Is it wrong to expect a Manchester United manager to coach his team?

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Should a manager only be signing players and selecting the squad, first XI & subs? Actually working on making them a team asking too much? Not even going to delve into developing the individuals, as that would surely be far too much to ask.

I didn't see Ole on the pitch today. You think he instructed them to give the ball away, stand still and back off their players?
Would you not think it's more the case that our players were too slow, too lacking in ball control and passing abilities and intelligence to make the right runs?
Is it wrong to ask the manager to coach his team into making the correct runs? Are the players meant to just figure this out?

I'm quoting @Gopher Brown as an example, but this is quite a prevalent belief among the fanbase.
 

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Always found posts like that to be strange. When things go well, the manager gets credit. When they don't go well, it's individual errors.

Regardless, it doesn't make sense to hand-wave away individual errors when they occur over and over, across games.
 

Rhyme Animal

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Should a manager only be signing players and selecting the squad, first XI & subs? Actually working on making them a team asking too much? Not even going to delve into developing the individuals, as that would surely be far too much to ask.


Is it wrong to ask the manager to coach his team into making the correct runs? Are the players meant to just figure this out?

I'm quoting @Gopher Brown as an example, but this is quite a prevalent belief among the fanbase.
Good post.

When Ole was appointed it was being widely touted, both in the media and certainly in here, that Mourinho had misused the squad, and Ole was hired because he was capable of getting the best out of this squad...

People are now acting like that never happened - and it's classless of them to do so.

He's had nearly a year now to coach this squad, and has added 160m to the defense, and the footy is garbage - as it was at Cardiff the last time he was in the PL.

He absolutely should be coaching this squad better, and at least showing coherent footy even if the results are hit and miss.

He's on sackable form, and the footy is crap. But then that isn't a surprise because he's a Championship level coach at best.

And that's no slight upon him as a man, or as a Utd Legend - but he simply isn't anywhere near a good enough coach.

Hopefully after this bizarre experiment is done, it'll put to bed the notion of trying to dig up the glory years and the CO92 etc, and we can move the feck on as a club.
 

Leftback99

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Should a manager only be signing players and selecting the squad, first XI & subs? Actually working on making them a team asking too much? Not even going to delve into developing the individuals, as that would surely be far too much to ask.





Is it wrong to ask the manager to coach his team into making the correct runs? Are the players meant to just figure this out?

I'm quoting @Gopher Brown as an example, but this is quite a prevalent belief among the fanbase.
Of course there should be coaching on how the manager wants us to play but West Ham didn't beat us today because of any great coaching or tactical genius., they just had better quality in attack and made it count.

For the money we pay we should have some of the best players in the world on our books. They haven't made it to the top of the game purely because managers have been telling them where to run and stand all their lives, they naturally know how to win a game of football, beat a man, pass a ball.

However when it's got to point where we're starting a Premier league match with Rashford, James, Mata and Pereira as our attack something has gone badly wrong. Despite their pay level they aren't the best in the world or anywhere near it. You can't just 'coach' anyone to be a great PL level attack, they have to have top ability too.

Guardiola could coach my Sunday league team, we'd still be absolutely terrible at football.
 

Di Maria's angel

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Of course there should be coaching on how the manager wants us to play but West Ham didn't beat us today because of any great coaching or tactical genius., they just had better quality in attack and made it count.

For the money we pay we should have some of the best players in the world on our books. They haven't made it to the top of the game purely because managers have been telling them where to run and stand all their lives, they naturally know how to win a game of football, beat a man, pass a ball.

However when it's got to point where we're starting a Premier league match with Rashford, James, Mata and Pereira as our attack something has gone badly wrong. Despite their pay level they aren't the best in the world or anywhere near it. You can't just 'coach' anyone to be a great PL level attack, they have to have top ability too.

Guardiola could coach my Sunday league team, we'd still be absolutely terrible at football.
Why have a manager at all? Just buy as many good players as possible and let them play.
 

MikeUpNorth

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Expecting a relatively inexperienced and unproven coach to do better with the squad than one of the greatest coaches and tacticians of his generation always looked a bit of a long shot. Even if that coach wasn't what he once was.
 

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How so many people on here still don’t see the importance of good coaching and tactical knowledge I don’t know. We’re the worst in the division, apart from Newcastle probably.
 

Treble

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It isn't wrong. But even Fergie wasn't coaching the 2007-09 team. He got all the credit for its success though.

These days coaching is more important than a decade ago though. Football is tactically more sophisticated and one can't be a truly great manager without being also a great coach.
 

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Thing is, I'm confused as to what it is that Ole wants us to do even when we have more first team players fit. Sometimes Martial is up top then he swaps with Rashford. Sometimes we have width on the right and then the player drifts central. We always press for 20 mins and then stop pressing as hard. I've found when we score early or score first, we will suppliment it with lots of sideways passing until we can break a counter. Either we pick the opposition off from there or we draw because we were gassing around with sideways movement.

It's not really a pattern of play you'd expect from a United manager after what, 10 months in charge. Quality is one thing but the system is another. No one really agrees with Pogba being operated top deep, no one agrees with Pereira out wide and no one agrees with Matic with Mata in the same lineup. Quality is one thing, selection and training is another. We have no fecking clue what it is that Ole is training. Running maybe? That's about all I got.
 

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It's pretty presumptious to say that the players aren't being coached. There was the same argument about Mourinho with people lablelling him a "dinosaur", yet you only have to listen to him speak about the game to realise he obviously knows how to coach a team tactically. Yet the performances under him for the last year or so were no less clueless looking than now.

Whether the players are listening to what they are being coached is a different matter but again that's presumptious...although less so as Jose literally kept telling everyone the players weren't listening to him.
 

VP89

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It isn't wrong. But even Fergie wasn't coaching the 2007-09 team. He got all the credit for its success though.

These days coaching is more important than a decade ago though. Football is tactically more sophisticated and one can't be a truly great manager without being also a great coach.
Fergie was motivating and it was clear today our entire team needed a rocket up their arse. Quite sure Fergie would have found ways to get his average side performing at an above average level.
 

mu4c_20le

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Bring back LVG? He had us playing the most 'tactically' to the point of being rigid.
 

Leftback99

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Why have a manager at all? Just buy as many good players as possible and let them play.
Hilarious response. On the flip side why ever buy new players? Just coach the ones you've got.

Obviously a Guardiola will elevate a team like City far more than another manager because he's the best in the world. But then you could say why does he bother buying better players if it's all down to coaching?

Why has the top 4/6 been such a closed shop for so long? Surely if PL players need so much coaching on where to run etc a promising new coach would break up the top 6 once in a while?

There's very few examples of average squads achieving anything significant (even top 4) in the PL, or even being remembered for playing great football.
 

MikeUpNorth

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I think we should probably move to a more defensive/ compact formation that makes better use of our unbalanced squad. We have a load of centre-backs and hardly any forwards. 5-3-2 maybe?

De Gea
Lindelof - Tuanzebe - Maguire
AWB ---------------------------- Shaw
McTominay - Matic
Pogba
Rashford - Martial
Sit deep and play direct on the counter attack.
 

VP89

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I think we should probably move to a more defensive/ compact formation that makes use of our unbalanced squad. We have a load of centre-backs and hardly any forwards. 5-3-2 maybe?

De Gea
Lindelof - Tuanzebe - Maguire
AWB ---------------------------- Shaw
McTominay - Matic
Pogba
Rashford - Martial​
Being more compact is what Jose drilled into the squad and they didn't take well to it.
 

noodlehair

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Thing is, I'm confused as to what it is that Ole wants us to do even when we have more first team players fit. Sometimes Martial is up top then he swaps with Rashford. Sometimes we have width on the right and then the player drifts central. We always press for 20 mins and then stop pressing as hard. I've found when we score early or score first, we will suppliment it with lots of sideways passing until we can break a counter. Either we pick the opposition off from there or we draw because we were gassing around with sideways movement.

It's not really a pattern of play you'd expect from a United manager after what, 10 months in charge. Quality is one thing but the system is another. No one really agrees with Pogba being operated top deep, no one agrees with Pereira out wide and no one agrees with Matic with Mata in the same lineup. Quality is one thing, selection and training is another. We have no fecking clue what it is that Ole is training. Running maybe? That's about all I got.
Well most teams will press more in the first 20 minutes to be fair. Other than that I can't really argue with much of what you say. I can see what Ole is trying to do with the team, but I can't say it is working well at the moment. We sit off when we score but then there seems to be no real clue or organisation at times when it comes to either defending effectively or executing a counter attack. Elements look better from one game to the next. Against Leicester the defending was a lot more organised for example. Then you get games like today where you would struggle to explain what anyone was supposed to be doing, and where the tactical decisions just seem utterly random. Why on earth did our fullbacks swap sides for 10 minutes in the first half?

It is difficult though to execute any kind of tactics when the players just don't bother to look switched on. We've seen that with the previous two managers. LVG and Jose had different set ups, yet the team looked equally as inept when it lowered the intensity to about 3%. The same thing again today. It's too simplistic to blame a display like that on the coaching...but you have to look to the manager to set standards so that the players on the pitch do put the work in to make the gameplan effective. There is really no point coaching a team in how to play if you have no standard of performance to go with it. If you are coached how to box perfectly, you'll still get knocked out if you turn up to the fight hungover.
 

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Not enough focus goes on Carrick and McKenna for me. What the feck do these two do? We look the worst coached side in the league.
 

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These players, the ones who have been there a while, down tools at the first sign of trouble, and know they'll get away with it because the manager will disappear if they underperform. Some of them are stealing a living, and until that cycle is broken and a manager truly supported, the players will continue to take the p*ss in terms of their performances. In a way, running a lot hides a multitude of other sins, as they will make sure they hit their targets for distance and then say they did their best.

Ferguson was right that the manager of Man Utd needs supporting - it's a prerequisite for dealing with the kind of players and egos you get at the top of the game. It's just whether Ole's the manager now to stick with.
 

Catt

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Whether the players are listening to what they are being coached is a different matter but again that's presumptious...although less so as Jose literally kept telling everyone the players weren't listening to him.
That begs the question: are the players lazy, do they have difficulty prosessing what they're told?, or are all of them that bad?
 

passing-wind

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Football is so suppressed nowadays it's almost impossible to let players use their own initiative with minimal instruction to express their influences in the play. Even under our winning run, I struggled when assessing the team performances to see what elements of a foundation Solskjaer was bringing which would exemplify itself in two three years of his tenure. As I posted back then fans and media got way ahead of themselves (myself included to an extent after the PSG result) and we ended up in a situation of rushing a managerial appointment.

It's easy to tell if a coach is paying dividends for a given team, it's not only the performances that show the improvement, it's also in the development of the players. Who since Ole has come in has massively benefited under any of his ideologies / guidance ? We can easily discern how indifferent our team is compared to Mourinho along with the stats that support it but the proof is in the pudding, players improve under good coaches. Guardiola has Sterling, KDB, B.Silva, Fernandinho etc. Klopp has Henderson, Trent, Salah, Firmino, Mane, Robertson etc. Poch has Kane, Son, Moura, Alli, Sissoko etc. Even under LVG his coaching credentials marginally shone through, Rashford, Smalling and Martial improved in many areas.

I personally believe we will know when we have a good manager / coach when the team starts exceeding expectations. The argument with Jose in charge was that it was a quality selection of players but wrong manager. Now under Ole we have the worst possible lineup in the club's history but does this team warrant 10 losses and four wins in the last 19 ? Is this team any worse than Southampton, Wolves, West Ham, Everton yet we got slapped. When Norwich strung up City last week did Farke just throw the towel in because his squad is inferior.

The formula to assess Solskjaer's capabilities is pretty simplistic. Average manager = average results. Average coach = average performances. What makes it worse for Ole is this formula can even be used in a relegation format because he struggled under minimal pressure (compared to the top) at Cardiff. Some managers thrive in different conditions due to their capabilities at that level. It's the reason why Pep would likely get a palace relegated and why a Hogson could keep them up. But when you put them at either side of the opposite spectrum Pep thrives at the top and Roy struggled.
 

MikeUpNorth

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That begs the question: are the players lazy, do they have difficulty prosessing what they're told?, or are all of them that bad?
Since Fergie retired, I think we have had an unholy mix of various different kinds of flawed players:

1. Talented footballers with poor/inconsistent attitudes (Martial, Pogba etc)
2. Footballers of limited talent with good attitudes (Lingard, Young, Herrera etc)
3. Fading stars (Sanchez, Rooney, Valencia, Matic etc)

...and new for this season...

4. Young players with some potential but clearly not yet ready (Chong, Greenwood etc)

Players who are talented enough, with a reliable attitude and in their prime years have been VERY thin on the ground.
 

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That begs the question: are the players lazy, do they have difficulty prosessing what they're told?, or are all of them that bad?
That's the part I can't put my finger on. They seem almost bafflingly determined not to work hard enough, despite there being nothing to gain from it at all. They are obviously being coached to do something, even if our coaches aren't as good as at certain other clubs. They definitely aren't being coached to walk about taking 17 touches in midfield or stand there watching the other team play on the edge of their box.

Matic was deliberately standing behind West Ham players when our defence had the ball today...is he being coached to do that? Seems very doubtful. I think the problem is more that he isn't being coached to do it, but also isn't being hauled off the pitch when he is doing it. Whatever coaching is going on it's utterly pointless if there's no obligation to do what you're supposed to on the pitch.
 

MikeUpNorth

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That's the part I can't put my finger on. They seem almost bafflingly determined not to work hard enough, despite there being nothing to gain from it at all. They are obviously being coached to do something, even if our coaches aren't as good as at certain other clubs.
I thought Ole's answer to the question at 1:31 here was revealing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49790384

He gives a jumbled answer with mixed messages about not 'squeezing as a team' and that the players 'didn't push', while also saying 'we weren't compact enough'. It's just coaching buzzword bingo without any real thought behind it.
 

Catt

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That's the part I can't put my finger on. They seem almost bafflingly determined not to work hard enough, despite there being nothing to gain from it at all. They are obviously being coached to do something, even if our coaches aren't as good as at certain other clubs. They definitely aren't being coached to walk about taking 17 touches in midfield or stand there watching the other team play on the edge of their box.

Matic was deliberately standing behind West Ham players when our defence had the ball today...is he being coached to do that? Seems very doubtful. I think the problem is more that he isn't being coached to do it, but also isn't being hauled off the pitch when he is doing it. Whatever coaching is going on it's utterly pointless if there's no obligation to do what you're supposed to on the pitch.
I honestly think the club needs to be ruthless in getting rid of players sooner. I know we're in the middle of a clear out but I still find it hard to believe that a majority are lazier or more stupid than the average at other clubs.
 

Treble

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I thought Ole's answer to the question at 1:31 here was revealing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49790384

He gives a jumbled answer with mixed messages about not 'squeezing as a team' and that the players 'didn't push', while also saying 'we weren't compact enough'. It's just coaching buzzword bingo without any real thought behind it.
He's like that in the presses. Says all the right things but very little of real substance.
 

noodlehair

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I thought Ole's answer to the question at 1:31 here was revealing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/49790384

He gives a jumbled answer with mixed messages about not 'squeezing as a team' and that the players 'didn't push', while also saying 'we weren't compact enough'. It's just coaching buzzword bingo without any real thought behind it.
But then that doesn't explain the similar performances under Jose, or that for a year or so under him we didn't have these issues.
 

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It's pretty presumptious to say that the players aren't being coached. There was the same argument about Mourinho with people lablelling him a "dinosaur", yet you only have to listen to him speak about the game to realise he obviously knows how to coach a team tactically. Yet the performances under him for the last year or so were no less clueless looking than now.

Whether the players are listening to what they are being coached is a different matter but again that's presumptious...although less so as Jose literally kept telling everyone the players weren't listening to him.
No argument on Jose and tactics, he obviously is top class there. With Ole, I've never once heard anything slightly insightful from him. Just play with freedom and get on the end of things, a bit like Clough without the intelligence, aura or authority. Of course, there might be some mastermind wrapped up inside that happy-go-lucky exterior.

There is no evidence of any good coaching. Of course there is coaching. But does it produce anything positive? I keep hearing Ole saying how good we are in training. Maybe we should start inviting other teams to train with us so we actually improve.

If the players lack motivation and professionalism to apply themselves, it's on them. But it's not just a black and white scenario where they are all useless and the manager is being let down, just like before, the manager is also responsible for getting something out of his playing staff. The 3 recruits have looked good but none of the others have visibly improve an iota.
 

noodlehair

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I honestly think the club needs to be ruthless in getting rid of players sooner. I know we're in the middle of a clear out but I still find it hard to believe that a majority are lazier or more stupid than the average at other clubs.
I don't think we need to start clearing out every player who has a few poor games, but start setting some kind of standards at least.

Have a clear plan of what players are expected to do on the pitch and in training, and then they either do that to a consistent level, or they don't get picked. You get very clear indications this just doesn't happen at the moment.

I'm not even talking about quality, just application. If you can't set a standard in terms of the application of your players then there's no point even worrying about how good they are.

No argument on Jose and tactics, he obviously is top class there. With Ole, I've never once heard anything slightly insightful from him. Just play with freedom and get on the end of things, a bit like Clough without the intelligence, aura or authority. Of course, there might be some mastermind wrapped up inside that happy-go-lucky exterior.

There is no evidence of any good coaching. Of course there is coaching. But does it produce anything positive? I keep hearing Ole saying how good we are in training. Maybe we should start inviting other teams to train with us so we actually improve.

If the players lack motivation and professionalism to apply themselves, it's on them. But it's not just a black and white scenario where they are all useless and the manager is being let down, just like before, the manager is also responsible for getting something out of his playing staff. The 3 recruits have looked good but none of the others have visibly improve an iota.
Well I just think if you and me and others can sit here discussing coaching and tactics, the idea the coaching staff and Ole would have less of a clue than us is quite daft. Whether they are good enough to implement it effectively or manage games I think is a different matter. I'm not saying anything is world class either, but it doesn't take a genius to have a basic game plan.

I don't think it's as simple as players lacking professionalism. There has to be more to it than that. A lot of these players are young or by the nature of their job quite self confident/arrogant. Coaching is one thing but getting players to apply it I can imagine is another. I think if they aren't it isn't necessarily on them. The manager and the coaches set the standard that is required. If one isn't set then players as individuals will think they are doing well enough. No one who matters is telling them otherwise.

If you see a performance like today and then the manager is saying he is happy with it, that alarms me. It suggests he either doesn't know or isn't brave enough to set the bar higher. Either that or @MikeUpNorth is right and there is no plan so there is nothing to set the bar against.
 

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Clearly its to much to ask. Its to much to coach attacking patterns in final third, its much for to have clear vision of way of play, its to much to coach and improve players you have, even shit ones, raise their level for a bit, make them look better/good.

Playing this game isnt our thing, only thing we know to shout buy buy buy, quality and world class and let them play and after they get stale and their levels drops, we start wondering wth happened and how they looked so much better at the start or in prev, teams.
 

NinjaFletch

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Good post.

When Ole was appointed it was being widely touted, both in the media and certainly in here, that Mourinho had misused the squad, and Ole was hired because he was capable of getting the best out of this squad...

People are now acting like that never happened - and it's classless of them to do so.

He's had nearly a year now to coach this squad, and has added 160m to the defense, and the footy is garbage - as it was at Cardiff the last time he was in the PL.

He absolutely should be coaching this squad better, and at least showing coherent footy even if the results are hit and miss.

He's on sackable form, and the footy is crap. But then that isn't a surprise because he's a Championship level coach at best.

And that's no slight upon him as a man, or as a Utd Legend - but he simply isn't anywhere near a good enough coach.

Hopefully after this bizarre experiment is done, it'll put to bed the notion of trying to dig up the glory years and the CO92 etc, and we can move the feck on as a club.
Yes, but to be fair that was largely bollocks based on the wishful thinking that we hadn't spunked millions on rubbish, and then we spent all summer making the squad worse in the attacking areas.
 

Cliche Guevara

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Since Fergie retired, I think we have had an unholy mix of various different kinds of flawed players:

1. Talented footballers with poor/inconsistent attitudes (Martial, Pogba etc)
2. Footballers of limited talent with good attitudes (Lingard, Young, Herrera etc)
3. Fading stars (Sanchez, Rooney, Valencia, Matic etc)

...and new for this season...

4. Young players with some potential but clearly not yet ready (Chong, Greenwood etc)

Players who are talented enough, with a reliable attitude and in their prime years have been VERY thin on the ground.
Yeah we’ve lacked a reliable, experienced, core at their peak.

All through the last six years nothing has been suitably in sync.
 

saivet

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If we looked like team that has the right ideas and has a clear way of playing but just lacks the quality player wise, it would be fair enough, but that is clearly not the case.

The idea that you need to have a class team to play good football is nonsense. There have and will continue to be teams with inferior players playing better stuff than under Ole.

We are a poorly coached team and have been for a while. I didn't enjoy LVG's football but he's the only manager post SAF that has at least had a clear strategy, but his good days in management have long gone.
 

Tyrion

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Should a manager only be signing players and selecting the squad, first XI & subs? Actually working on making them a team asking too much? Not even going to delve into developing the individuals, as that would surely be far too much to ask.





Is it wrong to ask the manager to coach his team into making the correct runs? Are the players meant to just figure this out?

I'm quoting @Gopher Brown as an example, but this is quite a prevalent belief among the fanbase.
You're right. Keane does it as well where any failure on a team's part is blamed on lazy players. Tactics are never considered. If that doesn't matter and the players should be self-motivated, what is a manager's job anyway?

You could argue that the players were making bad runs under previous managers as well so perhaps they're just crap players. Imo, neither OGS or most of the players are good enough. Rashford, DDG, Pogba, Maguire, AWB and, maybe, Martial are good enough. Everyone else is easily replaceable.
 

Copa Mundial

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Like a previous poster mentioned he just seems to spout footballing buzzwords that carry no substance on the pitch.

I was very much in the Ole camp but now I'm just beginning to believe his great start was down to the eagerness of our players to please, rather than any specific tactical coaching from him.
 

Dancfc

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Football is so suppressed nowadays it's almost impossible to let players use their own initiative with minimal instruction to express their influences in the play. Even under our winning run, I struggled when assessing the team performances to see what elements of a foundation Solskjaer was bringing which would exemplify itself in two three years of his tenure. As I posted back then fans and media got way ahead of themselves (myself included to an extent after the PSG result) and we ended up in a situation of rushing a managerial appointment.

It's easy to tell if a coach is paying dividends for a given team, it's not only the performances that show the improvement, it's also in the development of the players. Who since Ole has come in has massively benefited under any of his ideologies / guidance ? We can easily discern how indifferent our team is compared to Mourinho along with the stats that support it but the proof is in the pudding, players improve under good coaches. Guardiola has Sterling, KDB, B.Silva, Fernandinho etc. Klopp has Henderson, Trent, Salah, Firmino, Mane, Robertson etc. Poch has Kane, Son, Moura, Alli, Sissoko etc. Even under LVG his coaching credentials marginally shone through, Rashford, Smalling and Martial improved in many areas.

I personally believe we will know when we have a good manager / coach when the team starts exceeding expectations. The argument with Jose in charge was that it was a quality selection of players but wrong manager. Now under Ole we have the worst possible lineup in the club's history but does this team warrant 10 losses and four wins in the last 19 ? Is this team any worse than Southampton, Wolves, West Ham, Everton yet we got slapped. When Norwich strung up City last week did Farke just throw the towel in because his squad is inferior.

The formula to assess Solskjaer's capabilities is pretty simplistic. Average manager = average results. Average coach = average performances. What makes it worse for Ole is this formula can even be used in a relegation format because he struggled under minimal pressure (compared to the top) at Cardiff. Some managers thrive in different conditions due to their capabilities at that level. It's the reason why Pep would likely get a palace relegated and why a Hogson could keep them up. But when you put them at either side of the opposite spectrum Pep thrives at the top and Roy struggled.
I couldn't disagree more that Pep would get Palace relegated.

Sarri who's basically a poor man's Pep took on a lower Serie A team and had them comfortably safe playing great football, Howe who is another attacking manager gets Bournemouth comfortably safe every season. Even Ian Holloway who decided overnight to adopt more attacking ideals took arguably the smallest club and budget ever to grace the PL to within a game of survival.

In a hypothetical circumstance that Pep took over a Palace or a Bournemouth I would bet anything he wouldn't even flirt with relegation.
 

Bastian

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Well I just think if you and me and others can sit here discussing coaching and tactics, the idea the coaching staff and Ole would have less of a clue than us is quite daft. Whether they are good enough to implement it effectively or manage games I think is a different matter. I'm not saying anything is world class either, but it doesn't take a genius to have a basic game plan.

I don't think it's as simple as players lacking professionalism. There has to be more to it than that. A lot of these players are young or by the nature of their job quite self confident/arrogant. Coaching is one thing but getting players to apply it I can imagine is another. I think if they aren't it isn't necessarily on them. The manager and the coaches set the standard that is required. If one isn't set then players as individuals will think they are doing well enough. No one who matters is telling them otherwise.

If you see a performance like today and then the manager is saying he is happy with it, that alarms me. It suggests he either doesn't know or isn't brave enough to set the bar higher. Either that or @MikeUpNorth is right and there is no plan so there is nothing to set the bar against.
I'm not arguing that random posters on the internet can do a better job. But it doesn't look like there's a clear plan, and if there is, it's not implemented at all. With regards to motivation, I said that's on both the players and the manager. I'm in the same boat with being concerned with how poor we are and how blasé Ole seems to be about it.
 

Sylar

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The disappointment with Ole is hes doing and falling into the same patterns as the previous managers.
And that ultimately leads to us playing 4231 without recognised players for some of the key positions.

The strengths of the players seem to be in a 433 which is what he adopted when he first came in. But even then, forgetting formations, it seems he just throws a few players on, and there doesnt seem to be cohesion or a set pattern of play. We dont press as a team, theres no urgency or pace. And a lot of that goes down to the players, but we also dont seem to have a set spine either.

I do think we are seeing something different compared to what happened in pre-season as well.
 

noodlehair

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I'm not arguing that random posters on the internet can do a better job. But it doesn't look like there's a clear plan, and if there is, it's not implemented at all. With regards to motivation, I said that's on both the players and the manager. I'm in the same boat with being concerned with how poor we are and how blasé Ole seems to be about it.
Implementation and motivation are linked though. You can have a plan, but it's pointless if the players have no obligation or motivation to follow it.

Jose obviously had a plan, but the players would cone out and just stroll about until they were a goal down, the same as yesterday.

My gripe wouldn't so much be that we don't look like we're playing with any clear plan or purpose, but more the lack of any tangible concern from the management. Matic couldn't have complained yesterday for example if he'd been hooked off after 25 minutes. Until you start giving players a reason to think they need to do better, they aren't going to think they need to.

Even the best coaches such as Klopp and Pep can't get every player to do what they want to the intensity level they want...but the ones who don't simply don't get in the team anymore.
 

Foxbatt

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Players need to practice and get drilled into how they move with and without the ball.
Look at Noble yesterday. Where was our left sided midfield player? Why didn't he close him down? What was Mata doing standing outside our box without doing anything? Matic saw the move too late as the player came behind him.
We are not coached properly. Seems the only thing is to get it to Rashy and he will run. Jose is right. Rashford is not a CF and he is not going to score the 25 goals or so.