Cox: Don't judge Ole on Fergie's 'attacking philosophy' - It didn't exist. | The Athletic

[Hoof the ball]

Athletic article link for those with a subscription

For the rest who don't, some summary points.

Solskjaer’s United have generally appeared most comfortable changing their system to suit the demands of a game against strong opposition, retreating into a deep shape and then springing forward on the counter-attack to great effect. They have been considerably less convincing against smaller sides, particularly at Old Trafford, when they’ve been forced to try to dominate the game.

This all seems entirely contradictory in light of the suggestions about Solskjaer and Manchester United’s traditions, but the relevant pundits have happily ignored that to stick up for their old friend — which is understandable — while many supporters have happily gone along with it for the pure vibes. “I have been part of a United team and I wanted to go back to our traditions of attacking,” said Solskjaer in his early days as manager. “Quick, attacking football with pace, power, and personalities.”

On infamous PSG game

It was particularly striking to see Rio Ferdinand celebrating United’s dramatic win over Paris Saint-Germain in 2019 — an incredibly improbable result on the balance of play — with a celebratory shout on BT Sport of, “That’s what it’s about — the young lads coming into the side and playing! Sitting back and defending? It don’t happen here!”

Sitting back and defending was precisely what United had done for the previous 90 minutes, recording just 28 per cent of possession in a situation when they were the side who needed to score, from kick-off until the 94th minute. But in this era when it sometimes feels like punditry is designed to sound punchy in short social media clips rather than contribute to any meaningful discussion about the game we’ve just watched, no one seemed to care.

On United's ex-players not producing attacking teams themselves.

Of all Ferguson’s apostles — you can throw in Solskjaer at Manchester United, Gary Neville’s brief stint at Valencia and perhaps Paul Scholes’ forgettable spell at Oldham — and the only evidence of anyone having any discernible emphasis upon positive football has been Hughes at Stoke, where he was tasked with overhauling the most antiquated, direct style of football the Premier League has seen this century. With respect, any manager would have been more adventurous than Tony Pulis.

Otherwise, it’s difficult to see anything to support the idea that Ferguson passed down an attacking style of play. The footballing philosophy of Solskjaer, Bruce, Ince, Keane, Hughes, Gary Neville, Phil Neville and Scholes is difficult to decipher, but it is certainly not attacking. British football has generally been more cautious than Dutch, Spanish or modern German coaching anyway, so maybe that’s not surprising.

The reality is that none of Ferguson’s players appears to have a clue about the footballing philosophy of Ferguson. If they do, they haven’t been able to outline it in any meaningful way, or with any specifics, as pundit or manager.

Ferguson’s genius was his man-management skill rather than his tactical acumen. That’s not to say he was poor tactically, but his footballing approach changed routinely over the years. Ferguson studied the European greats when other managers were solely concerned with English football. He constantly changed assistants — not always through choice — who brought ideas from elsewhere and were handed huge responsibility in terms of tactics and/or training sessions. (In contrast, Solskjaer’s assistants are Mike Phelan, Michael Carrick and Kieran McKenna, who bring little experience from outside Old Trafford in recent years.)

 

[Maluco]

Don’t worry, I don’t judge him on that.

I judge him on the fact that he can’t coach and gets crap results.

 

[Thelongsleevesofblomqvist]

Very concise and precise description on why Ferguson’s ability and success lay in him being skilled in didactics where Ole is just trying to apply a pedagogy, to use educational terms.

 

[Brophs]

Michael Cox can - and I can’t stress this enough - get to feck with his pseudo-intellectual autofellatio he passes off as tactical insight.

 

[dal]

United have always been a largely counter attacking team and it’s not that which is the problem, it’s the fact Ole hasn’t won anything yet and that’s what’s building the pressure.

Regardless, what every United fan has wanted for the past 15 years is a swashbuckling all out attacking game like Liverpool and city with a high technical capability, yes Solskjaer is baring the brunt of this, he probably wouldn’t if his results were better but unfortunately they are not.

Its easier for players to concentrate and stick to a philosophy If they can have the ball for the large majority of the game and win it back quickly, something is unravelling, Ferdinand is close pals with Ronaldo, his voice probably reverberates the dressing room, Ronaldo will probably become the player manager.

 

[Matt851]

Michael Cox can - and I can’t stress this enough - get to feck with his pseudo-intellectual autofellatio he passes off as insight insight.

Why so angry? Is it because he said mean things about ole

 

[Martial'sEmergingSmile]

The underrating of Fergie's tactical ability by football's fart-sniffers is just weird at this point.

There was a similar article from Jonathan Wilson recently that all but called him a cheerleader, while acting like it was simply common knowledge to credit his success to tactical masterminds like Brian Kidd, Jimmy Ryan, Steve McClaren and Mike Phelan.

 

[Dec9003]

That ending made me laugh. Fergie picked assistants with experience outside of Old Trafford, unlike Ole, who literally has one of Fergie’s old assistants working with him.

 

[Ferguson’s Hairdryer]

United have always been a largely counter attacking team and it’s not that which is the problem, it’s the fact Ole hasn’t won anything yet and that’s what’s building the pressure.

Not in the low block, less than 40% possession type of way. We were more of a hit teams on the break with our fast/tricky wingers when the moment came but we wouldn’t just sit back hoping for the moment to come.

The only low block, defensive, less than 40% possession match I remember under SAF was at OT Vs Barca in the SF and we won 1nil. Other than that SAF usual tactic was to simply set one player to ruin the oppositions playmaker, while our other players just played normally or close to normality.

 

[dal]

Not in the low block, less than 40% possession type of way. We were more of a hit teams on the break with our fast/tricky wingers when the moment came but we wouldn’t just sit back hoping for the moment to come.

The only low block, defensive, less than 40% possession match I remember under SAF was at OT Vs Barca in the SF and we won 1nil. Other than that SAF usual tactic was to simply set one player to ruin the oppositions playmaker, while our other players just played.

True.

 

[jderbyshire]

Interesting read. Especially this last bit:

Few outsiders thought that Ferguson’s United concentrated on attacking football, no one can see any trace of it in Solskjaer’s current side and none of Ferguson’s apostles seemed to care about it as managers. The entire premise of Solskjaer’s suitability for Manchester United was built upon a lie. It’s now time to move on.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

Michael Cox can - and I can’t stress this enough - get to feck with his pseudo-intellectual autofellatio he passes off as insight insight.

He's pretty much insufferable, yes.

 

[flameinthesun]

United have always been a largely counter attacking team and it’s not that which is the problem, it’s the fact Ole hasn’t won anything yet and that’s what’s building the pressure.

Regardless, what every United fan has wanted for the past 15 years is a swashbuckling all out attacking game like Liverpool and city with a high technical capability, yes Solskjaer is baring the brunt of this, he probably wouldn’t if his results were better but unfortunately they are not.

Its easier for players to concentrate and stick to a philosophy If they can have the ball for the large majority of the game and win it back quickly, something is unravelling, Ferdinand is close pals with Ronaldo, his voice probably reverberates the dressing room, Ronaldo will probably become the player manager.

Not having a go but this idea that we are a historically counter attacking team is such a weird thing. The united I remember was attacking and generally dominated games in the prem. They could counter attack yes, the same way pool and city counterattack, but it was just another tool in the arsenal. Our teams were never out and out counter attacking teams. They were attacking teams looking to dominate possession, to attack and if needed when defending to counter attack.

There are many coaches that can set us up to counter attack effectively, but there are not many coaches that can coach a team to dominate possession and break down teams. Thats why a lot of managers fail at big clubs, if every manager could do it then there wouldn't be any super/legendary managers.

On topic, I feel a lot of ex united players have a sense of entitlement that because they worked under fergie they can just copy him, then get a shock when it doesn't work. Neville literally did some coaching and thought he could go straight in at Valencia, scholes wasn't even really doing first team coaching and thought he could manage Oldham.

Then on the other hand you have your potters, rodgers etc who have studied coaching, dedicated time to learning and evolved.

 

[MDFC Manager]

The underrating of Fergie's tactical ability by football's fart-sniffers is just weird at this point.

There was a similar article from Jonathan Wilson recently that all but called him a cheerleader, while acting like it was simply common knowledge to credit his success to tactical masterminds like Brian Kidd, Jimmy Ryan, Steve McClaren and Mike Phelan.

Yup, it is truly incredible to see.

 

[Irwin99]

It did exist but it morphed into a more conservative brand of football at various points, not helped by some poor recruitment.

06-07 and to a lesser extent 07-08 were the last times when I thought we were outstanding in terms of the quality of the football produced on a consistent basis. That's NOT the same as saying we're shit at attacking football or that we were negative etc which is not true but Fergie's later teams were just very patchy and more efficient towards the end. I think even Rio Ferdinand admitted the same a bit back and you'd find countless examples of journalists writing "United were not at their free flowing best but got the result in the end"; that in particular always used to make me smile as no one really picked up on the obvious point that this is what we had changed into.

This is why i think sometimes we need new ideas rather than an exaggerated United way. Yes it failed with LVG but that doesn't mean it will fail with every manager with a different philosophy.

 

[tomaldinho1]

Don’t worry, I don’t judge him on that.

I judge him on the fact that he can’t coach and gets crap results.

Yep
All these journos way behind the curve, basically all were scared to break rank first and now it open season and they're all piling in.

 

[tjb]

People really need to go back and watch us play, then come back and talk about Fergie tactically. It's very insulting. Our interplay, ability to move the ball around the pitch and even attacking combinations were better than any other team at various points of Sir Alex tenure. Different systems, different styles, consistently working under one man. The football we play with Sir Alex is better than what Klopp's Liverpool has been, yet somehow he is a better tactician, despite the style similarities??

The same thing used to happen when Fergie was compared to Wenger and Arsenal. For me, we were always the better team to watch and always had much better control of games. We were a better passing team than them and it showed when we went to Europe. Yet they were always praised as more entertaining and sexy. With Wenger being more tactical. Its the opposite of British bias imo.

 

[clarkydaz]

Interesting read. Especially this last bit:

he is the only manager wever had who says all the right soundbites, but does the opposite.
Also for years the myth was peddled he was always analysing the opposition as a player on the bench, which is why he was so effective and would set him up as a good manager. What a load of crap

 

[Blood Mage]

Don’t worry, I don’t judge him on that.

I judge him on the fact that he can’t coach and gets crap results.

This

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

Kinda a strange angle because Solskjaer is playing quite attacking football mostly. There is no particular problem with scoring goals.

The problem is conceding them and the balance of the side. United conceded 13 goals against City, Atalanta, Liverpool and Leicester, that’s the more pressing issue.

Recent City game aside, no United fan would have been shouting ‘attack! Attack!’ this season, more like ‘don’t make a stupid defensive error! Defend!’

 

[Nytram Shakes]

Later day Fergie was very much a pragmatic manager rather than an attacking manger. This is hardly news

 

[Big Ben Foster]

Michael Cox can - and I can’t stress this enough - get to feck with his pseudo-intellectual autofellatio he passes off as tactical insight.

 

[LawCharltonBest]

Michael Cox can - and I can’t stress this enough - get to feck with his pseudo-intellectual autofellatio he passes off as tactical insight.

Agree. Tried claiming that Keanes performance in Turin wasn’t good either based on his bollocks stats

Why so angry? Is it because he said mean things about ole

The blokes obsessed with stripping away everything from United.

 

[Buchan]

Michael Cox can - and I can’t stress this enough - get to feck with his pseudo-intellectual autofellatio he passes off as tactical insight.

/thread

 

[lex talionis]

What I remember most from the Ferguson era was his sides’ ability to consistently capitalize on the mistakes of the opposition. We rarely dismantled the opposition with intricate passing. It was sometimes counterattacking, sometimes relentless pressure. Ferguson adapted his tactics constantly to exploit the opposition.

With Ole, we’re utterly predictable, too slow and pathetic in defending free kicks. How this has been allowed to persist over the last four months if last season and three months into this season boggles the mind.

 

[King Azaz the Unabridged]

The underrating of Fergie's tactical ability by football's fart-sniffers is just weird at this point.

Literally nothing in the guy's article is actually saying anything negative about Fergie's tactical ability, though.

Michael Cox can be insufferable at times but this is not a stick to beat him with. I remember reading the guy's work back in the Zonal Marking days when Fergie was our manager and one of his constant refrains was the exact opposite of what you're saying here - that Ferguson was often a much better tactician than he was given credit for.

Yep
All these journos way behind the curve, basically all were scared to break rank first and now it open season and they're all piling in.

Nah, Cox got a ton of stick pretty much every time he wrote about us last season as well. He's been consistent (without veering into Jonathan Wilson levels of hyperbole in the other direction).

The usual TopRed types you see here would flood the Athletic comments with stuff like "Ole showing up the pseudo-intellectual journalists yet again!! Michael Cox in ruins!!" after every good result, because he'd often say we weren't looking very cohesive or highlight our not-so-stellar XG numbers in his pieces.

One of the main Athletic guys covering United - Carl Anka - was in the same boat, got dozens of comments on pretty much every game he covered between last December and this April screaming "is Carl Anka going to apologize for writing all that nonsense about Ole's credentials as a manager?!!". He's another one who's come out of the last 12 months looking pretty good.

 

[Irwin99]

Kinda a strange angle because Solskjaer is playing quite attacking football mostly. There is no particular problem with scoring goals.

The problem is conceding them and the balance of the side. United conceded 13 goals against City, Atalanta, Liverpool and Leicester, that’s the more pressing issue.

Recent City game aside, no United fan would have been shouting ‘attack! Attack!’ this season, more like ‘don’t make a stupid defensive error! Defend!’

I think Jose's Spurs side scored 100+ goals last season and were one of the worst ever sides i've ever seen in terms of attacking play (for a 'big' club). United under Ole are nowhere near that bad but it's not been great to watch very often despite the goal column being decent enough during his time here.

 

[Greck]

Later day Fergie was very much a pragmatic manager rather than an attacking manger. This is hardly news

Yep especially in the final 2 or 3 years when the squad was weaker from a lack of investment. Absolutely grinds my gears to see people say Fergie wasn't attack minded though. If such a person's lasting memory of SAF is the pragmatic zombie football we played in his last 2 years then they probably aren't old enough to weigh in on the topic. There was a time opponents came to Old trafford to defend for 90 minutes. Their occasional venture forward was when we punished them on the counter. It wasn't our primary tactic, just a feature of our overall attack.

 

[Denis79]

Don't agree with the article, think he is underestimating SAF greatly.

 

[GlasgowCeltic]

Fergies teams played great football but there was always someone in the league who were far better to watch, Keegan Wenger etc

 

[RedDevilCanuck]

Fergie learned to be pragmatic in Europe and counter big sides but brushed aside small and medium teams with relativel ease.

Beating the teams you should is most important and we haven't done that consistently since RVP scored that hattrrick in Fergie 's last game.

 

[caid]

He definitely 100% had an attacking philosophy. It frankly seems braindead stupid not to recognise what it was after 25 years and his teams showing the same qualities over and over and over and over.

 

[Flexdegea]

Athletic article link for those with a subscription

For the rest who don't, some summary points.





On infamous PSG game


On United's ex-players not producing attacking teams themselves.

When you read it all he actually not saying much anything at all, pseudo-intellectual crap


Absolute shite some of these journos Write,

 

[Joga Bonito]

With all this bollocks about SAF's disciples/apostles etc, I'm actually curious about the other great managers (Rinus Michels, Sacchi, Cruyff etc) and the list of great managerial prodigies that they managed to foster.

 

[BeforeKeanetherewasRobson]

Why so angry? Is it because he said mean things about ole

Nah, it’s more that he’s a know-it-all (in his head), condescending, pretentious tw@t who like so many journalists, bends/cherry picks stats to try and create an angle and continue to use United as clickbait for their articles

 

[kouroux]

Yep especially in the final 2 or 3 years when the squad was weaker from a lack of investment. Absolutely grinds my gears to see people say Fergie wasn't attack minded though. If such a person's lasting memory of SAF is the pragmatic zombie football we played in his last 2 years then they probably aren't old enough to weigh in on the topic. There was a time opponents came to Old trafford to defend for 90 minutes. Their occasional venture forward was when we punished them on the counter. It wasn't our primary tactic, just a feature of our overall attack.

This is the key right here. It's exactly what I feel too. SAF has had many great teams over the years and the last few years of his tenure were worse aesthetically in terms of football for the reasons you mentioned but it still didn't stop him from competing and winning at the highest level.
Only a cnut would summarize SAF's great career to those years

 

[Matt851]

The underrating of Fergie's tactical ability by football's fart-sniffers is just weird at this point.

There was a similar article from Jonathan Wilson recently that all but called him a cheerleader, while acting like it was simply common knowledge to credit his success to tactical masterminds like Brian Kidd, Jimmy Ryan, Steve McClaren and Mike Phelan.

To be fair I don't think the cox article was deciding fergies tactical knowledge, seemed to be making the point the style of football his teams played varied over the years therefore there is no United way

No exactly breaking new ground but they do get forced to churn out articles

 

[VP89]

Quite a damning and accurate indictment of Ole.

I also get annoyed often at what Rio says on a whim. That PSG quote summed it up.

 

[DWelbz19]

The underrating of Fergie's tactical ability by football's fart-sniffers is just weird at this point.

There was a similar article from Jonathan Wilson recently that all but called him a cheerleader, while acting like it was simply common knowledge to credit his success to tactical masterminds like Brian Kidd, Jimmy Ryan, Steve McClaren and Mike Phelan.

Few things worse than a pretentious football fan. Jonathan Wilson is exactly that. He can shove his reinverted pyramid.

 

[AndySmith1990]

I wish everyone would leave Ferguson out of it. It's over. Finished. His era is long gone. The football he played, how he managed, whatever he did during his time here is irrelevant to the here and now.

Solskjaer is being judged on his own achievements and failings. Unfortunately it's almost entirely failings at this point and he's shown he hasn't got a clue what he's doing. That's all on him, no other managers come into it.