I am glad Mike's there but I am not as convinced as some here that he's the world's greatest number 2. Remember watching his resigned face on the sidelines in later games against Barca where he just sort of looked helpless and without hope. I found Carlos a more convincing and thoughtful football brain and would love him back too. Failing this, I'd add Rene back into the mix if we could get him, the players he worked with seem to say great things. The group seem young enough to give us another decade of top service. All told, agree that Moysie made bad choice in deciding to bring in his own team immediately. I understand it but it was a wrong move to disassemble the winning team completely and in one swoop replace them with some of his friends who had zero record of ever winning anything. He'll say he had promises of six years so felt emboldened to do it but there you go. Not sure any other manager appointee would have done it differently, seems to be the way of the world when a manager changes clubs. Anyway, Ole is clearly smarter....welcome back both!
Phelan is probably very good against most EPL sides. In the CL, Queiroz helped us go beyond to the next step by playing with very specific tactics, using false nine or AS Roma kind of tactics with Totti coming down and both wingers and full backs going into the box. That's how we ended up favoring Cristiano over Ruud.
If Phelan has taken his time to think about his football, maybe he has progressed personally as well. After all, our #1 forward, Rashford, is a kid who likes to move and is technical and bold, Martial is a winger who likes to score while Lingard likes to look for spaces to improve the flow of the ball. And they seem to try to interchange a lot, with Pogba coming to help as well. The fact that Phelan did not stop that nature makes me think that he's acknowledging football has changed and is on the train. This is maybe where Ole is showing his influence? Hard to tell.
It is true that Phelan alone was only good for the league and not the CL, as shown by our records in the CL after Queiroz left. The key point for us is to become less and less predictable and reduce crosses that are too random (I do sound too much like LVG but hell). And instead become much more unpredictable. I want us to have unpredictability because then, no defense in the world is going to know exactly how to stop us. Yet our forwards and midfielders will know how to play together. And of course, we will need to see how we defend against very good attacking side (I am taking Barcelona level, not just Liverpool).
