of management.

This isn't a slight on the man but people jumping on these types of comments is becoming tedious, when even the manager has said similar things publically.

CG1010 said:

"Very limited tacitally" is basically on the same lines as PE teacher. Until some managers are control freaks, showing intellectualism and have names for their concept of the game, every manager is branded as that. I bet you lot would have said the same about Fergie.

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I can't believe the new breed of micro managers in the PL are deemed as being tactically better these days. The management style Pep, Klopp, Tuchel etc all employ is great when you're winning, but the second you start losing or when they manage a club that isn't successful players get really fecked off with training being stopped so the manager can shout at them to stand 1 metre to the right when receiving the ball instead of the position they're currently standing in.

It's a different management style, but it doesn't mean it's better by any means.

Schmeichel's Cartwheel said:

Gary Megson has wins over Fergie & Wenger. It doesn’t always work like that mate. It’s football, anything can happen. He’s adequate tactically & has good players, of course he’s going to pick up some good results. Just because you beat an elite tactician get doesn’t mean you’re elite tactically yourself.

Ole has even talked about being more of a man manager & less of a tactician himself.

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I'm aware that any team can beat any other team on a given day. I'm not completely simple.

iirc he said he's more of a manager than a coach, in that he doesn't personally lead the sessions. I don't recall him saying he wasn't any good tactically.

His record against Pep is W:4 D:1 L:3 by the way.

Do you have any specific criticisms of his tactics or is it just you think he's not on Guardiola's level? Let's face it, who is?

b82REZ said:

Surely it's not that hard. Even the man himself acknowledges he isn't a tactical coach.

Getting wins over a more tactical coach does not somehow prove Ole is a tactical genius. Its always been widely recognised, on here, in the media and seemingly within the coaching setup that Ole focuses more on the human nature of management.

This isn't a slight on the man but people jumping on these types of comments is becoming tedious, when even the manager has said similar things publically.

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But he has said he relies on his coaches on the tactical part. After all the manager and coaches are a team. Why are you willfully ignoring that part of Ole's comments? It's not like he said we as a club go with the philosophy of "tactics be damned and hope for the best". They do have tactical plans for games and in fact as recently as last match he said they develop tactics specifically in response to maximising effectiveness of our players. One example is moving Pogba to left.. is this not tactics?

crossy1686 said:

I can't believe the new breed of micro managers in the PL are deemed as being tactically better these days. The management style Pep, Klopp, Tuchel etc all employ is great when you're winning, but the second you start losing or when they manage a club that isn't successful players get really fecked off with training being stopped so the manager can shout at them to stand 1 metre to the right when receiving the ball instead of the position they're currently standing in.

It's a different management style, but it doesn't mean it's better by any means.

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Certainly not and the likes of Fergie, Zidane and Bayern as a club(pre-guardiola atleast) have proved often that you don't need managers who treat the football game mechanically to win. More flexible management approach is shown to be effective too. And I would have thought being fans of Man United's, and part of its "heritage", people would prefer that style resembling the United way over the other styles. But no, it's always "patterns of play" bullshit that you see here.

Edit: what is more incredible is this belief that United need a complete overhaul in its footballing philosophy has strengthened instead of weakening even after dark times of two systems managers - Mourinho and LVG and much better performances under Ole who is going back to how the club was.

And then these people give example of City - a soulless club which had no history and essentially a blank page which they completely leased to Guardiola to shape - as an example to emulate. This shows lack of regard for what this club represents and it's successes in the past. The only one who really got away was Klopp who is sort of a hybrid manager.

Not much of a complaint but why didnt we just mix and match againt Villa and Leicester? Would've been better for the squad players too.

CG1010 said:

But he has said he relies on his coaches on the tactical part. After all the manager and coaches are a team. Why are you willfully ignoring that part of Ole's comments? It's not like he said we as a club go with the philosophy of "tactics be damned and hope for the best". They do have tactical plans for games and in fact as recently as last match he said they develop tactics specifically in response to maximising effectiveness of our players. One example is moving Pogba to left.. is this not tactics?

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So is the coaches or Ole who get the credit for tactical changes and adjustments?

You seem so desperate to credit Ole with everything you're reading into things that aren't there. Solksjaer has acknowledged he isn't a hands on coach, yet you and many others seem to jump on any comments that echo that.

Like I said this is not a slight on the man, so stop being so defensive over him.

Karlos PFC said:

Sure I'll give you that we have more motivated and more balanced squad compared to before, but let's not kid ourselves whoever came after Mourinho would do a better job and there would be the new manager bounce (literally every team has, even West Brom with Big Sam did).

You're talking about the shitshow he inherited, the same shitshow that came 2nd 6 months earlier. I'm not suggesting that we had a great squad or anything like that, more like having some great players that didn't perform for x,y,z reason.



Again you are suggesting that United can't compete financially with City, I find this excuse ridiculous to be honest.

Teams rebuild and develop all the time, it's a continuous process. No team will say "ok next year I'm bringing 22 new players because we need to rebuild the squad and we will sacrifice a year for this to happen". The only team as far as I know that did this was Olympiacos by bringing 20 new players in a single summer. But we can't be compared to a Greek club with last 16 of Ch.League as their ceiling.

Tuchel didn't need to do such a thing (rebuild) cause Lampard did it for him.

If tomorrow Ole got the sack and a better coach came we'd be in a better position than post-Mou. The new coach would get a better and more balanced squad and who knows maybe we'd get in a ch.league final. It's all hypothetical.

The thing is what @NZT-One wrote, that we acknowledge the good job Ole has done but hypothetically if we got another coach he wouldn't be doing a great or a better job than Ole

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I’m not, what I’m pointing out is that YOU claim Pep to be the best manager of his generation and we all know he’s managing a team with bottomless pockets and zero FFP.

There’s no argument about that. SO what I’m pointing out is that you might be waiting a long time and rubbishing plenty of managers like you have with Ole until one wins the league ahead of the best manager on the planet with the richest club on the planet.

I never said we didn’t have money in comparison. I’m pointing out your own opinion.

Di Maria's angel said:

Not much of a complaint but why didnt we just mix and match againt Villa and Leicester? Would've been better for the squad players too.

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Because then you're still asking a set of players to start 2 games in 3 days... which, after an already intense season, is a bit too much.

Currently only Greenwood has done that, and he looks like the only one that will along with one of yesterdays CB's.

b82REZ said:

Surely it's not that hard. Even the man himself acknowledges he isn't a tactical coach.

Getting wins over a more tactical coach does not somehow prove Ole is a tactical genius. Its always been widely recognised, on here, in the media and seemingly within the coaching setup that Ole focuses more on the human nature of management.

This isn't a slight on the man but people jumping on these types of comments is becoming tedious, when even the manager has said similar things publically.

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The words used where 'very limited tactically'. That is a slight on the man.

No one is claiming he's a tactical genius either so there's a bit of misrepresentation going on in your post. Also I didn't think I was jumping on anything to be honest but I did think 'very limited' was a bit extreme.

Can you point me to where he's said anything about not being a tactical coach? Maybe it was my interpretation but I only remembering him saying he's not hands on with the coaching sessions which isn't necessarily the same thing.

b82REZ said:

So is the coaches or Ole who get the credit for tactical changes and adjustments?

You seem so desperate to credit Ole with everything you're reading into things that aren't there. Solksjaer has acknowledged he isn't a hands on coach, yet you and many others seem to jump on any comments that echo that.

Like I said this is not a slight on the man, so stop being so defensive over him.

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Are you trying to ignore purposely what I said? I said the manager and coaches are a team and I don't give a rat's ass as to how the manager himself is or not as long as he has other coaches to help him out where he thinks he is not strong. The bottom-line is whether our team is set up with good tactics or not, and I am not interested in personal accolades or criticisms in this.

Towards your question, let me ask you back. Does Pep get the credit or his coaches who followed him since Barca?

Withnail said:

The words used where 'very limited tactically'. That is a slight on the man.

No one is claiming he's a tactical genius either so there's a bit of misrepresentation going on in your post. Also I didn't think I was jumping on anything to be honest but I did think 'very limited' was a bit extreme.

Can you point me to where he's said anything about not being a tactical coach? Maybe it was my interpretation but I only remembering him saying he's not hands on with the coaching sessions which isn't necessarily the same thing.

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"Time flies when you enjoy it. I think I've had 300-400 first-team games now as a manager. For ten years, more or less, I've been coaching a team and you become more and more confident, of course. The more mistakes you make, the more you learn.

"I've made a few mistakes through the years but I've won the league, I've won cups, I've been relegated so I feel I'm getting to know the occupation but it's about man-management, it's about managing the players, managing people, managing the staff, talking to everyone, getting the best out of everyone.

"I have to say, I had the best as a teacher. [Sir Alex Ferguson] is and always will be the best at how you manage people. Loads of my management revolves around what I learned from him."

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Di Maria's angel said:

Not much of a complaint but why didnt we just mix and match againt Villa and Leicester? Would've been better for the squad players too.

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I feel we targeted a win against Villa as it secured top 4. Then it was a case of playing who it was safe to play in the next game knowing we had another game two days later.

A mix and match may not have yielded enough points to secure top 4.

b82REZ said:

.

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So nothing at all about tactics then?

Withnail said:

So nothing at all about tactics then?

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Come on now, stop playing silly buggers. You know exactly what he meant by those comments.

b82REZ said:

Come on now, stop playing silly buggers. You know exactly what he meant by those comments.

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Give over, he hasn't mentioned tactics at all there.

The best you can come up with is him talking about man management and getting the best out of players which was probably in answer to a question about man management, was it?

Turning that into some admission of tactical limitation is an absolute reach and quite disingenuous on your part.

Schmeichel's Cartwheel said:

Gary Megson has wins over Fergie & Wenger. It doesn’t always work like that mate. It’s football, anything can happen. He’s adequate tactically & has good players, of course he’s going to pick up some good results. Just because you beat an elite tactician get doesn’t mean you’re elite tactically yourself.

Ole has even talked about being more of a man manager & less of a tactician himself.

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I haven't checked too much so I might be off by a game or two - but I think Megsons results against Ferguson was 1 win and 5 defeats. Which isn't quite comparable to 4 wins in 8 against Guardiola but. You can be lucky once - but you aren't lucky 4 times in 8

Withnail said:

Give over, he hasn't mentioned tactics at all there.

The best you can come up with is him talking about man management and getting the best out of players which was probably in answer to a question about man management, was it?

Turning that into some admission of tactical limitation is an absolute reach and quite disingenuous on your part.

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but it's about man-management, it's about managing the players, managing people, managing the staff, talking to everyone, getting the best out of everyone.

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If he were a tactical manager surely this part would read

but it's about tactics, it's about explaining the tactics to the players.

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You're just being pedantic here and somehow acting like this is some sort of insult towards Ole. But keeping parotting the same, tired, reductive argument that he beat Pep.

We better get Alladyce on the phone when he leaves seeing as he got a couple of wins over Fergie.

b82REZ said:

Come on now, stop playing silly buggers. You know exactly what he meant by those comments.

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A man who spent his playing career reading the game, tactically analysing the defence and structure of the opposition so that when he came on the pitch he could score a goal doesn't know much about tactics is a bit of a silly argument to be honest.

crossy1686 said:

A man who spent his playing career reading the game, tactically analysing the defence and structure of the opposition so that when he came on the pitch he could score a goal doesn't know much about tactics is a bit of a silly argument to be honest.

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You assume...

People are acting like this is an insult towards the manager. The man himself has acknowledged his managerial style yet you want to tell me he was actually lying and he's secretly a tactical mastermind.

Of course he has some understanding of tactics, but his main strength and area he mainly focuses on is man management. Ffs it really isn't an insult or hard to understand.

Di Maria's angel said:

Not much of a complaint but why didnt we just mix and match againt Villa and Leicester? Would've been better for the squad players too.

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Full strength to win 1 is better than half power to potentially draw or lose both. The win against Villa put us into a position of being able do to whatever we wanted.

We could have lost against Villa, Leicester and Liverpool and then been in a tricky situation.

b82REZ said:

You assume...

People are acting like this is an insult towards the manager. The man himself has acknowledged his managerial style yet you want to tell me he was actually lying and he's secretly a tactical mastermind.

Of course he has some understanding of tactics, but his main strength and area he mainly focuses on is man management. Ffs it really isn't an insult or hard to understand.

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I think people took issue with the original comment that stated he was 'tactically limited' which shows a general lack of understand or reading of the game from the poster who mentioned it.

I agree with what you're saying, Ole is a manager, whereas the other would describe themselves as head coach. A manager leads and coaches coach, there's a clear definition between the two job roles. Ole will never be doing the Macarena on the touchline like Pep does but that's because he sees more value in getting more from his players mentally as you pointed out. It's just different styles of management, Ole's not a micro manager, some others are.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will be content with how a virtual Carabao Cup team fared in the first half. I thought United's passing was pretty good in the first half although I will admit this is the first time I've watched United play for a while. United's manager will be less impressed with the 2nd half.

As for all the changes, he's perfectly entitled to do what's in United's best interests. The minute your hopes of a league title, top 4 or avoiding relegation are in the hands of some other club, you have yourself and nobody else to blame. Solskjaer and co have nothing to apologise for.