Damage done by previous regime

[Kag]

What damage? The squad is in a significantly better position and we have lots of good young players coming through.

Midfield is a bit of a mess but this is something I‘d like to think Rangnick will prioritise.

 

[lex talionis]

A post mortem thread is actually quite appropriate. When you read the names on the United player roster, it’s a useful thing to ask what went wrong under Ole so that we, and hopefully Ole himself, may learn from it.

I don’t have any answers yet, as it may well be the case that most of these names are vastly overrated.

 

[lefty_jakobz]

It's more than evident now.
1. Players are not anywhere near as fit as required to press effectively for 60 let alone 90 mins.
2. Lack of discipline from some players, to adhere to tactics.
3. Recruitment done in defence the past years exposed horribly. AWB, maguire nowhere near the quality required. Which is why we are having to fall back on second string players.

Can something actually be coached into these players given they have been effectively on a holiday for the past 3 years or is it too much to ask from an interim manager?

Thr damage has been done by the mis-management of the football side ofthe club by the owners lackey, Ed Woodward. The squad improved under OGS.

 

[90 + 5min]

We have too many overhyped an overpaid players who actually do not want to play for United. The don't have the motivation and had their position granted for a long time.

Someone with a different opinon that I think is on to something. People can blame Solskjaer, Mourinho, vanGaal and I have even seen someone saying Ferguson left ManUtd with old, aging and bad squad. But what people need to look at is players and their motivation, commitment and desire.

 

[Red Dreams]

A combination of fitness needed to implement the high press Ralf wants to play and these matches coming one after another in quick succession.
It will take a little time. But we will get there.

 

[lex talionis]

Someone with a different opinon that I think is on to something. People can blame Solskjaer, Mourinho, vanGaal and I have even seen someone saying Ferguson left ManUtd with old, aging and bad squad. But what people need to look at is players and their motivation, commitment and desire.

This hints at an even deeper problem with United I’ve been concerned about for years, that we’ve brought in (or up) players who struggle with motivation, commitment and desire…on a consistent basis. There may be something in the culture of being a United player that once you made the United first team, you’ve made it. Job done.

 

[Keownisacnut]

The regime that did the damage doesnt belong to any individual manager, our disfunctional decline started when the Glazers took over, put stockbrokers in charge of everything, including Disneyland transfers and big money contracts for unerperforming journeymen.

 

[Marwood]

The only real problem Ole left was a lack of players who look after the ball.

Plenty of strengths outside that but its the passing not the pressing that's the big problem.

 

[90 + 5min]

This hints at an even deeper problem with United I’ve been concerned about for years, that we’ve brought in (or up) players who struggle with motivation, commitment and desire…on a consistent basis. There may be something in the culture of being a United player that once you made the United first team, you’ve made it. Job done.

I don't think we are only club with those problems. Stepping up to first team and everything that means (being fameous/great economic) can turn your head. You need people that don't let these players fly. When you pay people those wages you expect people to deliever. We have to start reducing players wages and transfers fees in future. I understand that you got to pay up for best players but overpaying them don't do anyone good. And for that matter we have not been lucky with our biggest buys last decade. Pretty everyone has been average or poor. Insert some kind of social media code and make sure that players know that football is a real job. Not playground activity.

 

[Amir]

Someone with a different opinon that I think is on to something. People can blame Solskjaer, Mourinho, vanGaal and I have even seen someone saying Ferguson left ManUtd with old, aging and bad squad. But what people need to look at is players and their motivation, commitment and desire.

Players are players. If they are not of the right character, they shouldn't have been brought in or they should have been let go.

It's what manager should do and what Fergie certainly did.

 

[elmo]

Did you say 3 years ? we were pretty good last season

We were good at eking out results, not so much the actual quality and performance.

 

[Grylte]

I'd say the damage from the managers before Ole was worse, and some of it still shows.

We were good at eking out results, not so much the actual quality and performance.

Lucky us that this sport is about results then, no style points in football.

 

[elmo]

I'd say the damage from the managers before Ole was worse, and some of it still shows.



Lucky us that this sport is about results then, no style points in football.

And we won feck all last season.

Last season was a good season if you lowered your standards and think shit football to finish ahead of injury hit teams and losing the Europa finals is good enough.

 

[roseguy64]

Sucks that the selection and subs so far do not support your sarcasm. Hope that changes though, and I’ll be the first one to tip my hat if it does. Really would.

Okay dear

 

[Oranges038]

The most damaging aspect of the recruitment under Ole and Jose/LVG before him is that the players brought in amd through just aren't good enough on the ball. Technically a lot of them are very poor for a top team and if you add that to a lack of work rate then it's just a recipe for disaster.

Yesterday Norwich controlled the ball and controlled the play, because in the central areas the important players are incapable of getting on the ball and holding onto possession, they aren't comfortable doing it. Maguire, Lindelof, De Gea, Fred, McT, Bruno right there you have 6 players, who occupy important central areas off the pitch are so uncomfortable on the ball that they are just incapable of holding possession for anymore than a few passes.

 

[McTerminator]

A post mortem thread is actually quite appropriate. When you read the names on the United player roster, it’s a useful thing to ask what went wrong under Ole so that we, and hopefully Ole himself, may learn from it.

I don’t have any answers yet, as it may well be the case that most of these names are vastly overrated.

Youre all so dramatic. The squad is light years ahead of the one left by Moyes, LVG and Mourinho.

People on this forum need to get a grip. All this whining because RR isn’t lighting the league up from day 1.

Just making fools of yourselves by desperately looking for some reason behind it other than… it’s not that easy and RR is not the messiah… grow up.

 

[90 + 5min]

Players are players. If they are not of the right character, they shouldn't have been brought in or they should have been let go.

It's what manager should do and what Fergie certainly did.

You are right. I would love them all to be part of a winning team but something tells me that it will be tough. I hope that I am wrong and that they pick themselfs up, get some confidence and start showing that winning charcter so we can start winning things. However after couple of years, few different managers you start losing hope that those players will be able to do that.

 

[Grylte]

And we won feck all last season.

Last season was a good season if you lowered your standards and think shit football to finish ahead of injury hit teams and losing the Europa finals is good enough.

I was only commenting on your comment, where you said we got results but didn't play well.
Nothing wrong in what i said regarding that.

 

[elmo]

I was only commenting on your comment, where you said we got results but didn't play well.
Nothing wrong in what i said regarding that.

Yeah, but at the end of the day our results weren't good enough either.

 

[lex talionis]

Youre all so dramatic. The squad is light years ahead of the one left by Moyes, LVG and Mourinho.

People on this forum need to get a grip. All this whining because RR isn’t lighting the league up from day 1.

Just making fools of yourselves by desperately looking for some reason behind it other than… it’s not that easy and RR is not the messiah… grow up.

“Light years” is a bit dramatic on your part, mate. The point is that we do have better players now than we did in Jose’s last season, but it can’t be argued that we played better team football under Ole than under José. Apart from the first dozen or so games under Ole we were consistently shambolic, scraping out wins at the death, losing to relegation sides like Sheffield and getting dropped out of the CL after the group stage.

The sooner we take off the rise tinted specs, the sooner we’ll realize we’re a long way off from challenging City and Liverpool for the PL trophy. The manager was only part of the problem.

 

[SungSam7]

The players have to take responsibility for the lack of intensity and poor passing in general but pressing as a unit is something that has to be coached, otherwise it’s mindless chasing of a football like kids.

I second that, played the highest standard for my area at amateur level, we played a pressing style, knowing when to press and doing it as a unit was hard in itself. One person failing to do it would lead in a break down and wasted energy following instructions.

If you're implementing it, everyone has to be on the same wavelength or its a waste of time, it wont happen over night, can take a couple of months for fitness levels and it to be come second nature before we reap the rewards.

Another obstacle is doing it coming up to a boat load of fixtures in Christmas. Its another reason as to why Klopps Liverpool look done by February and March on two occasions during his tenure.

Patience is the key if he is doing this style and players buy into it, aslong as its not LVG beautiful style of football....

 

[Stretford_End_17]

ole did a very decent job when it comes to signings. yes he couldve shipped away some players like pogba. i always thought the criticism towards ole were unfair

 

[McTerminator]

“Light years” is a bit dramatic on your part, mate. The point is that we do have better players now than we did in Jose’s last season, but it can’t be argued that we played better team football under Ole than under José. Apart from the first dozen or so games under Ole we were consistently shambolic, scraping out wins at the death, losing to relegation sides like Sheffield and getting dropped out of the CL after the group stage.

The sooner we take off the rise tinted specs, the sooner we’ll realize we’re a long way off from challenging City and Liverpool for the PL trophy. The manager was only part of the problem.

How the team performs collectively is on the manager, not the playing staff.

the squad Ole left is much much better than any we have had since SAF left and arguably stronger than the team SAF last won a title with.

A new manager needs time to settle and get his own players, but if RR can’t get a tune out of this squad that’s on him.

 

[Vanrouge]

We've faced similar issues to what we saw against Norwich (concerns about technical ability/the fitness of the squad, players routinely failing to do the basics and struggling to dominate lesser teams) for about 10 years now so I'm not convinced it's a problem started by Ole. We can't see what goes on behind the scenes and much of the argument in here is just people parroting the bits of unsubstantiated gossip which back their viewpoint and disregarding the rest. All that's really clear is that Ole never consistently had us playing brilliantly, that by the time he'd left we were consistently playing very poorly and that after 3 games Ralf hasn't got us playing well again.

Which isn't to say there are no right and wrong answers - we can use the evidence we have to make educated guesses, but people are so desperate to attribute every failing to whatever (or usually, whoever) they've decided is The Main Problem, that they feign certainty about things we really don't have a clue about. On the basis of the evidence I can conclude Ole wasn't good enough to be United manager and put together a decent argument as to why I think that, but in doing so I don't feel the need to selectively cobble together a bunch of speculation to justify taking that argument to a cartoonish extreme in lieu of accepting that there can be more than one issue at once. The pretence that Ole was 100% dreadful and was personally running round offering aging/injury prone squad players new contracts and coaching our players' ability to control or pass a ball out of them is tiresome, as is the pretence that Ole wasn't a problem at all. What's more tiresome though, is that the United forum is now just two groups of people holding those extreme positions arguing that every scrap of news is further evidence that their chosen viewpoint was right (e.g - we play badly against Norwich and one side jumps to shout that it's evidence Ole wasn't the problem whilst the other jumps to shout that actually, it's evidence that Ole has ruined the club so deeply even a great new manager can't save it).

Who do you think you are bringing nuance and balanced, thoughtful observations to this discussion? Seriously though, this comment needs more love.

 

[Luke1995]

Do people still blame Mourinho for part of the state we're in ?

 

[The_Midfielder]

The most damaging aspect of the recruitment under Ole and Jose/LVG before him is that the players brought in amd through just aren't good enough on the ball. Technically a lot of them are very poor for a top team and if you add that to a lack of work rate then it's just a recipe for disaster.

Yesterday Norwich controlled the ball and controlled the play, because in the central areas the important players are incapable of getting on the ball and holding onto possession, they aren't comfortable doing it. Maguire, Lindelof, De Gea, Fred, McT, Bruno right there you have 6 players, who occupy important central areas off the pitch are so uncomfortable on the ball that they are just incapable of holding possession for anymore than a few passes.

If you really think Bruno is uncomfortable with the ball , I don't know who else is ..

 

[The_Midfielder]

How the team performs collectively is on the manager, not the playing staff.

the squad Ole left is much much better than any we have had since SAF left and arguably stronger than the team SAF last won a title with.

A new manager needs time to settle and get his own players, but if RR can’t get a tune out of this squad that’s on him.

We might not have challenged City and Liverpool but if you really think we didn't play better football under ole as compared to Mourinho, something is wrong ..
How many times did we hit 5 goals..? We also hit 9 goals in a game..We just didn't win the Europa..and we choked in the crucial minutes in the europa twice and CL ..but we played good football...

 

[ExoduS]

We might not have challenged City and Liverpool but if you really think we didn't play better football under ole as compared to Mourinho, something is wrong ..
How many times did we hit 5 goals..? We also hit 9 goals in a game..We just didn't win the Europa..and we choked in the crucial minutes in the europa twice and CL ..but we played good football...

Yeah, we did have some inspiring wins under Ole and football was alright when pressure was low to medium. The problem was that as soon the pressure and expectations increased football went to dogshit. I think nervousness of the manager can be projected on the entire team.

Yeah, we did have some high scoring wins under Ole but in less critical games.

We started last season badly and we started this season even worse. Last season he managed to turn it around and at one point we even reached the top. As soon as that happened performances went to crap again.

I don't want to blame old regime for how team is playing under Rangnick . Ole managed to turn Mourinho's dead team into a winning team. Please don't give me the crap that Mourinho left structure or something like that and that. Mourinho left nothing... Morale was never worse.

We now have bunch a decent individuals but we don't have a team. Hard, hard decisions have to be made.

 

[Oranges038]

If you really think Bruno is uncomfortable with the ball , I don't know who else is ..

He's uncomfortable just keeping it simple and maintaining possession, he tries the Hollywood passes too much, when they just aren't on.

 

[R.N7]

The club is in dire need of a "cultural reset" after three years of neglect.

 

[Red_toad]

Yeh I hate it when I see him whispering shit to Ragnick.

What could he possibly feel confident enough about to try and influence the managers ideas.

So you 'hate' to see someone doing their job? Silly thing to get worked up about Ralf is an adult who knows his shit and is very unlikely to have his opinion on what's happening on a football pitch swayed by a coach he's working with.

 

[Greck]

When solskjaer was here everybody said we have a tremendous team who could do well if we replace him.

Now that Rangnick isn't bringing an instant change his fans are panicking and blaming solskjaer

Spends half a billion and the team is poor. I can't even tell who's sympathising for Ole anymore. Is the poor state of the squad supposed to make Ole look better? Ole sympathisers were actually better off pretending he built strong foundations for the next man.

 

[Giggsyking]

Are we really making excuses for Ralf already?

He'll not be sacked anytime soon, relax.

Nobody will make excuses for him, he will not be long enough here to be blamed for anything, the one to blame is the one who spent a fortune to win nothing in 3 years.

 

[Roboc7]

There has been a lot of damage done because of the lack of coaching, direction and haphazard recruitment. Players have stagnated because of the low standards, poor culture and lack of any plan under Ole.

This isn’t a quick fix and I expect a lot of up and downs under Rangnick but hopefully it’s a start of us moving in new more modern direction rather than the outdated and passive approaches of the other managers post SAF.

 

[elnorte]

Spends half a billion and the team is poor. I can't even tell who's sympathising for Ole anymore. Is the poor state of the squad supposed to make Ole look better? Ole sympathisers were actually better off pretending he built strong foundations for the next man.

Simpler answer is that Ole was incompetent and that so many of the players he was managing were painfully average and are also still here.

 

[glazed]

Simple answer is that the squad is mostly pretty good give or take a DM or two if you aren't going to Gegenpress and pretty awful if you are.

Meanwhile the club owners failed to notice that not high pressing was no longer an option if you wanted to be taken seriously. So now they have had to change their model mid season and it will take maybe 18 months to get back on an even keel even if it all goes great.

But many fans have been equally oblivious if not more so. Just last month some people were still calling for Conte or Zidane to manage the club.

 

[Will Singh]

I think Ralf has to take responsibility, yes the players are unfit to play the pressing game for 90 minutes. I mean the best we’ve see was for around 35 minutes against Palace. Ralf will learn this and adapt but the problem is he jas to play a 2nd striker to carry Ronaldo which leaves the midfield more work to do hence why we ain’t doing it for longer periods. We’ve also got players like Rashford who will only press when he can be bothered to. So Ole has gone and left us in this situation which both Inners and outers will have there opinion on but it’s down to Ralf to get the best out of them. Let’s move on from Ole Please!

 

[minoo-utd]

There wasn’t a clear plan at all from the club, picking Ole and Ole picking his staff was based on nothing logic at all although he got almost a full support from the board and he brought in very good talents but IMO he was bit soft with some of the players and also all the stuff was very limited at tactics and not experienced enough to drive this football team which is filled with top talents forward enough. Three years of course left huge damage and it will need more time to feel that something is changing with the team but on a positive note, we can finally be a bit of optimistic as the club started to give football to the football people who actually might bring success in near future, that RR appointment was huge not just as a manager now but he will have a big say at who will be managing us next and the players we will be signing. A step to the right direction after all and look like we start to draw some lines.

 

[Shane88]

It turned Rashford into a spoilt brat on the pitch.

 

[wolvored]

Its been piss poor overall, with patches of fine play, since Moyes. There is a malaise at the club and it needs a stern manager, a mark 2 early Fergie type to sort it. The exciting thing is the club is moving in the right direction with Rangnick and reportedly Ten Hag in the press as the favourite choice
to take over in the summer. Both not frightened to drop and change players. RR has been coach/manager for a week now. Lets give him a couple of months before we tar him with the same brush as Ole.
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