Leicester sacked Ranierni after the season after he won the premiere league, because he wasn't performing. Look at us.
In just six years United have completely forgotten what it means to be a big club
- Thread starter fastwalker
- Start date
I refuse to believe any other club comparable to Utd's prestige would tolerate Lingard's form. What is it, 25 hours without a goal/assist?
He's be laughed out of the club if he was at Bayern, Barca etc. Same for Phil Jones who's been wayyy too long at Utd.
He's be laughed out of the club if he was at Bayern, Barca etc. Same for Phil Jones who's been wayyy too long at Utd.
no, they just wanted Ole to challenge for top 4 instead 8th on 25 points from 18 games. I don't think that was too much to ask. I have a hard time believing that you or any other Ole defender had Sheffield United, Leicester and transfer banned Chelsea penciled in to finish above us. It's interesting that 2 of those teams have managers who have been in the job less time than Ole; so much for long term projects.
Klopp didn't inherit the 2013/4 team. What you on about?
From memory, only Hendo, Mignolet and Coutinho remained in Klopp's first 11. Skrtel, Sakho, Lucas and Joe Allen were out the door pretty sharpish (and were not first 11 in 2013/4 anyway). I'm not going to count Sturridge who was injured for Klopps first year+, never regained his fitness or sharpness and was never first choice for him. Of the three that remained, two have been the butt of Utd jokes for years. Your argument thar Klopp inherited a better team than Ole and therefore Ole should be given more slack lacks merit unless you consider Hendo and Migs to be better than Pogba and DDG. We were also languishing pre-Klopp. 6th in 2015 and 8th in Klopp first season with that squad. I think you need a little perspective on that perspective you are applying
Klopp was a world class manager BEFORE he got to Liverpool. He was not managing fecking Molde. He got them to the Europa League final in his first season (beating us along the way), the UCL final his second season and the UCL final his third season. The comparisons with Ole are fecking insane. I mean really delusional. Klopp was given time based on his great track record and CV as one of the best managers in the world as well as his progression in Europe.
Last I checked the season was far from over and there’s a transfer window a few days away
Ah I forgot you had a poor season before Brendan left, however I’d argue there is no comparison to the teams each manager took on.
Look how disjointed and void of confidence United were when Ole took over.
If Klopp finished 8th in his first season and you kept him and gave him time surely that only helps prove my point!
I mean Ole is still likely to finish above 8th in his first full season.
Difference is you afforded him time to change the dynamic and instil his vision into the squad.
Now I’m not saying Ole is Klopp, what I’m saying is sacking managers for sacking sake is a fools game if you think that will solve everything.
Ole performs well against the big teams, there’s still huge room for improvement in the squad but that will only happen with time, not because we have to believe in him but because there is only one meaningful transfer window per year
True, all the culprits should get scrutiny and be sacked accordingly, instead of only sacking the manager and hoping it fixes everything.
My god man, are you being purposely obtuse right now? Why are you saying Klopp finishing 8th is the same as this season's Ole? 2015/16 is Ole's 2018/19 season. Klopp's 2016/17 is Ole's 2019/20 season.
Klopp finished in 4th in 2016/17 with 4th most goals scored in the season. Ole is currently in 8th with 7th most goals scored thus far. If Ole were to tie Klopp's performance, he would need to get 4th with an uptick in goals scored.
My god man, you do realise this season is Ole’s first full season....
You can’t use last season if your making a fair comparison, Ole came in as an interim manager to steady the ship in December (Cardiff away - I was there.)
You cannot compare using a season where Jose had us playing tumescent football and had demoralised and demotivated the squad through to Christmas before Ole even arrived!
You say you can't use last season to make a fair comparison, just after saying Klopp finished 8th in the season he got the job in November or October and using it as an excuse for Ole? How ironic is that?
For your knowledge Klopp finished 4th in his first full half season.United is basically old Liverpool. If there is one thing Liverpool users to do when they were bad is get up for big games. They wanted to prove a point and raised their game. And next game they fail against small team. For me this is even worse than just being bad. It’s small time mentality with game raising against top team.
We were just as bereft in 2015 as Utd are now. The difference is we were starting on an upward trajectory within a year of Klopp's arrival and that had nothing to do with the quality of the squad which was poor. Of those that finished Klopps first season only Bobby, Hendo and Couts (if he had stayed) would have made it into the first CL final ( v RM). Utd currently have DDG, Maguire, AWB, Pogba, Rashy, Martial, James and I'd even include McT as decent to excellent players within a year of Ole's arrival. I'd argue it is a much higher starting platform than Klopp had. But what has Ole done with it? Very little from what I can see. It doesn't take much genius to deploy fast players (he inherited) into a counter-attacking system but it does when you need to break a low block
I agree that it is pointless in changing managers every year, and that they need time but Ole does look like he's unable to galvanise his squad into being better than the sum of it's parts. Shortly after Klopps arrival we saw players like Lallana running around like demons on the pitch. Today the whole team does it when required. In your last game v Watford, the main complaints I read here were the Utd players don't care, not bothered, no pride etc. That doesn't sound to me like these Utd players are inspired by Ole. Again, I say it is pointless to change managers so frequently but when something clearly isn't working should you persist (and lose more time for the inevitable) or should you act decisively? I'd say a closer comparison for Ole is with Dalglish's return. He got us to 2 cup finals (winning one) but he was promptly sacked because the play wasn't good enough and the recruitment was poor
For what it's worth I think Ole would have made a better DoF. He has a clear vision, buy cheaper, hungrier players, it's what Utd needed to do to reset, he's brought some decent ones in and jettisoned some of the deadwood. I just don't think he's the man to implement his vision on the pitch
Could people please stop comparing Ole with Klopp?
Klopp was one of the Caf's favourite managers to take over from Saf, because he turned a mediocre Dortmund into one of the best teams in the world on a shoestring budget.
Nobody was talking about Ole.
When Mourinho was sacked nobody wanted Ole on a permanent basis.
Winning the norwegian league with Molde is not the same as knocking Bayern off their perch with Dortmund.
I was delighted when Ole had his first 15 games where we had a good run, but our form has been abysmal since the PSG game. He's had a year now and I don't see improvement.
Klopp was one of the Caf's favourite managers to take over from Saf, because he turned a mediocre Dortmund into one of the best teams in the world on a shoestring budget.
Nobody was talking about Ole.
When Mourinho was sacked nobody wanted Ole on a permanent basis.
Winning the norwegian league with Molde is not the same as knocking Bayern off their perch with Dortmund.
I was delighted when Ole had his first 15 games where we had a good run, but our form has been abysmal since the PSG game. He's had a year now and I don't see improvement.
Maguire and Wan-Bissaka really werent cheap. Maguire is the most expensive defender in the history of football.
This should be a thread in its own right.
I thought Leicester could be.
The main problem I see with Ole is that his brand of football seems to be counter-attack, which is not something that inspires confidence in terms of getting into top 4, nevermind winning the league. Let say he stays for 4 years and can build the team in his vision, the way Klopp did - what is the endgame? Rely on Rashford, Martial and James on the counter?
This post is just mental.
Klopp had won the Bundesliga and took BVB to the CL final.
Ole got relegated with Cardiff.
Ole is currently in Big Sam, Alan Pardew, Neil Warnock league. Maybe even lower as at least those 3 got clubs promoted.
I'm comparing both of their first full seasons as managers. Klopp got 4th, Ole is currently in 8th. Have an honest discussion.
Again, I did say I am not comparing Ole with Klopp, the latter is one of the best coaches in the world.
I was just pointing out that Klopp didn’t win anything initially with Liverpool.
People are saying Ole is clueless yet he is the only manager so far that has taken points off Klopps side this year in a game we should have won.
Every manager at some point has won nothing and has to prove themselves, no matter who that manager is they need to be given the chance initially.
But why do use a season where Klopp joined a demoralized team in October as his first full season? That looks like a double standard.
How can you compare the finishing position of Klopps team with the current position of Ole’s team when our season is not even half way through?
We have like 20 games left. We’ve flirted with fourth multiple times and that in itself is an achievement with this current squad and the injuries we’ve had.
With Pogba back and hopefully a signing or two in January, you have no idea where we will finish up.
He’s talking about full seasons, this is Ole’s first full season so I don’t understand why it’s being used as a comparison because we’ve got like 20 games left.
Who is he? I'm talking about your posts, you are the one who wants to make that distinction and clearly didn't even follow Liverpool at the time. Klopp took a bad team and immediately changed their way of playing, they struggled a bit at first but were pretty good by the end of the first season with the only issue of defensive balance. During his second season Liverpool continued to improve, if you think that it's unfair to compare entire seasons, in 2016/2017 Liverpool were 2nd after 19 games with 13 wins and only 2 losses, that's why Klopp was never in danger of being sacked and Ole wouldn't be in danger either.
The issue with Ole is that he has far worse results and has no history of success at a good level.
Just compare 18 games in each season and it's
Ole: 8th place, 25 pts, 26 goals, 22 goals against, 18 games played
Klopp: 2nd place, 40 pts, 45 goals, 21 goals against, 18 games played
In other words, Klopp not only had the results to believe in his project ( apart from his past success), but his style of football was very entertaining. 19 goals scored more than United at this point in his first full season. I don't know why I keep seeing this narrative that Ole has done as good as Klopp at their respective instant of time.
I suspect that they didn't follow Liverpool at the time, it's the only reasonable answer.
I’m not the one making the comparison, others were talking about Klopp and Ole, not a direct comparison, just about time needing to be given for any new system to take effect.
If you don’t compare a completed full season for each manager surely it’s not a fair comparison, that’s the only point im making.
A full season for each is the only true comparison.
There is no basis for that though, teams don't need a full season for a new system to take effect and in fact it's frankly rare for it to take that much time. A year in football is a very long time, so to call it the only true comparison when it has never really been a thing is a bit strange and somehow doesn't even apply to what we are witnessing with other teams, whether we are talking about Klopp, Lampard, Rodgers, Conte, Rose, Nagelsmann or pretty much any manager doing well or doing what was expected.
But surely that has been the only benchmark that the club are using to decide whether a manager stays on.
Ultimately you you can win, lose or draw but it’s all about where you finish.
Missing top four has been the decider for the United board in past seasons.
Your right there is no definite amount of time it takes for a team to fully see the benefit of a new manager, however that works both ways. Maybe it’s not a full season but maybe it’s more than half a full season.
Imo you can’t really take the initial caretaker period into consideration, any new manager needs that first summer window and pre-season to then be fairly judged over the course of that following season.
If we were to design a framework for a managers initial appraisal surely that would be the rough guideline.
No, you judge a manager from day one, you take everything into account whether these things are positive or negative, also if you don't take the caretaking period into account then Ole is one of worst managers in Europe. And there are no reasonable reasons to not take the care taking period into account, from a day to day pov it's the same job, some of you need to remember that being a football managers is mainly about day to day stuff like coaching players individually and collectively, what Ole did the day he arrived at United in December 2018 didn't magically disappear the minute he was named permanent manager, that distinction makes sense for the press when they try to write headlines but for Ole or anyone actually judging his work it makes no sense at all, it's not even fair for him.
An other thing managers are never judged based on whether they have had a summer or a preseason, that's an other nonsensical topic that people use on football forums, pubs or TV studios. And the reason for that is that most managers have little influence on what happens transfer wise, most clubs don't give that responsibility to their head coach and summer is mainly about getting fit for the entirety of the season, tactical and technical drills on top of recuperation are what you focus on during the rest of the season because these things are based on repetition, you don't stop it and don't put a particular emphasis on it during summer at the exception of when a new manager arrives that same summer which doesn't apply to Ole, who coached 90% of these players for 7 months before summer 2019.
The way some of you are talking you would think that Ole arrived this september, that he didn't coach the team for more than a year.
The goal-posts have been moved and it's worked.
When we were in freefall towards the end of last season and some fans (like myself) were very concerned that the board had jumped the gun in giving Ole the permanent job, the party line was:
"Let him have these few months as a free hit - he's gonna assess the squad, and prepare his clearout for the summer. Judge him after he's had pre-season to improve the fitness and drill the attacking football he wants from us. Let him bring in HIS players and clear the deadwood. Judge him next season."
He had the summer and window those fans requested.
- We got rid of a few players, but the usual suspects are still here and some were awarded new contracts.
- He brought in HIS players - two defenders and a gamble of a winger, while neglecting our piss-poor midfield and leaving our strikers threadbare.
- There has been absolutely no improvement in our fitness. Opposition teams still outwork us regularly.
- There has been no improvement in our attacking football - we still play underdog, counter-attack football that previous management was derided for.
- We are performing on the same level, points wise, as Moyes' United.
Now, in DECEMBER he is already suggesting that this season is to be written off because his main goal is to find the squad for NEXT season.
Here's a hint - every single manager in the league is 'finding his squad for next season'. Every game they manage, they're thinking "right, i need to replace X in the summer; Y seems ready to step up next season; I need to phase out Z from the starting 11". But this isnt the ONLY thing they are doing, it's a part of the job not the entire job.
-
I'm aware how long he has been here however I don't underestimate the importance of a pre-season, it's a fresh start, a break from the carousel that is the league campaign, once your on you can't get off until it's ended. Then you have the best chance to reset mindsets and implement changes.
Like you said, taking away Ole's caretaker period only makes for worse reading when looking at his time here. However this is what I mean, we need a fair way to compare apples for apples.
If you don't have a rough framework of requirements, and importantly over a set period of time, before reviewing a manager then everything is open to interpretation.
At what point of the season the manager took over
Relative strength of the squad
League position when taking over
How many transfer windows they've had to implement their changes
The fact is that if people are looking at Klopp as the example then we will come up short because he is perhaps the best coach in the world at the moment and very effective at getting teams to play his style quickly, he can do this with what I would class as 'lesser players' and turn them into world beaters. Closest thing I've seen to Fergie in that sense though it feckin' pains me to say it.
At the end of the day if we are going to continue to be a club with a high manager turnover we are going to need a system of appraisal to compare each manager like for like of that set period. This is what the club has tried to do with the top four benchmark. What that does however is burden every new manager with pressure to correct 6 years of mismanagement in a single transfer window.
Out of curiosity do you agree with our current merry go round of managers? I think it's highly detrimental especially with what seems to be our dwindling funds/transfer net spend, meaning with each appointment it will become harder to improve as much as we would like.
With each appointment there requires a clear out and restart. This is what I feel most Ole supporters are trying to avoid, people put a spin on it that we are thick and look at Ole with rose tinted glasses because of his past, in reality I feel most are hoping we break the cycle and the wins against big teams as well as decent recruitment has been enough for us to see this season through at least.
The two bolded part is where you are wrong and aren't paying attention to what happens around the football world. First 4 managers in 6 years isn't actually special, United fans aren't used to it because most of us have only known SAF as the manager until 2013 but in pretty much every clubs it's a fairly common things to go through managers until one sticks. It's not even surprising to see successful teams with 2 or 3 managers during a 6 years period.
As for the second point. No, a new appointment doesn't require a clear out, in fact a new appointment is for most clubs the most efficient way to avoid a clear out because the idea is that the manager didn't make the best use of the players at his disposal, that's a fallacious notion that managers need to have "their" team in order to be judged, managers almost never have their own team until the natural end of the current team cycle because most teams can't afford to spend a fortune on the transfer market and for posters that didn't realize it 70m-80m net is a fortune in the real football world and that's without taking into account wages.
And I don't think that you are thick, I think that you are naive and aren't actually looking at how professional sport actually works. I think that many fans are still stuck in the SAF world, not realizing that we were in a bubble. SAF doesn't a lot of equivalent in the history sports, not just football but all sports.
Also regarding Klopp, he has been used by some fans as an example in favor of Ole not against him, people that have doubts about Ole thinks that Klopp shouldn't even be in the conversation, they aren't the ones that brought him up.
Firstly saying that Ole should be in the job because we drew with the scousers is just crazy. What about our loss to Watford? Positive consistency is the measure of success and I've not seen any from Ole's results.
Secondly, I don't think the Liverpool game was a game we were unlucky to have not won. I recall we got very lucky for our goal when Origi was kicked beforehand.
Anyways I don't believe in this 'give him time' sentiment that is pervasive here, which let's face it is just wishful thinking. 'Give him time' should only apply to managers with a record of success just like the way we gave SAF time because of his success at Aberdeen.
It's worth noting that when Saf took over, United had not won the league for 30 years. Actually when he took over United where placed 21st in the league and finished 11th. Several of United's best players were alcoholics. Man Utd were a completely different club back then in wealth and stature. The bare minimum for a manager since post fergie is not to win the league, but top 4 and that really shouldn't be dificult for a great manager with the funds we have.
Some people are confusing big club mentality and arrogance.
I never said we should keep Ole because he took points off Klopp this season, I was merely pointing out that it's all relative and open to interpretation.
So in summary basically what the caf wants is a manager to come in and guarantee top four in his first season, if he doesn't achieve that then goodbye and onto the next one.
I don't believe any club should stick with somebody if it isn't working but the point at which you draw the line is down to opinion.
In Ole's case we are dropping points against the lesser sides and beating a lot of the top sides in the league. I don't believe we are that far away from being a competitive side, what we need is a fit and firing Pogba and a few reinforcements in midfield and no#10 in January (not guaranteed in January I know.)
Also on the issue of Pogba people need reminding he was our top goalscorer and assist maker last season. He is by far and away our best player, who's to say how many of the poor results he could and almost certainly would have affected.
There is little doubt imo that we will have lost points due to his absence, or to put it another way he would have won us more points than having Lingard and Perreira on the pitch that's for sure.
I can't believe that currently I hope teams like Wolverhampton and Sheffield frecking united to lose points.That's how low we fell.
This is what I’m talking about right now in this game.
This feels like Manchester United again when we click like this.
YES granted it’s not consistent but it’s a feckin start compared to previous management since SAF.
Doing it with young potential stars.
Surely you can see there are glimpses, just glimpses of what could be, and my god would it feel all the more better for it under Ole to boot.