We've been Arsenalised since 2013, it's just that Woodward isn't very good at it.
Ambition left the building the day Sir Alex retired.
Finishing 3rd, 33 points off PL winners, and no Trophy (yet) is utter rubbish and shouldn't be celebrated...
- Thread starter Rhyme Animal
- Start date
Ambition left the building the day Sir Alex retired.
Problem for Ed is that the fans still have ambition even if they don't.Happy to see that you threw everything even remotely associated with nuance and demand we win now like we do every single season regardless of what shape the squad is in.
Unfortunately, I think that's a problem for the fans, not Ed.
If Ole had done everything he can do with the players he has and we still lose I won't say anything about it.
But he didn't. Not from the time he took over. What do teams who doesn't have the quality players do?
They try to maximize that circumstances. Do we? Of course not. When other lesser teams try to score and organize set pieces, we say that's because they don't have the quality players.
But some of you are saying that we don't have the quality players.
It's entirety on Ole's head that we have not scored from corners. I am not saying that we should score from every attempt but Maguire seems to have an advantage so why is Ole not using him to the best advantage?
If we had better corners we certainly would have won more games. Anyone watching us would know we only take one kind of corners and it's easy to defend against them.
He is a limited coach and I don't see him going above third place next season. We would be lucky to remain in third next season.
But he didn't. Not from the time he took over. What do teams who doesn't have the quality players do?
They try to maximize that circumstances. Do we? Of course not. When other lesser teams try to score and organize set pieces, we say that's because they don't have the quality players.
But some of you are saying that we don't have the quality players.
It's entirety on Ole's head that we have not scored from corners. I am not saying that we should score from every attempt but Maguire seems to have an advantage so why is Ole not using him to the best advantage?
If we had better corners we certainly would have won more games. Anyone watching us would know we only take one kind of corners and it's easy to defend against them.
He is a limited coach and I don't see him going above third place next season. We would be lucky to remain in third next season.
IMO the only rebuild we need is behind the scenes, and anything else is wishful thinking.
Instead of focusing on players during these never ending rebuilds, we should have been focusing on backroom and footballing staff, as those tend to be the foundation upon which long term success is built.
I have yet to see significant behind the scenes motion to believe that this rebuild is anything but PR; after all, Woodward is still in control of football operations.
That's a false dichotomy. You can be ambitious in the market without adopting the scattergun approach we did post SAF.
LVG thought Manchester United could get whoever they want. He was wrong.
If you don't have ambition what is the point. It is a sport, sport is competitive and about winning. Nobody remembers losers.
I never understand this points obsession so say if by chance we win the league with 80 points, should he be sacked because he couldn't win the league with 90 plus points. Or say we finish 5th but have 77 points, he should stay because he progressed according to points metrics. This is a weird way of looking at things.
I think it's fine for us (the fans) to have ambition, but we also need to accept that our ambitions and the club's, will never be aligned. Otherwise, the situation just breeds frustration.
Then let's not act like Man Utd has higher standards than the likes of Spurs or Arsenal. Since we're so willing to happily throw away expectations.
Call a spade a spade. 0 trophies is bad if Man Utd fans claim to have "high standards" and laugh at others for not winning trophies.
Not saying Ole out here. Just call a spade a spade.
We are more celebrating the fact that we got a Champions League spot after it was all but certain we would miss out on the top 4.
It was a great achievement from the position we were in (if not an ever bigger achievement on Leicester's part in their collapse).
I don't think anybody is celebrating anything more than that, aside from maybe the potential the team are also showing.
It was a great achievement from the position we were in (if not an ever bigger achievement on Leicester's part in their collapse).
I don't think anybody is celebrating anything more than that, aside from maybe the potential the team are also showing.
Ole is a limited coach because we dont score from corners? How many corners did we score from under Jose?
Maguire has got on the end of so many corners and has fluffed his chances, Ole is to blame on that?
So Ole is limited but under Jose, we played crap football too, so is the limited too?
And he did.. He bought all the players in the world.. Ole is still getting rid of the junk bought by LVG. You can say what you want about Ole but he has clearly made us better and more fun to watch. He is working on getting the Utd feel going behind the doors, that environment the players speak off that played under Fergie. Ed will need to supply him with the players he wants if not we won't be doing any better than this. We need players of better quality both on the bench and in the first 11. No fan of Utd is happy with the results but you would need to be a bit blind not to notice the changes that Ole has made.
Trouble is we have been on the cusp of getting there before. Jose thought he was doing something good. Ole will be excited and I don't blame him, there are good signs, yet this board seem to delight in pulling the rug from under their managers. We don't sign someone, they announce some new sponsor who most of us have never heard of. First bad result, yet another statement saying Ed wants a DOF. It goes on and on. Lets just hope they are not rushing things because they are going to get it spot on this time.
Whatever really you understand or not. It's really a fact.
Last season we got 66 points, this season we got 66.
Last season we scored 65, this one we scored 66.
Last season we won 19 matches, this one we won 18.
So we had exactly a very similar league campaign. Our progress from 6th to 3rd this season isn't because we performed better, won more, scored more or gathered more points.
This also has nothing with him staying or not, and I don't think I talked about this in my own post.
Late to the party, but who is celebrating it?
Whether you understand or not it's also a fact that we finished 3rd and that's a fact. SO let me ask you if we win the league with 80 points , will you say no progress has made as Jose got 81 points?
This whole points obsession is weird. No one is saying we have had an amazing season. We had a mixed season, first half of the season was crap but teh fact that we covered 15 points to overtake Leicester shows we did make progress. Whether you like to admit it or not won't change that as we did finish 3rd and it's not Ole's fault that Leicester and Lamaprd's chelsea bottled it.
It's always party time in here.
I agree completely.
If the top teams surrounding us had significantly worse seasons and we had exactly the same as the previous season in terms of wins/points/goals when teams surrounding us were better, then it follows that we must have had a poorer performing season than last, despite finishing higher.
This. I have no problem Ole being our manager, but the double standards really annoy me.
The issue was one manager said that was a massive achievement and threw players under the bus but this manager has said multiple times we have to achieve more and is not throwing anyone under the bus to protect his ego.
I didn't compare points only. I compared different stats, points, goals, matches won. They're exactly similar to last season. Meanwhile Chelses, Spurs and Arsenal gathered less than last season, so us jumping from 6th to 3rd isn't because we ourselves improved on our stats. These are all facts and they're not really up to debate.
It's not his fault and again, this has nothing to do with him staying or not. The end of the season was positive, and he deserves to stay based on that. A lot of positives things happened since Bruno's signing and I'm more optimistic about our future now.
The point is one poster was saying our standards dropped from 2 years ago and now finishing 3rd is fine so the guy replied on him by saying we finished 3rd coming from 6th and that he lacked context. If you want to put context in everything you have to also put it in the manner we progressed from 6th to 3rd in the league. That's all.
You know you can realize that and also appreciate the positive things that happened in the last few months.
Every time I open this thread you're in here with your strangely formatted posts talking about corners
Fair enough and that is why I also said no way this season was a massive achievement and I don't think any sane united fan will be celebrating we finished 3rd. Many were happy that we covered 15 points and finished 3rd which was nice. If we are in the same boat come next season and fighting for top 4 even with 75 points, I would want Ole to be replaced unless of course we go on winning some trophies.
There were two outstanding teams both last season and this one - and a pack of obviously flawed, in one way or another, teams chasing them. The teams "surrounding" us weren't significantly worse this season.
And we improved - radically - over the course of the season. You can't ignore this, just looking at the points total, or goals scored.
We went into the season light - this is obvious. It may have been a calculated risk, though. And what happened by and by is undeniable: 1) in January we brought in exactly the player we had been missing, 2) players like Martial and Rashford took further steps, 3) Matic actually started to look like a player again and 4) Mason emerged as a genuine top notch talent.
And Pogba. Many predicted he'd never play for us again. But he did - and he actually seemed to blend well with Bruno and function within the system, in a deeper role.
Progress? Obviously.
Agreed - points only matter in the context of that season.
The only thing that matters is position.
We progressed in terms of play style and squad building, that's for sure and that's why I'm optimistic about our upcoming future. I was talking about leagues results perspective and considering 3rd itself a progress from 6th without taking into perspective the league stats. We progressed a lot in several areas but there's still a lot to be done in our league campaign and next season we'll have to improve our points tally and goals scored, I don't think anyone can disagree on this.
In isolation this season should be considered as a poor season. In context, there is a lot to be hopeful about. This (at least the second part of it) season can become a poor man's 2006/07 if we finally bounce back and win some silverware in the next 2 seasons, or it can become another false dawn and then it'll be forgotten altogether.
I've made a similar point on the thread celebrating our defense for being 3rd best in the league though, and I think that this can be extrapolated on the whole season. It wasn't great, as our defense isn't great... the only positive at the moment as we seem to be on an upward trajectory, but we'll be able to comprehensively assess that only a couple of seasons later.
I've made a similar point on the thread celebrating our defense for being 3rd best in the league though, and I think that this can be extrapolated on the whole season. It wasn't great, as our defense isn't great... the only positive at the moment as we seem to be on an upward trajectory, but we'll be able to comprehensively assess that only a couple of seasons later.
Even the manager knows the club needs to be more ambitious. So why the forceful lowering of expectations from some fans?
Good point.
If the season is indeed a springboard to better things then it will rightly be seen as a very successful one, but the former has to happen before we can claim the latter.
I cannot speak on behalf of all the fans but the general consensus from some Ole doubters have been why Ole is not getting the same treatment like Jose got after the sevilla defeat. Well losing to Sevilla was not a big deal even 2 years back. We lost , we move on but when we play like underdogs and then the manager gives a history lesson instead of maybe looking at himself then fans will turn on. I was briefly listening to the Duncan Castles podcast where he was questioning the fans of lowering their expectation. I think people who are questioning fans of lowering expectations are confused because what they want in reality is fans questioning and turning on Ole like they did with Jose. But the situation is different , I mean completely different. If people can take off their Ole hate blinkers they will know why Ole is getting more love than Jose, even as a manager.
Now coming to lowering the expectation, well if you want fans to abuse Ole or keep on undermining him , well that's not going to happen. Also, even the most avid of the fans are not calling this season as a massive achievement, MAYBE some but I follow a lot of passionate united fans in twitter and I know some very passionate Ole defenders in this forum and majority by landslide never said it was a brilliant season. I can bet many will say Ole has to do better than this now. This whole illusion that some have that Ole will be defended no matter what is bs. Ofcourse if you keep on hearing bs from ole doubters like how he is a PE teacher and doesn't know a thing about management, such people will get nasty responses.
SO to answer you question I don't think anyone has lowered their expectation or is doing a bus parade for finishing 3rd. The reason some are more optimistic than others is because teh second half of the season has been really good. I bet if it was the opposite, first half being amazing and second half shit, people would have been more worried.
That's understandable.
It sometimes feels like people try to protect Ole at all costs, even if they have to lower the club's standards to do so, and that's mainly what I'm bemoaning. But on the other hand, even though criticism of him is fair, any abuse or the likes is out of order.
I think Ole will have done well this season only if he can build on it and challenge next season, hence why the expectations are "high" (really they're just normal again). So while I understand that this season has the potential to be a very good transitional season (purely based on the improvement in the 2nd half), until it comes to fruition we have to try to look at things realistically.
Cannot disagree on your second paragraph. This is why talking about new managers is just a waste of time as he is not going anywhere. Now if we are again chasing the top 4 come December then serious questions have to be asked and anyone defending him or saying top 4 is enough is iust in denial. Again anything can happen but till then he has to be backed.
You know they're running out of arguments when they are clinging for BS like corners. I'd suggest you don't bother answering these bait posts at all. It's obviously a windup attempt.
Some people have clear bias and preferences for a certain other manager to be installed in Ole's place and there is no reasonable argument that will change their mind.
Loves a good corner does FoxbattEvery time I open this thread you're in here with your strangely formatted posts talking about corners