Look at you, spraying around the insults....
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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Ashley Young has played because of injuries to Shaw (first choice) and Dalot. And even Young has been put under pressure with Solskjær introducing 19 year old Williams.
See, context matters.
Try again.
So what, he was also praising Rashford as a striker last season a lot. Did he end up sticking with him?Ole highly praised Martial before the Liverpool game about how good he is as a centre forward, giving him the no 9 & the role itself from the start of season.
I'm not really sure why you can't see the difference between the aim or signing that Jose wanted or had or expected on Lukaku, Sanchez, Perisic, Zlatan with what Ole wanted on Mandzukic (if Ole even wanted him).
I wonder if you had the same idea about us signing Henrik Larsson back then and thought he will take Rooney's spot
It's day dreaming to suggest if we sign Mandzukic he will go on and play a side role or feature for 10-15 minutes. He will play and will play a lot.
And anyway if Ole likes youth that much why are we interested in 33 years old to start with?
I don't see that youth myth thing. Rashford and Martial are experienced PL players in their 5th season. Hardly can be classified as coming up youngsters anymore. The rest of youngsters about only feature in useless EL games. Greenwood get max 10 minutes in league games, Gomes, Garner and Chong have barely featured. Williams started last league game because Young was suspended but before that was in same situation as Greenwood. Each time we are down in result he goes to Lingard ahead of the likes of Greenwood. I don't see that claimed truth in youngsters people are talking about.
Shaw is still injured. He was the first choice to begin with. I know you are a smart human so I believe you get the point but you are here just trying to argue.
Williams didn't press Young. He was suspended last game.
Yeah so why has he been preferring Young ahead of Williams in league games if he believes in youth that much?
First of all, you wanna talk about Mandzukic? Wait until we sign him then come back and talk about it. There is no point talking about something that hasn't happen. The "rumour" of signing him was to sit on the bench.
Because Williams is 19 and comes straight from the youth team. Not believing in youth would be not playing him at all. This should really not be that hard to comprehend.
Still waiting for your other evidence.
That's why the other half of my post has nothing to do with Mandzukic and talked about our current youth situation and that claimed truth in them in league games.
But.. But I thought he trusts youth ahead of old aging players.
The point is trusting youth ahead of proven, old aged players though. Don't see the evidence with that with Young ahead of Williams in league games and him preferring Lingard as an early sub when we go down ahead of Greenwood, while the other youngsters don't even feature. He benched Matic for a player who has been here for 2 years (Scott) and playing regularly as a sub or starter, and sold Lukaku and Sanchez for Rashford and Martial who have been here for 5 years. However the upcoming youngsters are low in picking order in league. Nothing is proving he preferred upcoming years ahead of proven players, except people liking the idea.
He now saw Williams is far better than Young and he should have been playing earlier so let's see if he will keep playing him or will revert back to the old guard.
He obviously does. See my previous post. It's really not fruitful to discuss with people who is incapable of building an argument and resorts to one-liners instead, so I'll leave you here.
So many of the attempts to attack Solskjaer in this thread are absurd. Imagine arguing that Solskjaer doesn't trust youth because he picks Young in some games and the media have linked us to Mandzukic.
Ole's got a lot of faults, a lot of obvious flaws, so why people choose to just make stuff up and talk shite is so petty and weird.
Everything is binary, if Young is playing means Ole doesn't trusts youth, doesn't matter if the young player is ready or planning to introduce young players slowly.
Believe in youth? I'm not really sure what context you are making here but I'm pretty sure I said "Giving the youth chance". If you are thinking that's the same meaning then what Ole did is right, he's been giving the youth chances. So what's wrong with that?
At the end of the day it's not like we decided to waste our money to sign Ash Young and refuse to believe in Williams. Young was already in the club and he was given the role to be backup of our full back not the main starting XI of our full back.
You said in your initial post in the top of this page he prefers developing young players instead of ignoring them for old proven players, so why wasn't he playing Williams ahead of Young from the start and waited for him to get suspended? Why is he preferring Lingard over Greenwood during games? It's all his perspective. Nothing to do with this claimed "youth" stuff.
I don't see how your other post even came out to your mind that even related to my post, I thought you were talking to someone else and that's why I ignored it. You are just making things up mate. I said we are giving the youth chances and we did. I don't know what you are arguing there. Not really sure where the idea of players like Martial & Rashford even be mixed into the category of youth.
There must be some midlife crisis’ going on on here. I like seeing the young lads come through don’t get me wrong but blimey. Feels like anyone over about 26 is an enemy.
Stop making things up. Williams is youth not young player in the same category of McTomminay, Martial & Rashford.
3 points I made in that initial post in the top of this page:
- Developing our young talented players like Rashford & Martial instead of ignoring them and going for proven or ageing players
- Focusing on improving the players in the squad
- Giving the youth chances.
Really? So young talented players don't include our upcoming youngsters but Rashford, Martial and Scott? The others are called "youth" not "young player"? Probably the strangest classification of players I have seen but OK, if you like it.
Because he's got sense? He's handled Williams excellently so far. I know some of you just want all the kids starting right away from the first game, but that would be idiotic. Slowly introducing them is so much smarter and more effective. Seems like hatred just overtakes too many on here, common sense goes out of the window.
Jose's MO, as perceived by his critics at least (he certainly didn't target that type exclusively at United - his transfers were a very mixed bag), was to target players in the pushing-thirty bracket. Which turned out badly in the cases of Matic and Sanchez.
Mandzukic is 33. You'd think that if we actually consider bringing him in, it would be as a pure stop-gap - and he'd be played as an option from the bench rather than pushing anyone out in the cold.
Anyway, if it does happen, the exact nature of the deal is obviously what matters, not just his age. If we sign him up for several years on huge money, by all means - outrage is justified. I doubt that will happen, though.
Mandzukic is 33. You'd think that if we actually consider bringing him in, it would be as a pure stop-gap - and he'd be played as an option from the bench rather than pushing anyone out in the cold.
Anyway, if it does happen, the exact nature of the deal is obviously what matters, not just his age. If we sign him up for several years on huge money, by all means - outrage is justified. I doubt that will happen, though.
They are but doesn't mean I'm referring to it. If you read the whole post instead of just reading one sentence and ignoring the rest you would get it and see the difference and why my first point & my third point is different and why I used "young talented players" on one point while the other one I said "youth".
Let's be real, you don't rely on "young player" (in your term) or "youth" (in my term) like Greenwood, Williams & Garner before the season started to be your starting XI. The obvious thing is I was referring to the likes of McTomminay, Martial & Rashford.
As I said it's a strange and weird classification that honestly doesn't make sense for me but if you really like it. Each to his own I guess.
As for our "youth" they should be getting more chances in the league ahead of senior players who have been under performing hard like Mata, Lingard and Young. No one said they should be starters, but they should be ahead of those in picking order.
I think if Mandzukic is bought in we are taking a massive step backwards. His wages his contract length will all go against the grain. Surely this is just a rumour?
So how are you going to rephrase that sentence then? At the end of the day that sentence was meant to show that Ole went the opposite way that Jose did. Rashford & Martial are still young players. They are not youth & they are not proven like Zlatan, Lukaku and etc.
As for youth, you don't just start them right away. It'll take time. They will need to work on it. In the press conference Ole mentioned interesting stuff regarding to Greenwood.
Ideally would prefer a young super-talent (Haaland?) but this would not be a "massive step backwards".
We are looking at a total of 60 or more matches this season if we do even semi-decently in the Cups. This is without any internationals the players feature in.
Do we really think Martial, Rashford and James should feature in every single game? But, we can't rotate them at all (there's only one Mason) and we've seen what even a single injury between the three brings us down to.
A single injury should not be resulting in us burdening Mason with the pressure of "leading the line" and "being the man". Nor should we be seeing Lingard and / or Pereira being played there. So, we need some "rotation options" too. If we do go for Mandzukic, my bet is that it will be as a combination of:
1. Plan B coming off the bench late if we're chasing a goal against teams sitting deep
2. Rotation option for lesser games to manage the minutes our first-choice players have to play
Now - one can question whether he's the right choice for this role based on attitude to playing second fiddle. I'd assume the manager will outline the expectation very clearly there. What I would not question is whether Ole is "replacing" Martial or Rashford as first choice with him. There's enough evidence already to suggest he will not do that.
I'm not saying dont bring a striker in, I would even like us to bring in a cm as well. All I'm saying is surely we can find someone under 28 who would have a few years longevity in them to lead the line or as backup. We could be bringing in another Schweinsteiger, or Sanchez by signing a 33/34 old striker who cant get a game at his current club.
Agree that a 33 yo Mandzukic isn't enthusing and also on the need for the midfielder. We missed out on Wissam ben Yedder (so tempted to say cheddar after that image of course...) and now, I can't think of who makes sense for this role of a guy that can be called upon for this role. I'm no scout of course, so can argue that the club should have a list of options. I was just trying to say that if we go for Mandzukic, the role he'd play would be pretty much like a latter-day Sheringham.
I feel we missed a trick by not taking Sturridge on a free over the summer
My views have not changed. I think we have a manager, with severe limitations who doesn't strike me as a manager of men at all. He's a corporate face, a polite guy who is in a position he could only have dreamed of. He has not improved the team. We beat average or poor teams, and he dresses this all up with talk of 'youngsters'. He is similar to Southgate. Have achieved nothing in football management.
My worry is that Ole is actually lowering standards and expectations. We have beaten Brighton, Norwich and some Europa teams, and people talk as if we have turned a corner. These are some of the weakest teams we could be playing at the moment. He knows it. yes, I am pleased to see some players performing with a little more confidence... but I hold judgement until I see us play some really competitive games, and do well, beat good teams, over a period of weeks. Some of the recent teams we have played have been absolute crap. Norwich defending was a joke.
He has a mid-table team, with a mid-table mentality. That should not be acceptable to United. Look at the Board at Bayern Munich and how they manage things.
My worry is that Ole is actually lowering standards and expectations. We have beaten Brighton, Norwich and some Europa teams, and people talk as if we have turned a corner. These are some of the weakest teams we could be playing at the moment. He knows it. yes, I am pleased to see some players performing with a little more confidence... but I hold judgement until I see us play some really competitive games, and do well, beat good teams, over a period of weeks. Some of the recent teams we have played have been absolute crap. Norwich defending was a joke.
He has a mid-table team, with a mid-table mentality. That should not be acceptable to United. Look at the Board at Bayern Munich and how they manage things.
You do realise Williams got a game because of an injury it wasn’t so genius move.
Sturridge is finished at this level and would want too much money. He was on £150k.
He's barely ever fit, it would have been pointless. He might smash one in every now and again, but he's done at the top level. Granted we're not currently top level, but its where we want to be.
Those are very astute points that many will miss and as a defense mechanism for the manager blame on injuries / missed penalties and whatever nonsense that springs to mind. The reality is that Solskjaer can only change his fortunes with consistency so unless we are talking about 10-13 games with solid results the illusion of changed fortunes is biased hope towards sentimentality of a club legend.
I also do not think that this squad is a mid table selection of players, it's just the capabilities of the team seems hindered on the basis of our results but my gripe with Ole is that this team has a higher ceiling to achieve better performances compared to what we have seen this season: lethargic movement, no philosophy, unable to create chances etc. I saw 90% of posts saying that Chelsea losing Hazard was destine to have them outside top 6 and I vouched in earlier posts that Lampard could impose them success which is exactly what has happened. Leicester by no stretch of an imagination have the most fantastic team on paper yet they are being coached to success.
I will not put up with the excuse that a team full of Martial, Rashford, Lindlelof, Shaw, AWB, De Gea, Maguire, Pogba along with Greenwood / James cannot be in contention for top four. Before the Ole fan boys come with the hypothetical "injury changing fortunes records", the results records with no injuries in the first three fixtures was W1 D1 L1 so there's no room for excuses, under Ole the team has underperformed with and without absentees.
Yeah, I can't say I like the idea very much myself. It would raise some questions.
The way I see it, you can interpret Ole's current task/remit in two - radically different - ways:
1) He's working on a long-term plan (with regard to player recruitment, not least) - and this season isn't about results (Ed and the owners are on the same page).
2) He's just another manager who's in danger of getting axed if he fails to finish in the top four (or otherwise deliver results in some shape or form - winning the EL, etc.).
Bringing in a veteran striker doesn't make that much sense in the first scenario. It does make - plenty of - sense in the second scenario, but I would very much like to think that 2) isn't true.
ETA To be clear, what I'm saying is that bringing in Mandzukic wouldn't be problematic in a "oh, look - he's doing what Jose did" kind of way - because it wouldn't actually be comparable.
But it would be problematic in a "what's the bloody plan here" kind of way - because it could be taken as a desperate move (of sorts).
Anyway - I haven't seen anything substantial which indicates, much less confirms, any firm interest on United's part. So, it's all speculation at this point - and possibly nothing to bother with it all.
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Exactly, and he is a midtable manager at best, so it's a fitting combination.
Also, Southgate - I think he'll be our next manager. Our board have been slagged off (rightly) for a lack of continuity - well, this time they'll make us eat our words.
We'll replace one nice, likeable, polite, clean-cut yes man with another. Both like working with younger players, both have no real achievements in the game per se and will be happy to be here without rocking the boat.
Ed the Genius will find a way to spin a nice tidy article.
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