His dad played less than 40 games for City. I doubt it would've been too much of an unforgivable betrayal had his son joined United. Didn't both of Darren Fletcher's sons play for City's academy before we signed them?
The Overlap - Ole Gunnar Solskjaer
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Nothing we didnt already know. The squad was basically split between talented but spineless players, and ones who had heart and backbones but chronically lacking in talent.
He did such an underrated job before it went to shit and he will always be one of the biggest legends in the history of the club. Thank you Ole.
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Signing Ronaldo was the right decision but then says it was a wrong decision?
It does sadden me how it ended for Ole here. It feels as though he's only remembered for those last few weeks when we were getting humiliated but that shouldn't detract from the work he did in the seasons before. As he pointed out his two full seasons in charge here resulted in 2nd and 3rd place finishes. Things went badly wrong in that 3rd season when we signed Ronaldo and we tried to change what we had built towards for the two seasons prior.
He acknowledged himself that we had to change from being a pure counter attacking side to be able to compete with the likes of City and Liverpool but the personnel we had was strongest in lending itself to a counter attacking system. The same is true now in a lot of ways. Our most established forward players are Bruno Fernandes and Rashford but it's difficult to see how either fit into a possession based team. I really believe the club have to commit to a style of play first and foremost. If you find certain players aren't compatible with that, you may have to make some uncomfortable decisions in terms of moving on some of those more established players before we can really see true signs of progress.
He acknowledged himself that we had to change from being a pure counter attacking side to be able to compete with the likes of City and Liverpool but the personnel we had was strongest in lending itself to a counter attacking system. The same is true now in a lot of ways. Our most established forward players are Bruno Fernandes and Rashford but it's difficult to see how either fit into a possession based team. I really believe the club have to commit to a style of play first and foremost. If you find certain players aren't compatible with that, you may have to make some uncomfortable decisions in terms of moving on some of those more established players before we can really see true signs of progress.
At the time he thought it was right but in hindsight it was wrong. On paper he was signing a goal machine, in reality he signed an ageing egomaniac.
Not rocket science.
Seems to hard for some here.
I'd like to see Ole have another go at management. He obviously wouldn't walk into a top job right away, but there are teams in the top half he could certainly do a job at.
I doubt they give a feck about that. It's all about money for them. His dad's a massive cnut.
Don't think eiter would be anywhere near the players they are if they came here.
What an indictment.
Well if he had phrased it this way "At the time i thought it was the correct decision but in hindsight it turned out to be a wrong decision" his sentence would come across less silly.
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He is clearly a very good manager, his record speaks for itself. Unfortunately didn't win a cup with united but he deserved it. His next club will be lucky to have him.
That's the key, the quality was there but not the work ethic/pressing that was required.
Remember English isn't his native tongue and he still said that anyway.
It makes perfect sense! What is it that doesn’t make sense?
There are several highly interesting points. He speaks more openly than I’d expect.
Saying Yes to Ronaldo. This is very frank, because it put’s himself on the spot. Admitting he was partly responsible for bringing in a 38 year old player who would change the premises of how the team was drilled to play. It is clearly a bad decision and an obvious culprit in the descent.
Truth is United were consistently improving under Solskjær up until that point.
Saying Yes to Ronaldo. This is very frank, because it put’s himself on the spot. Admitting he was partly responsible for bringing in a 38 year old player who would change the premises of how the team was drilled to play. It is clearly a bad decision and an obvious culprit in the descent.
Truth is United were consistently improving under Solskjær up until that point.
That's not what he said. Starting off with saying "ive thought about it a lot and the correct decision was to sign Ronaldo" negates the interpretation. He's a Norwegian who spent his prime in England. He knows the language. Anyway there is no point in going on about this. Footballers aren't known for their way with words apart from George Best.
What I don’t get though is ok you miss out on Bellingham and Rice.
Why does that mean you persist with McFred?
Where's the middle ground. The alternatives?
Why does that mean you persist with McFred?
Where's the middle ground. The alternatives?
Should be common knowledge for most Norwegians, i imagine. Look, he's had a big team around him for quite some time, people handling the financial side in order to maximize most of his income, image rights, while Haaland himself focuses on football, i don't think you'll find many young talents in his age group having similar setups. Maybe when they reach the top, but rarely early on. They've always played the long game, how and why he moved to Molde, Salzburg. he could've easily made a bigger move after Salzburg, both in terms of wages and size of the club and league, it's not like big clubs weren't willing to fork out the fees, but the contract he signed at Dortmund and the clauses involved should tell you everything you need to know about the situation. Alf Inges former agent was Rune Hauge, his history should be well known even outside of Norway. Plenty of talents have joined big clubs a few years too early and suffered from it, seen their careers hit a wall and never recovered from it, Haaland&Co have taken steps in order to maximize the chances of sporting success and making sure the player and his team are extremely well compensated, to the point where his father made close to £30mill in agent fees, which is less than Raiolas company made...Not sure people fully realize the full extent of the costs related to that deal, but Haaland&Co didn't just accidentally stumble over it.
Haaland&Co talked to plenty of clubs, they were hardly dismissive, doesn't mean that the only thing missing was paying Molde the fee for the deal to be concluded.
Interesting, how he didn't mention the Pogba gang (Pogba, Lingard, Rashford, Sancho).
Especially as Matic already said how poor their discipline was.
What's the reasoning behind it?
Mourinho pretty much openly said that Pogba was a problem.
Wazza said that Pogba and Lingard were a problem in the dressing room with all the dancing and laughing after defeats.
Ten Hag has his open issues with Sancho and Rashford too, but Ole didn't mention any of them. When Ian Wright asked him about Sancho, he completely steered away from the question...
We won't go anywhere as a team until we get rid of the last bad apple of the original four.
And btw, not every Gen-Z player has attitude issues, Foden seems to work hard, Bellingham is a rock and was a man at 17, it's just us always signing the assholes it seems.
Especially as Matic already said how poor their discipline was.
What's the reasoning behind it?
Mourinho pretty much openly said that Pogba was a problem.
Wazza said that Pogba and Lingard were a problem in the dressing room with all the dancing and laughing after defeats.
Ten Hag has his open issues with Sancho and Rashford too, but Ole didn't mention any of them. When Ian Wright asked him about Sancho, he completely steered away from the question...
We won't go anywhere as a team until we get rid of the last bad apple of the original four.
And btw, not every Gen-Z player has attitude issues, Foden seems to work hard, Bellingham is a rock and was a man at 17, it's just us always signing the assholes it seems.
Ole said at half time in his last game vs Watford he asked in the dressing room who didn't want to play and then made changes.
Just went back and checked and Rashford and McTominay were subbed at HT in that game who don't exactly strike me as not wanting to play for Ole, particularly McTominay.
Just went back and checked and Rashford and McTominay were subbed at HT in that game who don't exactly strike me as not wanting to play for Ole, particularly McTominay.
I think they should spread out the ex United players as guests, as much as I love seeing the former greats we really need a broader football guestlist i.e. would be really interesting if they could get people on there who played with Wright or Carra for example just because it would be new stories. Would love if they could get some of the big names from their era in Serie A/La Liga as well, Seedorf, Del Piero etc. At it's heart it's entertaining because of the back and forth and stories that emerge.
He might not be the best technical coach around but I really fond of his time as a manager.
He brought smiles back for a couple of years especially during Covid lockdown period when it was tough for all of us.
His last 2 years signings "DVB/Sancho/Ronaldo/Varane" really didn't help him to build something from 2nd place finish but he is such a smart intelligent man played to the strengths of players at his disposal (counter) rather trying to implement some thing more possessed based where our players couldn't cut it. Wish he had won Europa or FA cup)
What ever happens he always have PARIS and we always love you Ole, full respect!
He brought smiles back for a couple of years especially during Covid lockdown period when it was tough for all of us.
His last 2 years signings "DVB/Sancho/Ronaldo/Varane" really didn't help him to build something from 2nd place finish but he is such a smart intelligent man played to the strengths of players at his disposal (counter) rather trying to implement some thing more possessed based where our players couldn't cut it. Wish he had won Europa or FA cup)
What ever happens he always have PARIS and we always love you Ole, full respect!
I think its pure poetry and so beautifully honest.
Yep, at last that has been cleared up.
True, but at the same time I remember watching the Newcastle game in his first game back and the atmosphere was just something else.
You never felt that something meaningful was going to come out of it but it was a nice bit of nostalgia in an otherwise depressing decade to be a United fan.
Yeah was going to post pretty much the same. Hindsight is the best decision maker on earth. He clearly meant at that moment in time.
And Donald.
It's a bit mad though if they didn't try everything in their power to get him here (and they may have, I don't know.. but that doesn't sound like what Ole is alluding to here).
Scouts watch players probably from the age of 6 and can see natural talent as clear as day, so it is bizzare if Haaland was dismissed with such a casual manner.
Can’t agree
The guaranteed minutes were not hard to give at that time. Bellingham clearly had potential coming out his ears.
His competition at that time would have been… Matic? Andreas Pereira? It really wasn’t hard to give him the assurance. They valued him enough to get Fergie and co there
It didn't work, so in hingsight it was a wrong decision.
But, at the time it seemed like a no-brainer and a sensible move but given how it did and would effect other things, it was not a prudent buy. It also massively changed the expectation and the talk around the club. If you listened to what was said prior, they reckoned they had the 3rd/4th best squad in the league, so a top 4 finish was reasonable, signing a Ronaldo upped the pressure to be win the league. The club buckled under that expectation and the squad was unbalanced by the changes, which lead to disaster.
Even now, if someone offered you Messi, you'd probably take it, even though objectively it's a terrible idea.
No surprised about both to be honest.
Disagree with this too. They’d have elevated United. There’s nobody here who would suddenly be the best player at city or Madrid if they’d joined them instead of us. Fact is we’ve just missed out on the 2 best players of this generation when we could have had them both. Awful recruitment which needs a giant overhaul
I'm not it was a no brainer, a 37 year old striker...? He'd have done well at City though.
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Interesting him talking about the team being unable to take the next step to start controlling and dictating games, while moving away from the lower block and counter attack style. Similar to the situation we are in at the current time.
it was definitely the wrong decision but that Newcastle game... Ronaldo scoring two on his return. I think the buzz around the club was the highest it'd been since van Persie's hattrick against Villa.