Is Ole’s football really any better than José & LVG’s?

Hammondo

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I think our style of football is worse, it's amazingly basic and old fashioned. His man management is much better, and he's made better purchases than the previous managers.
 

POF

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LVG took over a squad with Van Persie, Rooney, Chicharito and Welbeck as strikers, Mata and Kagawa as number 10s, Nani and Zaha as wingers, signed Falcao, Di Maria, Martial and Memphis and rarely managed a shot on target in the opening 45 minutes of games at Old Trafford.

Ole took over from Jose and as far as attacking players or midfielders go, he has lost Lukaku (club's record signing as a forward), Sanchez (club's all time highest paid player), Herrera and Fellaini. Lingard and Mata are on the way out. The replacements: Bruno, Dan James (a cheap punt from Swansea), Donny (who has hardly played) and Cavani (past it striker on a free).

Despite what he's recouped in transfer fees and wages, Ole has signed one first team attacking player (Bruno) in his time as manager. Yet his football is still significantly better and the team is far more dangerous offensively.
 

kouroux

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No. Our play under Ole, bar the restart at the end of last season, has bored me to tears. We're a hard watch at the best of times, but any excitement I may once have had for a top 6 tie has been truly put to bed under Ole.

I always assume now that we're going to setup like we're playing prime Barça at the Camp Nou, regardless of any form. As a Utd fan who used to see us regularly throw the kitchen sink at opponents, seeing us now become the blot on the rest of the top 6's fixture list, it's been interesting to witness the mental contortions people now go through.

People always remember the bad about LVG, but we were always proactive in big games under him, even Mourinho I don't remember us having as little ambition either. LVG & Mourinho did win trophies overall too.

Under Ole, with a better squad than both, it's been on/off (mostly off) turgidness. And no trophies, only bottling everything under the sun when it counts.

tl;dr: Yeah It's been a lovely time really.
Wanting the right players is not a very hard thing to do so. It's what is done afterwards, that's the real work.
 

hobbers

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LVG took over a squad with Van Persie, Rooney, Chicharito and Welbeck as strikers, Mata and Kagawa as number 10s, Nani and Zaha as wingers, signed Falcao, Di Maria, Martial and Memphis and rarely managed a shot on target in the opening 45 minutes of games at Old Trafford.

Ole took over from Jose and as far as attacking players or midfielders go, he has lost Lukaku (club's record signing as a forward), Sanchez (club's all time highest paid player), Herrera and Fellaini. Lingard and Mata are on the way out. The replacements: Bruno, Dan James (a cheap punt from Swansea), Donny (who has hardly played) and Cavani (past it striker on a free).

Despite what he's recouped in transfer fees and wages, Ole has signed one first team attacking player (Bruno) in his time as manager. Yet his football is still significantly better and the team is far more dangerous offensively.
Neither of those statements is remotely true though. The football isn't any better than Mourinho's last full season, no discussion to be had there. This season you can almost count our really good performances on one hand. You'd need 4 hands to count all the absolute shockers. And in terms of goalscoring, the team isn't any more dangerous, and our forwards are regressing rapidly.

Also curious that you're trying to paint Ole's decision to punt Lukaku out the door (probably still the best thing he's done as manager in my book) and "losing" Sanchez, who never kicked a ball, as negative situations he had no control over. Once again Ole gets all the credit for signing Bruno but the decision to spend £40m on Donny, to then never play him, is brushed under the rug.
 

Marwood

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It's probably an unfair time to ask the question as we're currently in a bad patch but yes the football is better. Or at least we've had spells where Ole has given us performances way beyond what LvG and Jose did. We've played some genuinely entertaining stuff under him.

Also how we're playing right now, you sense this isn't what Ole wants, he doesn't want us to be just counter attacking specialists.

Where as with Jose and LvG, boring us to death seemed to be their actual gameplan.
 

elmo

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It's probably an unfair time to ask the question as we're currently in a bad patch but yes the football is better. Or at least we've had spells where Ole has given us performances way beyond what LvG and Jose did. We've played some genuinely entertaining stuff under him.

Also how we're playing right now, you sense this isn't what Ole wants, he doesn't want us to be just counter attacking specialists.

Where as with Jose and LvG, boring us to death seemed to be their actual gameplan.
So what does he want us to be because he sets us up to counter every single damn game.

There's no point in saying how he wants us to attack and press from the get go because that's not how we play at all under him other than during his interim period.

The football under him has been sliding downwards since he took the full time job, other than the 3 months period where Bruno first joined us, he's been here for over 2 years now and we're still complaining about the lack of correct players to play his fabled ideal formation. A proper manager would have made best use of what's available to him instead of just playing players out of position.
 

Marwood

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So what does he want us to be because he sets us up to counter every single damn game.

There's no point in saying how he wants us to attack and press from the get go because that's not how we play at all under him other than during his interim period.

The football under him has been sliding downwards since he took the full time job, other than the 3 months period where Bruno first joined us, he's been here for over 2 years now and we're still complaining about the lack of correct players to play his fabled ideal formation. A proper manager would have made best use of what's available to him instead of just playing players out of position.
Regarding your last sentence he surely is making best use of what he has in terms of our style. I'm not sure who is playing out of position on a regular basis. The teams biggest weakness is keeping the ball. Aside from Shaw, Maguire, Lindelof and Mata I'd say every other players biggest weakness is their basic passing and first touch. I don't think we realise how average some of them are in that regard.

So as a result we largely look to counter at speed, it's what suits the majority of our players.

You can still argue the football isn't good enough but I don't think you can argue how we play doesn't suit the players. It's tailored to suit them.

Ole has said we need to start controlling games so I would give him another summer to address the above problem, sign a couple of players who are genuinely excellent on the ball. Both in their quality and choice of pass.

If he doesn't sort it this summer I'd agree time's up.
 
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paulscholes18

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Nothing was worse than LVG’s football.
In terms of play and subs, vs Palace was as bad as it gets, 1 shot on target and subbing Cavani off for James and Fred off for McTominay, it was an absolute disgrace.

At HT James should have came on for Fred, Greenwood moves to the left with Rashford up top next to Cavani with Bruno dropping deeper so we can actually have someone who can pick a pass from deep, if 20 minutes into the 2nd half and still 0-0 with Rashford was still having a stinker then you bring on Amad & Shola on for Rashford and AWB, Shola to the left, Amad on the right with James moving to right back, at least than if we failed to with the game would have done so looking to win rather than just accepting the draw.
 

POF

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Neither of those statements is remotely true though. The football isn't any better than Mourinho's last full season, no discussion to be had there. This season you can almost count our really good performances on one hand. You'd need 4 hands to count all the absolute shockers. And in terms of goalscoring, the team isn't any more dangerous, and our forwards are regressing rapidly.

Also curious that you're trying to paint Ole's decision to punt Lukaku out the door (probably still the best thing he's done as manager in my book) and "losing" Sanchez, who never kicked a ball, as negative situations he had no control over. Once again Ole gets all the credit for signing Bruno but the decision to spend £40m on Donny, to then never play him, is brushed under the rug.
They're both true. No discussion to be had. Wow, that's really easy!

There's been no regression in the forwards under Ole. They're all in terrible form at the moment but all have played their best football for the club by a long way under Ole.

I'm not criticising the decision to sell both Lukaku and Sanchez. It was the correct decision. But both were extremely significant investments. Funds have been recouped for Lukaku and Sanchez's wages are now off the books but no attacking reinforcements have come in apart from a few stop gaps. He's got Jose's attack minus Jose's 2 main forwards and ended up with a better attack.

It would be like someone taking over from Jose at Spurs, losing Kane and Son, then adding Bruno, Dan James and a free agent striker and ending up with a better attack.
 

The Neville wears Prada

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Because 2 of our front 3 from last season have scored 4 or 5 league goals between them all season. We’ve had Cavani chipping in with a few when fit and available but undoubtedly Martial and Greenwood haven’t delivered goals this season. At least Rashford still has although he could have had many more goals too. That is a major floor for us.
Flaw** (I know people like me are deeply annoying, but I couldn't let that spelling error go! :) I do agree with everything you say though!
 

MU655

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They're both true. No discussion to be had. Wow, that's really easy!

There's been no regression in the forwards under Ole. They're all in terrible form at the moment but all have played their best football for the club by a long way under Ole.

I'm not criticising the decision to sell both Lukaku and Sanchez. It was the correct decision. But both were extremely significant investments. Funds have been recouped for Lukaku and Sanchez's wages are now off the books but no attacking reinforcements have come in apart from a few stop gaps. He's got Jose's attack minus Jose's 2 main forwards and ended up with a better attack.

It would be like someone taking over from Jose at Spurs, losing Kane and Son, then adding Bruno, Dan James and a free agent striker and ending up with a better attack.
It is not really true, though. On average (outside of the 9-0 win) we score fewer goals per game this season than we did under Mourinho. The thing is that people are being too drawn into rating our attack on a 9-0 victory that has happened four times in Premier League history. It is not a good basis because we don't score even close to that on average normally. We average about 1.6 outside of that, whilst we averaged 1.74 under Mourinho.

Fernandes is a great player, who is pretty much making up our attack single-handed. Rashford next, but even he is iffy. Martial and Greenwood have deteriorated under Solskjaer this season. Martial, in particular, is probably having his worst season ever for us.
 

Rilz

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Yes it is

You must have a very very short memory, to even compare our football now to what it was under LVG is ridiculous
 

Freak

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Ole seems to only have a plan A: play 4-2-3-1, everything goes through the middle and let Bruno do his thing.

I hate that we don't attack through the wings anymore. Wingers and wing play are crucial to opening up teams that sit deep. We have neither wingers, nor wing play (from full backs).

I actually miss seeing a 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 formation these days with actual wingers.
 

hobbers

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They're both true. No discussion to be had. Wow, that's really easy!

There's been no regression in the forwards under Ole. They're all in terrible form at the moment but all have played their best football for the club by a long way under Ole.

I'm not criticising the decision to sell both Lukaku and Sanchez. It was the correct decision. But both were extremely significant investments. Funds have been recouped for Lukaku and Sanchez's wages are now off the books but no attacking reinforcements have come in apart from a few stop gaps. He's got Jose's attack minus Jose's 2 main forwards and ended up with a better attack.

It would be like someone taking over from Jose at Spurs, losing Kane and Son, then adding Bruno, Dan James and a free agent striker and ending up with a better attack.
It is easy because the stats back it up. We've not scored more goals than we had at this stage in Mourinho's second season. We are not more prolific. Even after scoring 9 goals in a single freak result. As for comparing Ole losing Lukaku and Sanchez to Spurs losing Kane and Son......... I really don't know what's going on in your head there.

Our attack was at its most prolific under Ole before he was made permanent manager, and then for another period after Bruno arrived, before and after lockdown. Other than those two periods our attack has looked clueless. Martial has been so bad this season his entire United career is in ruins. Dan James has scored more than Greenwood. Rashford has been abysmal since around Christmas and in the last few games has barely even been able to control the ball. Bruno is burned out. Aside from maybe Luke Shaw, everything and everyone is moving in the wrong direction.
 

Giggsy13

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He wanted Schweinsteiger, who was never going to offer a dynamic midfield, and wanted Memphis, who was suppposed to offer something on the wing... He made his fair share of errors.
He also wanted Mane and Muller but Ed couldn’t deliver. Muller was always going to be difficult but failing to land Mane was a big miss.
 

Amir

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He also wanted Mane and Muller but Ed couldn’t deliver. Muller was always going to be difficult but failing to land Mane was a big miss.
I doubt we tried to sign Mane and failed. Anyhow, he moved to Liverpool after LVG was sacked.

He got a lot of players he wanted. It was very much his fault.
 

Ace

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In terms of play and subs, vs Palace was as bad as it gets, 1 shot on target and subbing Cavani off for James and Fred off for McTominay, it was an absolute disgrace.

At HT James should have came on for Fred, Greenwood moves to the left with Rashford up top next to Cavani with Bruno dropping deeper so we can actually have someone who can pick a pass from deep, if 20 minutes into the 2nd half and still 0-0 with Rashford was still having a stinker then you bring on Amad & Shola on for Rashford and AWB, Shola to the left, Amad on the right with James moving to right back, at least than if we failed to with the game would have done so looking to win rather than just accepting the draw.
Yes, Crystal Palace was a horrible match and I agree with you, but that’s not what this thread is about. We’ve had both horrible matches under every boss. Under Ole, we go into most matches as the favorite to win, this is what makes the team performance at Crystal Palace so frustrating.

Under LvG, we all knew we weren’t going to go out there and compete— we had a rigid “system” (if you could call it that) and our mid table squad at the time was brainwashed into not playing football. LvG gutted our squad, filled it with some of our worst ever signings, and was so smug and confident about his “system” despite the horrible performances on the pitch each week. In my opinion, there couldn’t have been a worse person to take over the direction of the club after the Moyes experiment. We replaced one footballing dinosaur with another, instead of adapting to the demands of the modern game.

Ole, for all of his faults and relative lack of experience, has improved our squad — Just go back and look at our squad from around 2015. As a few others pointed out, most of us supporters weren’t simply bothered anymore. Our expectations were so low... Those years under LvG were the only time when I didn’t feel anything for this club. All of the losses and draws didn’t really upset me, and the wins we did manage were hard to get too excited about for fear that it was buying him more time in the job.

For as well respected as he was in the international game before arriving to United, those two seasons will forever blemish his managerial career.
 

Trophy Room

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Ole has been excellent to be fair. He has helped to create a culture that could spell long-term success. However, don't think he has it in him to beat Pep's City and hence won't win the league.
 

Garethw

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How can I follow PSG? I’m from Manchester & have supported United all my life. How can I just follow PSG? Explain this to me? Lazy, cliche, and quite frankly, idiotic comment.
Its because your not allowed to criticise an underperforming manager mate. Those of us that dare to question Ole aren’t real supporters to some on here.
 

Water Melon

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How can I follow PSG? I’m from Manchester & have supported United all my life. How can I just follow PSG? Explain this to me? Lazy, cliche, and quite frankly, idiotic comment.
Thanks mate for identifying another poster who I should put on ignore. I agree with you, that the post you replied to was totally illogical and quite stupid imo.
On a side note, I live far from Manchester, but it hurts me a lot to see the way we have been playing and managed after SAF. Seeing the noisy neighbours' rise and domination must be a real pain for a red manc.
 

Luke1995

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Beside, there was absolutely no reason to keep LVG for another third year.

There was nothing pointing out he was moving the club on the right direction. His football was crap, yes he had a system, but a shit one, and his transfer business over 2 years was atrocious to even dare to say that he needed better players. There was a bigger chance that it would have gone worse than better.

The Fa Cup was nice but this had to be one of the easiest draws I have seen in a cup tournament in a very long time : Sheffield, Derby, WHU, Everton and Crystal Palace. It would have been ridiculous to not win it. Such cup can't cover for the shit show going throughout the whole season.

Beside, players didn't respect him anyway :

https://www.goal.com/en-us/news/van...-ignored-my-emails/10ifhqnr8joov1ifkpf1ag776m

Van Gaal was a terrible manager at United from almost all perspectives.
Can't disagree with that... it seems like both he and Mourinho had worse second seasons than the first. And both did bad bussiness in the transfer market.

Maybe that needed to happen, so the board could learn... although i'm still not sure Ole will become a Klopp or a Pep in the long term.
 

Wewinsoon

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Yes his football is way better, now he just need the rest of the puzzle so he can build more ontop of what we have now, atleast a very good cm /cdm and 1 or 2 attacking players.
 

POF

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It is easy because the stats back it up. We've not scored more goals than we had at this stage in Mourinho's second season. We are not more prolific. Even after scoring 9 goals in a single freak result. As for comparing Ole losing Lukaku and Sanchez to Spurs losing Kane and Son......... I really don't know what's going on in your head there.

Our attack was at its most prolific under Ole before he was made permanent manager, and then for another period after Bruno arrived, before and after lockdown. Other than those two periods our attack has looked clueless. Martial has been so bad this season his entire United career is in ruins. Dan James has scored more than Greenwood. Rashford has been abysmal since around Christmas and in the last few games has barely even been able to control the ball. Bruno is burned out. Aside from maybe Luke Shaw, everything and everyone is moving in the wrong direction.
The comparison is because they were Mourinho's marquee attacking players around whom he wanted to build his attack. That's where the club invested heavily in the attack on Jose's behest.

That both of those marquee attacking players were punted and neither were replaced and United still has a dangerous attack capable of beating anyone shows what a good job Ole has done.

United has a young inexperienced front 3 in Martial, Rashford and Greenwood. One of those 3 is in his 2nd ever season in senior football. With such young players their form fluctuates wildly but all 3 have played their best football for the club under Ole. Other than that, United have a 34 year old who was without a club and a cheap punt from Swansea.

Those are the options for the front 3 positions at United. It is ridiculously light.

Jose had the same except replace the 34 year old and the useless young winger with a £75m marquee striker and the highest paid forward in the club's history.

I agree that the attack has struggled this season but dips in form is what you get with young players. Fergie always had faith in youth but he surrounded them with experience and gave himself the option to take them out of the firing line when required. Ole's attacking options on the bench in the last 2 games were Amad and Shoretire.
 

Hughie77

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Pointless. cant everyone just move on LVG history Jose same, the only manager to compare to is SAF. If the football is worse under Ole, then there are some that dont watch every season, some of the games have been poor, but not all of them, you have to give the opposition some credit in games as well, it's not only one side, in a match.
We've just beaten probably the best team, squad in Europe, by 0-2 in there own ground and also last season as well, doesn't this matter, theres 4 games we should have won but drew, that's football, we would be 3 pts off top otherwise. But for some it would still be the same because they just don't like the Manager, I could not stand Jose, still do.
 

ROFLUTION

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It's miles better. One of the most scoring teams in the league, neither of the others could give us what we wanted, to be entertained.

Fergie played drab against top opponents too. Give Ole time, the squad is not the finished article yet. At least we watch football that is not insanely boring.
 

SAFMUTD

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Another dreadful performance, boring as hell and poor result too.
 

Ekeke

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Sometimes the answer is no. But on the whole I'd say a little bit. At least while we're scoring a good amount of goals
 

MU655

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No, he is a defensive manager. That was confirmed today. We play on the counter-attack, and are very good if there is space. But if no space exists, we are dreadful to watch.
 

dove

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Yea, it's miles better. Games like today are a pure joy to watch, last 20 mins especially were spectacular.
 

Crashoutcassius

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I don't think we can judge much at this stage of season. Going off his first 18 months yes. In this environment where most premiership sides are struggling it hasn't been good.. can't even imagine how dull Mou or lvg would be in this situation
 

Rajma

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Sometimes the answer is no. But on the whole I'd say a little bit. At least while we're scoring a good amount of goals
Nah it’s all because of Bruno. I hate Jose and Ole is out of his depth as much, the only difference is Bruno.
 

Rajma

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Bruno is basically the difference between them all, Ole was heading towards exit sharpish before Bruno arrived let’s not rewrite the history here.
 

SAFMUTD

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I don't think we can judge much at this stage of season. Going off his first 18 months yes. In this environment where most premiership sides are struggling it hasn't been good.. can't even imagine how dull Mou or lvg would be in this situation
I think it would be pretty much the same, it could hardly be worse than today .