Ole: “maybe something has to give”

[JPRouve]

He literally didn't change anything so I have no idea what they looked at during the international break

Maybe they looked but didn't see?

 

[Drainy]

Drop AWB? He was our best outfield player today, and has arguably been our most consistent defender so far this season.

His positioning is shit and that constantly destabilises the team at the back.

 

[Josep Dowling]

If he is desperate to make something work, then the first thing is to try to take control of the midfield. I am no genius, but I said before the Leicester match that we need to sacrifice one of the attackers and set up differently. We either need three proper midfielders, or for Bruno to play a lot deeper than he currently does. For today, I would've started with Pogba, Matic, and VDB/Mctominay in midfield, and a front three of Ronaldo, Bruno, and Greenwood. Bruno can drift from the left and keep having his free roles this way, Shaw overlaps, AWB plays conservatively to maintain a decent shape and numbers at the back when we are countered (his attacking contribution is minimal anyway).

We are very top heavy but that is no excuse to not set up the team in a way that works. He needs to start being brave and prioritizing a system over the names.

We haven’t controlled a game since Pogba was reverted back into central midfield. He is too much of a luxury player. Bruno and Pogba should be fighting for the same position.

 

[Yagami]

Steve Bruce could be available soon.

Oh, you!

 

[Esquire]

He's probably realised that you can't line up in a difficult away game with 2 front players having free roles, 2 young kids as wingers who don't do much when not in possession, and a combo of Pogba and Matic who can be waltzed through at leisure.

Not quite sure what made him think you could do.

McFred in for Liverpool without any sort of doubt. Rashford too. Right wing up for grabs, but I'd still expect Ronaldo and Bruno to start.

Yeah if I was Ole and wholly analytical I would drop Ronny and play Cavani but no way that’s going to happen. As much as I don’t like McFred I would play them b/c any other combo vs. Liverpool would be suicide. Maybe play 352 against Liverpool b/c my main goad is not too lose that game and then try to get some momentum after that. Otherwise if he loses against Liverpool it’s hard to see how he hangs on.

 

[Ixion]

Needs a change in formation and a couple of big names need to drop to the bench.

 

[FatTails]

We haven’t controlled a game since Pogba was reverted back into central midfield. He is too much of a luxury player. Bruno and Pogba should be fighting for the same position.

I am fine with that too. But if we do insist on playing both, we need to add a midfielder and drop one of the two wingers, or the striker, but I don’t see Ole playing with a false 9.

 

[SAFMUTD]

Then he doesn't care about United and it is all about a payout.

Surprise surprise

 

[Esquire]

Yeah, agree. He's shown them that he's given it a go and its shite.

Plus there's nothing wrong with having strong players coming of the bench. Its what we have been crying out for the last two seasons.

I think Ronny and play together with Bruno. Pogba looks the odd one out b/c he simply doesn’t have the work rate Bruno does.

 

[SER19]

Drop Ronaldo and return to the free flowing quality we saw last season

 

[Filip#6]

We should play Bruno deeper to be able to play the through ball and get Greenwood, Rashy and Ronaldo/Cavani/Sancho running in behind constantly. Bruno plays far to high up the pitch.

 

[Kush]

Folks are living in cuckoo land if they think he's hinting at handing in his resignation. Nobody is going to let go off a big fat payout, no matter how much they profess to love the club

Given, he has spoken about wanting more legs. He is going to drop Ronaldo for Cavani, or Pogba for Fred, or possibly both.

 

[littleman]

So they analysed it over the international break and did not change anything for a match played AFTER the international break? feck right off

this is the funniest part

I don’t think they have a clue

playing magdire was the first sign of cluelessness

 

[Josep Dowling]

I am fine with that too. But if we do insist on playing both, we need to add a midfielder and drop one of the two wingers, or the striker, but I don’t see Ole playing with a false 9.

Everyone said last season if we use Pogba and Bruno we needed to sign a DM. That was ignored and is the key reason why we are failing so far this season. Frankly I can’t wait for Pogba to leave at the end of this season. Been a terrible signing for £90m.

 

[Enigma_87]

Worst manager I’ve seen at a top club in my lifetime alongside Solari at Madrid. The latter one stayed for 5 games, which speaks volumes about how United is ran.

 

[Esquire]

We keep shoe horning pogba into the team when he very, very rarely deserves that. The guy is fecking off on a free, we owe him nothing. If he plays in the next game I'd seriously be thinking that Ole is contractually obliged to play him.

Ronaldo is undroppable but limits how we play.

Agree with you. I don’t mind antagonising Pogba cuz he will go anyway and he has not worked out here in 4 years.

 

[glazed]

I agree agree with the bold. We're the only top side without a DoF model. Think it's due to mismanagement rather than penny pinching though, at least the past several seasons. The club and the Glazers would be better off with a DoF model, and hire a head coach who is first and foremost a coach.

I think it's more that Ed buys players for resale value and marketing value than for how much they are needed in the squad. So we end up with a joke of a squad that can't play as a team and is very weak in the unglamourous areas like defensive midfield but with too many attacking players we don't actually need - like Ronaldo.

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

His positioning is shit and that constantly destabilises the team at the back.

And yet you didn't mention Luke Shaw, who's positioning has been all over the shop. As I said, AWB has been our most consistent player at the back. Stop being silly.

 

[OhGee]

W

I don’t ever want this club to appoint and ex-player

purgatory

What? Heard Steve Bruce might become available very soon….

 

[Asger]

Do you think Ole wasn't backed this summer? Varane, Sancho, Ronaldo!?

Adding it to a squad with a 90m Pogba, 200m defence, 50m Fred etc etc.

This isn't a bargain bin set of signings here.

None of those have showed us through the years they are good enough to win titles. It takes time for Varane and Sancho coming to a new league. Maguire was brought by midtable and AWB from team fighting for relegation, hardly players we want trying to win PL.

 

[largelyworried]

McFratic incoming.

 

[RedRonaldo]

The biggest change would be having McFred back playing in the centre of midfield. Typical Ole mastermind changes.

 

[littleman]

I think it's more that Ed buys players for resale value and marketing value than for how much they are needed in the squad. So we end up with a joke of a squad that can't play as a team and is very weak in the unglamourous areas like defensive midfield but with too many attacking players we don't actually need - like Ronaldo.

none of what we are seeing today is due to transfers

if anything, Woodward stepping up this season exposed Ole

 

[Tony247]

I am confused. So, after the break this game was like 'let's try that shit for one last time'?

 

[thegregster]

New manager is going to need to be backed in the transfer market. Will be interested to see if the Glazers will do it.

They won't.

We need a RB,CB and 2 CMs and maybe a Pogba replacement.

We never ever finish the job in one transfer window like a big club should.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

The biggest change would be having McFred back playing in the centre of midfield. Typical Ole mastermind changes.

He doesn't know how to change tactics. All he does is change the personnel within his tactic.

 

[Asger]

They won't.

We need a RB,CB and 2 CMs and maybe a Pogba replacement.

We never ever finish the job in one transfer window like a big club should.

It all started by selling Ronaldo and getting Valencia and Owen instead. We haven't played good football since Tevez, Rooney and Ronaldo played together.

 

[MonkeysMagic]

It's laughable to think that we can make a slight personnel or formation tweak to get the team performing! The words wishful thinking come to mind.

This team is in desperate need of coaching, tactical awareness drills, set pattern of attacking and defending, set piece drills....the list is endless. After 3 years of non-coaching I'm not willing to entertain any ideas that the current coaching/managing structure is up to it. Thanks for the memories, time to move on.

 

[OhGee]

That

None of those have showed us through the years they are good enough to win titles. It takes time for Varane and Sancho coming to a new league. Maguire was brought by midtable and AWB from team fighting for relegation, hardly players we want trying to win PL.

That logic just won’t work - Grealish played for a mid table team and so did the likes of Van Dyk, Mane, Robertson, etc. Players need to be coached into playing a system and at United we have neither coaches nor a playing system…

 

[Trequarista10]

Ole has been the only one that's really been consistently backed. Under LVG and Jose, the board splurged on starting 11 calibre players when we were out of top 4 and only spent money on squad players when we qualified for the CL. They basically just spent to make sure we didn't lose out on the Adidas money.

Hmmm, they allowed LvG to sell half the squad, including numerous title winners still in their mid 20s, and purchase a ton of players of his own. Most of whom were shit. He bought 10-11 first team players in two summers. Mourinho equally had plenty to spend, Sanchez, Lukaku, Pogba, Matic, Lindelof, Bailly, Mhkitaryan, Fred, Zlatan if you include wages. That's 3 big signings a season, which is more than reasonable. Jose threw a tantrum when the board declined to spend 80m on Maguire, but then he had spent 30m or so on two CBs in each of his previous summer windows, and Maguire is Maguire anyway.

You could perhaps argue Jose got shafted in his 3rd summer, but then he was pushing hard for players post 30 like Perisic, and Sanchez was signed in January before by dipping into the next season's budget...and he spent like 55m on Fred...Ole on the other hand got backed hugely this summer, which was his third, with Ronaldo, Varane and Sancho...its on the manager to be honest...

If Ole had been given an extra, say, 100m to spend over the past 3 seasons, would things be all that much brighter? We'd have another couple players in an already disjointed and bloated squad...

 

[Rocksy]

Dropping Ronaldo might be the right thing to do but then…

…You’ve got to ask why you signed him
…You’ve got to manage the squad with Ronaldo and possibly Pogba on the sidelines. I think that’s close to impossible for even the best managers
.…. You’ve got to hope that things haven’t already gone too far bad. How do you bring them back with Ronaldo etc in the background? I don’t think he’ll be able to. You could look at how it spiralled at Cardiff…

I think Ole’s done and the Ronaldo signing has seen to that. Too much of him hoping he can throw Bruno, Pogba and Ronaldo on and it will cover up his lack of management ability. You can only have a couple of players like that, as Ole’s found out. It’s sad watching him mismanage this massive, expensive, and bloated squad. Early on he always said he wanted to cut the squad but then he started collecting and hoarding players.

 

[TMDaines]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

What’s he going to do? Drop Ronaldo, Pogba or both? Play only McFred from now on?

I think people are misdiagnosing Ronaldo’s lack of involvement for the first 75 minutes as the cause of our problems, when really it is just a symptom., You would write off all of our forwards virtually every match right now. Cavani was the same against Everton, barely getting a sniff besides a first half header. Everyone recognises him as a high workrate workhorse.

We saw in the last 15 minutes once Rashford and Lingard came on, and the team had a better balance, that it was Ronaldo who was the biggest threat in the final third. He was the man who looked like scoring late on.

Ole, or whoever the manager is, has got to get the balance and cohesion of the team right. Currently we have a big disconnect between our front three who are entirely attack minded, Bruno just going berserk in midfield, and a back six who are given no support from the forwards, naturally getting overrun. There’s no team there right now and every single player looks half the player that they should be, aside from those individual moments.

 

[FerociousCorgis]

Love watching people just shit on Ronaldo like it's his fault. Midfield constantly gets overrun but hey let's blame the CF. Can't wait till cavani is up there and then the blame is the lack of service. Bruno continually just roams about to his pleasure but hey let's ignore the fact that he needs to help link things up better

 

[glazed]

none of what we are seeing today is due to transfers

if anything, Woodward stepping up this season exposed Ole

Oh that's good. In that case we just need to play Rice and Niguez on Wednesday. Problem solved.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

"We need to look at the whole set up and balance of the team"??????
You've had nearly 3 years to get this right...what an embarrassing comment to make. So out of his depth it's untrue.

He's winging it. Nobody who has this long in the job should have the gall to say he now needs to rethink things. FFS Ole.

 

[Godfather]

I think it's more that Ed buys players for resale value and marketing value than for how much they are needed in the squad. So we end up with a joke of a squad that can't play as a team and is very weak in the unglamourous areas like defensive midfield but with too many attacking players we don't actually need - like Ronaldo.

You can't be serious. You think our manager has no say in our transfers?

 

[bonothom]

He’s going to resign.

Hopefully but I doubt it.

 

[Flytan]

Embarrassing he can say something like this after the international break. Like you'd think if they actually did their jobs they'd already make those changes.
He's just saying this to buy more time to learn wheat he was hired to do. Hope no one falls for it

 

[amolbhatia50k]

His positioning is shit and that constantly destabilises the team at the back.

Maguire has been poor this season let's drop him too. Besides you realize than AWBs replacement is DALOT?

 

[FerociousCorgis]

I think people are misdiagnosing Ronaldo’s lack of involvement for the first 75 minutes as the cause of our problems, when really it is just a symptom., You would write off all of our forwards virtually every match right now. Cavani was the same against Everton, barely getting a sniff besides a first half header. Everyone recognises him as a high workrate workhorse.

We saw in the last 15 minutes once Rashford and Lingard came on, and the team had a better balance, that it was Ronaldo who was the biggest threat in the final third. He was the man who looked like scoring late on.

Ole, or whoever the manager is, has got to get the balance and cohesion of the team right. Currently we have a big disconnect between our front three who are entirely attack minded, Bruno just going berserk in midfield, and a back six who are given no support from the forwards, naturally getting overrun. There’s no team there right now and every single player looks half the player that they should be, aside from those individual moments.

Exactly spot on. No idea why people seem to think Ronaldo is above needing service.