Ludens the Red
Full Member
Saved me typing it. You'll get people coming in here quoting him and saying 'top post' but it's not really. The basic premise of the thread does ring some truth. Ole quite clearly isn't completely useless and has many positives as a manager however the two points wumminator presumably tries to dismiss because of a selected sample size are an indication that indeed as he himself admits, "I don't really understand a lot about football myself ". Using the fact we fall behind an excessive amount of times and turn it around to point to tactical nous and strong game changing ability when we have far superior players to most of the teams we play against is actually a really naive thing to do. It also fails to take into account the style of football and the consistency in our performances which seemingly are irrelevant in his world.I only subscribe to the first two points, but i think there's plenty to back both of them. They are also both quite related to each other.
1. You are using results to infer tactical nous. Our high number of draws each season hints at this as does the high number of times we get comprehensively outplayed by teams we should be much better than. We rarely get beaten and the talent of our players means we can control possession quite comfortably, but we very frequently have no idea how to break teams down and play out a bore draw. If our preferred way of playing doesn't work it's painfully obvious we have no other ideas other than hoping for a bit of magic from one of our stars. A properly coached team would have a Plan B.
Our lineups are quite random and scattergun. It's far too much of a lottery how and who we will play, which suggests Ole isn't confident in his ability to lineup. Or, he is too confident. Sometimes it works fantastically, sometimes it leaves us neutered. Hence all the draws and random results.
2. I don't see how you can question this and keep a straight face. How many times do we need to see us sit on our hands whilst a game gets away from us, only to bring on hair brained subs in the 88th minute? Keeping Fred on against PSG to wait for an inevitable red card was one of many, but Villareal showed without doubt that he is poor at changing the game. The reasons why are up for debate. Personally i think it ties in with both 1. and his time at Cardiff, he doesn't actually read the game very well as a coach and doesn't know what he needs to do. His skills are elsewhere and that's fine, Ferguson acknowledged he had weaknesses too, but Ole needs to own them and get coaches in who can fill the gaps.
The problem I've noticed with you @Wumminator is that you don't always seem to be able to see the bigger picture. You criticise people a lot for talking in absolutes but you kind of do the same thing to be honest. I've said this many times but Manchester United are going to win the majority of games they play because they have better individuals than most teams. If Manchester United fall behind to weaker sides you'd expect that they will turn it around. These are not the games that define Ole. The ones that define him are the ones he gets wrong and he'll be judged on the amount of times that happens. That's how it works at the top, we're not Leeds or West Ham. We shouldn't be patting ourselves on the back for doing things we're supposed to do. So when games like PSG, RB Leipzig, Villarreal, Leicester happen and they go as badly wrong as they did, all in a similar fashion, expect lots of criticism. This cannot continue to happen this season and basically it already did against Southampton. But I guess we came back and drew 1-1 in that game so fantastic right? We got it right in the end tactically?
I know he's competing against World Class managers and we by no means have a faultless team. However a top manager with exceptional in game management would have walked away with two Europa League trophies in the last two seasons. His failure to do this speaks of obvious tactical inadequacies, that doesn't mean he won't have days he gets it right, we know he will but top managers don't get it wrong this much. It's that simple.