If next season Ole ends up on 50 but gets second, would I happy ? Ofcourse yes. But would I call that as an improvement? Hell no, we have regressed actually. The pass is only because he got the CL. Same applies this year as well.- if he gets CL, he gets a pass if he doesn't then we should look for replacements (that's how the whole discussion started tbh)
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
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But we would be just 1 point off top spot?
Anyways all this improvement, development means nothing unless we win major trophies. That should be the target, not PPG and comparing with last season or before. Only thing that matters is this season and how we improve from this position.
No matter how much this team has improved lately we're still a tier or two away from competiting for the league but we are at least heading in the right direction, whether we can sustain this form for the next 25-30 games is the big question. The hype train hit too early as we're still very much a work in progress. But it's been a long time since i've actively been excited about watching us play.
But OIe has shown that he has the experience to put runs together and get the squad hitting top form, next season he'll have no excuses from me though so i'm expecting a decent top 4 finish and seeing further signs of progress. I'm also expecting the club will back him this Summer, so hopefully we get the targets right.
I think Ole is average in-game manager and I'll try to picture one example using game against Southampton. Before I do that, I really like to say that what Ole is doing in United is absolutely great and that he is natural football philosopher and motivator that would be ideal for Football Director position at United.
Because of Southampton high pressing, we were loosing majority of our possession in trying to move ball to midfield/attack. It was easily guessed Southampton plan since our midfield/attack is too creative and dangerous to 90 min low-block defend and survive. It took 10 minutes for Ole to register that we are not moving ball forward and he moved Matic between Maguire and Lindelof in order to help defense forward play by Matic passing abilities. That move make our back 5 trying to pass ball to midfield 1 (Pogba). Southampton accepted such offer and bossed midfield next 80 minutes.
He could remedy above problem of 5 defensive positions trying to pass ball to one midfielder by moving Fernandes back, closer to Pogba so he can replace Matic in midfield and make again midfield 2 or making trio of Lindelof, Matic and Maguire more dynamic in way that one of them should move to midfield position whenever Matic drop to defense - idea being that you never leave Pogba as only one midfielder available for a pass from defense.
Unfortunately, Ole did nothing. Fernandes and our attack was cut off, ball starving for majority of the game. Southampton got midfield and Ole was passive. I know that good in-game tacticians are reacting when they see obvious problem and they won't leave team to repeat the same mistake dozen of times and expecting different result. Pep, Pochettino and Klopp wouldn't leave this situations to go for 60 minutes unattended. This is not first time that Ole is not reacting to situation on the pitch or reacting too late. That might be repeating problem whenever Ole get initial game plan wrong or situations on the pitch was changed and Ole needs to react.
Because of Southampton high pressing, we were loosing majority of our possession in trying to move ball to midfield/attack. It was easily guessed Southampton plan since our midfield/attack is too creative and dangerous to 90 min low-block defend and survive. It took 10 minutes for Ole to register that we are not moving ball forward and he moved Matic between Maguire and Lindelof in order to help defense forward play by Matic passing abilities. That move make our back 5 trying to pass ball to midfield 1 (Pogba). Southampton accepted such offer and bossed midfield next 80 minutes.
He could remedy above problem of 5 defensive positions trying to pass ball to one midfielder by moving Fernandes back, closer to Pogba so he can replace Matic in midfield and make again midfield 2 or making trio of Lindelof, Matic and Maguire more dynamic in way that one of them should move to midfield position whenever Matic drop to defense - idea being that you never leave Pogba as only one midfielder available for a pass from defense.
Unfortunately, Ole did nothing. Fernandes and our attack was cut off, ball starving for majority of the game. Southampton got midfield and Ole was passive. I know that good in-game tacticians are reacting when they see obvious problem and they won't leave team to repeat the same mistake dozen of times and expecting different result. Pep, Pochettino and Klopp wouldn't leave this situations to go for 60 minutes unattended. This is not first time that Ole is not reacting to situation on the pitch or reacting too late. That might be repeating problem whenever Ole get initial game plan wrong or situations on the pitch was changed and Ole needs to react.
You are comparing Moyes and Ole's (this) season, none of which are complete. Thus they are partial seasons right?
PPG over a whole season is the only thing that matters or shows improvements? What nonsense.
Just answering my question should make you realise how irrelevant it is.
Well ,Moyes was sacked. So using what we have.
Ole current season is not complete and thats exactly why I have been saying we should make our call end of the season ( just check my previous posts on this). But we always have the projected PPG based on the results he achieved and the maximum points we can get in 3 matches.
You missed the key point - based on facts *
There is nothing relative here or this isn't any personal perception. It just shows how we have performed over the period of 38 games.
Yes we can all read a league table to see how many points we got after 38 games. PPG isn't some advanced stat telling us something different. It doesn't tell you anything about whether we are improving or should have confidence in results going forward.
That's what we have been trying to tell him. However his idea is so narrow, he only thinks the surface of the result but not looking deep. It's like saying Mourinho 2nd season is progress in result going forward because we finished 2nd, but in reality it is not and his 3rd season reflects to it. Deadwood, young players weren't benefit from the man management & coaching, playing style was shite, money wasn't well spent and instead Jose wanted to replace the player he signed. That's why he keeps saying "wait until end of the season" because all he can see as positive is if we are on top 4.
Yeah, we have long way to go to compete for title. Like you said, there should be continuous
Improvement, we should build on whatever we achieve this season and get closer to top teams.
I feel we are moving in right direction, let's see if Ole is the right manager for the final few steps.
Noone claimed that , don't make up stuff.The table doesn't lie as simple as that. It does tell whether you are improving or not.
Let me repeat this for the nth time- we are doing the same mistake which we did last year. Taking only the purple patches we had and stating that as an improvement. Just weeks ago,we were showing mid table form. So couple of weeks of good form wouldnt change my stand.
What deep are we talking about ? We went through this multiple times. All those improvements means shit if we dont have points on board. Remember the honey moon period we had as Ole ,the caretaker manager ? What happened next ?
Now regarding Jose - I hate that man. But make no mistake, that was the best season we had post SAF. Doesnt matter what happened after that . It was completely on Ed who gave a new contract in January but gave no money in the summer and sacked him in November.
Points means nothing. Mourinho finished 2nd and what happened next? What matter is about making progress to reach succeed, not short term to be 2nd place and back to bottom again. You can't expect to be given a money if you spend money on two CB and tell Ed that they are not good enough so I want another one.
The fact that you asked ''What deep are we talking about?'' shows that you never read my post in our past discussions or simply you refuse to understand.
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Is it just a 'purple patch' or is it nearly half a season where we've had significantly better players available than the first half?
If we had me, you and United Academy playing up front in the first half of the season but then replaced us with Messi, Ronaldo and Neymar in January would you describe the improved results as just a 'purple patch' or would you see the second half of the season as a better indicator of where the team is at going into next?
Good post. Too often there was just Pogba in midfield surrounded by 4 Southampton players, and Bruno way up the pitch and isolated.
I feel like you're contradicting your own argument.
So, times have changed and it takes different points to win trophies.
But ... you're still comparing PPG against different seasons, even though times have changed and points needed to win things has changed?
Personally, I don't think you can compare PPG in an exact sense across seasons. Each season has to be taken differently.
We won the title in 1999 with 2.08 PPG.
We won the title in 2013 with 2.34 PPG.
That mean our 2013 title winning side was better than our 1999 title winning side?
I still wish he'd put more pressure on the referees. Any other manager would have been in the 4th ref's ear right after the challenge Romeu made on Greenwood.
While I agree that Ole responded slowly to what was ultimately a fairly straightforward tactical situation, I think the thing that may have made Ole slow to change things is that we'd turned the game around first half and were still creating. In the first half in particular we were making much the better chances. As well as the two goals we had the Martial one on one that was saved, and the Rashford offside chance. So up until about 60-70 minutes, even though they were controlling the game, we looked like we could outscore them by a few. I think its fair to say that, had we nabbed that third goal, we'd have won the game, so the decision to stick rather than twist wasn't totally straightforward.
You are basically saying.- give me the best players in each position and I will show you how to win against championship, League one and relegation fodders ? If not, dont expect my team to win ?
We have dropped far too many silly points this season and we really cannot put that blame on quality of players always.
We beat City 3x, Chelsea 3x, Spurs 1x, Leicester 1x. What are you going to say now?
Top players will give you consistent performance while mediocre player will give you inconsistent performance. Don’t you agree?
Good post. I agree with the tactical explanation and would like to add that our team were genuinely gassed. It was clear as day that they lacked the freshness to give 110% that Southampton were giving. I would have moved to a 4-3-3 instead by taking off Greenwood and introducing Fred who should have had more energy to press in midfield.
I think you could blame Ole, his team did poorly with pressing and his subs didn't help either.
The attackers got us the goals and won't convert all the chances they created for themselves today.
Another example of Ole's lack of in-game management is the subs. How could he leave a midfield 3 of Matic, McTominay, and Fred and expect them to hold the ball and create? It was suicide. Then, when we actually managed to somehow hold out, why didn't he bring on Ighalo? We were literally camped around our box. Ighalo could have held up the ball and, equally important, provided a bigger body to fend off the free kicks/corners. Especially stupid when you consider we were a defender down. I get why he brought on James for the extra energy. And a couple of times he helped. But Ighalo was surely the better option. Also, Martial was gassed. Saying that, you can't blame him for missing a gilt-edged chance while simultaneously ignoring the fact he created his and Rashford's goals out of nothing. Ole has been great at man-management and on occasion has been tactically astute. But against Southampton, he was tactically naive. We knew they were gonna press, having the longball out with Ighalo woulda made absolute sense.
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The problem pre Bruno was that we had zero creativity in the middle so our entire game plan relied on either wing play or our forwards making something happen on their own. It was incredibly predictable and as long as the opponent flooded the box and double marked our wingers we got stuck. Its no coincidence either our worst period came when Martial was out and we generally did better vs teams that defended high er up.
Its not just about quality but about balance in the team. No use having dangerous forwards if no one can delivery them the ball
Both seem legit tbh
However I'd disagree with the bold part. At least last time I watched Sou against Liverpool the former pressed the shit out of the later for a whole first half and Klopp did nothing. Liverpool didn't register even a shot on target that half I think. Until Mane suddenly bang in a screamer from nothing around the end.
You are basically saying that the league table/PPG is just a ranking of managers. Players available to each manager mean nothing.
Only about 10 mins or so in and this is a fantastic listen.
Clear to see why the players are responding to Ole's man management skills.
Clear to see why the players are responding to Ole's man management skills.
As from my earlier posts everyone will know that I am not his biggest fan but against Soton I don't blame him.
He can't be faulted for the stupidity of DeGea and Pogba. Players need to take some responsibility too under the tactical set up.
To me his biggest issues are our corners and in direct set pieces and when needed he doesn't change the position of the strikers. When Greenwood was not getting anything on the right he should have shifted Martial to the left and Greenwood to the centre.
Have absolutely no idea how you reached that conclusion.
That's exactly where the whole discussion started. If our system is not working because a particular player is not available ,Ole just doesn't have a plan B or tactical flexibility to change the style of game. Too many times we have seen where championship or relegation teams come to OT, park a double decker and hit us on counter. We don't need Bruno to beat them at home , do we ? I am not saying we should have beaten all of them. We were so poor that even couple of more points at home would have put us in top 4 now.
Now people say that we have been doing great since March- yes, i don't disagree but thats only a one third of the season.
You refuse to acknowledge that there might be reasons (like quality of players available) for differences in our points per game early in the season other than it being a purple patch now.
You believe that you can directly compare points per game with previous managers who had completely different players. Explain the relevance of comparing this season's 'PPG' with say a season where we had Ronaldo, Rooney, Scholes etc? What does it prove?
One of the best post I've read for a while. Sick of reading stupid post - we're back - going to win league next year - etc etc. Getting in top 4 Based on how we have played this year (( up & down ) should be a breeze.
I too very excited how were playing at moment but let's make no mistake we still need couple of signings to tackle the top two.
Ole said after the Southampton game that it was a learning opportunity. I think it really was, for him, not just the players.
He spent the build up to the match talking about Southampton's game - in detail - and he knew 100% how they'd play. Of course, the temptation to field our newly emerging XI is there, and probably rightly so. Can you play that style against a high press and relentless intensity? Turns out, probably not, at least that first team needs some improvement to the first XI to cope with that style. But Ole has been a master of the dark arts of soaking up pressure and hitting teams on the counter, throughout this season. In hindsight that would have been the way to go against Southampton - give them possession they don't want and smash them on the counter. He didn't start off with that, but he could have shown in-game management and tailored our play to that.
Throwing on James with no one to feed him was pointless. We either needed a hold up player up front, or two pace merchants dragging them out wide and Bruno/Pogba behind them.
I say this because I sometimes worry that he is tactically naive. He's figured out - more or less - how to play against more dominant teams. He's now started to figure out how to open up deep sitting teams. He struggles against teams who like to counter and press (like Wolves and Southampton) and he probably thought he'd found a style to suit all occasions. Which, in hindsight, is strange given that he elaborated in such length about how Southampton would set up. He knew what was coming but failed to notice we'd struggle with it. Hope he learns the lesson to anticipate better and change course sharply when things aren't working.
He spent the build up to the match talking about Southampton's game - in detail - and he knew 100% how they'd play. Of course, the temptation to field our newly emerging XI is there, and probably rightly so. Can you play that style against a high press and relentless intensity? Turns out, probably not, at least that first team needs some improvement to the first XI to cope with that style. But Ole has been a master of the dark arts of soaking up pressure and hitting teams on the counter, throughout this season. In hindsight that would have been the way to go against Southampton - give them possession they don't want and smash them on the counter. He didn't start off with that, but he could have shown in-game management and tailored our play to that.
Throwing on James with no one to feed him was pointless. We either needed a hold up player up front, or two pace merchants dragging them out wide and Bruno/Pogba behind them.
I say this because I sometimes worry that he is tactically naive. He's figured out - more or less - how to play against more dominant teams. He's now started to figure out how to open up deep sitting teams. He struggles against teams who like to counter and press (like Wolves and Southampton) and he probably thought he'd found a style to suit all occasions. Which, in hindsight, is strange given that he elaborated in such length about how Southampton would set up. He knew what was coming but failed to notice we'd struggle with it. Hope he learns the lesson to anticipate better and change course sharply when things aren't working.
Another good win. Another game unbeaten, plan coming together
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Tough 2-0 win against Palace, our midfield and fullbacks look tired but we keep the run going. Oddly, Ole has now equaled Klopps best run in all competitions. His Liverpool team does smash the unbeaten League run though.
Have to beat Chelsea to keep the run going, will be tough as I imagine we'll see a fair number of changes. Thought Ole did well with the subs today, a lot of people lost their shit, but Lingard and Matic were decent.
Tough 2-0 win against Palace, our midfield and fullbacks look tired but we keep the run going. Oddly, Ole has now equaled Klopps best run in all competitions. His Liverpool team does smash the unbeaten League run though.
Have to beat Chelsea to keep the run going, will be tough as I imagine we'll see a fair number of changes. Thought Ole did well with the subs today, a lot of people lost their shit, but Lingard and Matic were decent.
Club | Manager | Games Unbeaten | Start Date | End Date | Goals For | Goals Against | Clean Sheets | Win % |
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City | Guardiola | 28 | 27.04.2017 | 03.12.2017 | 78 | 18 | 14 | 86% |
Chelsea | Jose | 23 | 04.05.2014 | 03.12.2014 | 53 | 16 | 10 | 74% |
Arsenal | Emery | 22 | 25.08.2018 | 13.12.2018 | 50 | 19 | 8 | 77% |
City | Pellegrini | 20 | 30.10.2013 | 29.01.2014 | 69 | 22 | 7 | 90% |
Liverpool | Klopp | 19 | 12.01.2019 | 26.04.2019 | 44 | 12 | 10 | 74% |
Arsenal | Wenger | 19 | 20.08.2016 | 27.11.2016 | 45 | 14 | 8 | 68% |
Liverpool | Klopp | 19 | 22.09.2019 | 14.12.2019 | 44 | 18 | 5 | 84% |
Manchester Utd | Ole | 19 | 26.01.2020 | 16.07.2020 | 50 | 8 | 13 | 74% |
This thread will be quiet enough for the next few days.
Yeah, nothing outrageously negative or positive to say.
Took a gamble playing a clearly knackered Bruno, who was invisible for most of the game because he was running on fumes.
But the gamble was even in that state Bruno had enough quality to make some game changing contributions, which he did with massive contributions to both our goals.
Was also a brave decision to start TFM, but he also did well.
It came off for Ole tonight, so he takes the plaudits for foresight and self belief.
But the gamble was even in that state Bruno had enough quality to make some game changing contributions, which he did with massive contributions to both our goals.
Was also a brave decision to start TFM, but he also did well.
It came off for Ole tonight, so he takes the plaudits for foresight and self belief.
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