I like that the team is winning matches. There's no guarantee of trophies, ever, so I don't get too upset if we don't win one (I saw us win lots anyway). Also, at a club like United the pressure is never off.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2020/21 Discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour podcast, Ashwin, Colm and Imran convene to discuss United's back to back wins over Real Sociedad and Newcastle United. They reserve some praise for Dan James, Marcus Rashford and Bruno Fernandes, discuss Martial's continued woes and United's continued inability to defend set-plays. They then preview United's inevitable 0-0 draw away at Chelsea on Sunday before getting into another Stupid Game.
See the post I repplied to.
How many wins against the Top 6 this season ?
What was our point tally in his first 2 seasons in charge ?
We are stagnating under him at best
You mean the one where I made a few points about why I believe in Ole? Sure.
Please show me where I mention winning the Champions League.
For the record, I don’t think any manager would win the CL with this team. It’s just not good enough to win the CL in my opinion.
Pep hasn’t won since his Barca days, and would need more money and autonomy than our board will ever give him. Klopp would definitely need a couple of years and a few hundred mill as well, and he’s not exactly a perennial CL winner himself.
Do I believe both Pep, Klopp, Nagelsmann or even Ancelotti would win the CL with us, if given enough time and money? Maybe. If everything works out as they planned, they have a chance. But odds are they wouldn’t win it with us. Can I see it happening? Sure.
I don’t see why Ole shouldn’t be given the time and the money to prove whether he can do it or not, given he’s done so many great things since his arrival, and are actually in charge at the moment.
Will he do it? Maybe. If everything works out as he’s planned he has a chance. But odds are he won’t win it with us either.
And at worst? Can you really make any arguments we’re regressing, or am I misunderstanding you?
Most goals in the league at this stage since 12/13.
Most goals in the league by any team this season.
4 league losses in 39 games.
14 points more in the league after 25 games than last year.
28 points closer to the top this season than after 25 games last season.
Last season we were 7th after 25 games. This season we’re 2nd.
Please tell me how that’s “stagnating at best” and what “at worst” would be at this stage of the season.
Before Mourinho's meltdown season, the previous season we finished 2nd on 81 points. Under Ole since, we've spent £240m net on the team, and have finished:
18/19: 6th on 66 points, (free pass)
19/20: 3rd on 66 points,
20/21: currently have 49 points after 25 matches, which puts us on course for 74 points.
We also have zero trophies in this time.
Interesting to note, we are yet to better Mourinho's first season tally, where we finished 6th on 69 points, but won 2 trophies. Yet that season's tally is regarded as a failure to the majority... but progress?
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Why are you placing points above league position?
We are yet to beat it because Ole has only had one full season? We will beat that this season for sure.
How else can you measure progress, if you're not using previous years points tallies? Us making 3rd on 66 points last season was an outlier. That wouldn't have been enough for top 4 in the last 5/6 seasons. In that Mourinho season we finished 6th in, 5th & 4th was 75 & 76 points.
Last season, we was no higher than 5th for 99% of the season. We literally was in the top 4 for the first time in the penultimate game week 37. Just because we ended up finishing 3rd with an anomalous tally, nothing else matters?
Unless we also win 2 trophies too, we're not surpassing anything.
I already said: league position.
Absolutely trumps points any day of the week. The amount of points you get and the position it places you is a direct reflection on the strength of the league.
Liverpool got the 3rd best points tally of all time 2 seasons ago. What good did it do them?
And as for last season, even if we finished 4th or 5th, it is still better than 6th.
You deserve none. You can't call people deluded and ridiculous, then demand these same people engage with you in a serious manner.
Literally makes no sense. I've already explained that the points for 3rd we got last season wouldn't have been even enough for top 4 in the past 5/6 seasons. And that isn't it more important that we spent 99% of said season outside the top 4? So because we make 3rd in a weaker league > less than 3rd with higher points tally in stronger league? Logic.
You mean the Champions League winners of that very season, which followed it up with a PL title on 99 points, setting various PL records, and two more trophies. Yeah what good did it do them I wonder...
I’ve always been on the fence with ole, but right now there’s no grounds for the Ole out. He’s made a lot of progress since last season, improved players, he 10 times the man-manager Mourinho is.
We have scored the most goals in the league, play more entertaining football, we are strongly positioned to finish 2nd.
Could Ole be upgraded? Yes. But it would extremely harsh to get him out. He hasn’t shown any downward trajectory.
If you look at my old posts, I was Ole out but he’s on course to finish around 75+ points. That is progress, plus the I’m getting entertained every week.
When Mourinho was here, despite winning 2 trophies, finishing 2nd, it felt like long and slow regression. The football was dull. If he got his way and got his targets, we would be in a far worse position than we are. He would have most likely ruined the careers of Shaw. Bruno would gone to Spurs (Mourinho wouldn’t let a risk taking player like that thrive). So many other things. The whole club / forum were far more miserable.
Let’s see what Ole does. If he finishes on 75 points plus wouldbe sign of progress. Next season, the aim would be to finish above 80-90 points. The squad is young, I’m sure we’ll make improvements in terms of personnel based on current players improving and new signings improving.
Btw, we’re you one those who was fighting for Mourinho in till the moment he got fired?
There is a finite amount of points available during a league season. If there is a runaway leader or two winning a very high number of points (i.e an uncompetitive league), it leaves less points for the rest of the teams to win, which is quite likely to lead to less points needed to finish in a higher position.
We literally went from 6th best team in the country to 3rd best team, and now fighting to be 2nd best.
How much more logical do you want to be?
By the way, if we were say, 3rd for most of last season and then managed to finish 1st in the very last game, are you saying you wouldn’t celebrate the title or that we wouldn’t deserve it?
And please, tell me, was our 2005/06 team who finished 2nd on 83 points better than the treble winners who finished on 79? Or 09/10 also 2nd with 85 this time? Shall I go on?
How is your logic now?
I think he's progressed since he first came in, he's a better manager now, but I don't believe the hype with our supposed progress since Mourinho's time. Shown with the posts above. We had success last season vs. the top sides when they naively gave us lots of space, but this season there's been a clear shift, with them not offering the same amount of space, and our results have been considerably worse ever since. If I see him able to provide a solution to that, If I see us able to build up competently, trying to play on the front foot vs. them, even I as a critic would give him the respect he would deserve, and would consider my position.
No it definitely wasn't me. I agree it was the right decision for him to go at the time, especially after Sevilla. I was definitely not in favour of swapping Martial for Perisic/Willian back then.
The squad is young, and I agree the goal is for us to make the jump to 80/90 points in the near future, I just do not believe Ole is capable of it.
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Even the Sheffield United and West Brom games ?
Very difficult to win every game and I'd rather drop points to teams at the bottom of the table than those at the top.Even the Sheffield United and West Brom games ?
I see what you're trying to argue but it's not true. The last time 66 points was enough for top 4 was the Leicester title win, which was unanimously considered an uncompetitive league year. Even with runaway leaders, every season apart from last in the past 6 seasons, top 4 was always higher than 66 points so...
How can you not acknowledge the fact that the first time we made top 4 last season, was the penultimate week, meaning we spent 36/38 weeks outside the top 4?
Of course I would celebrate it, but I would still see it for the fluke that it was, and I wouldn't get carried away expecting future success.
You’re in luck, we’re doing both !
I was just being pedantic anyway, cos he said he was entertained every week.
I think there’s a difference between uncompetitive and low quality, which is what 15/16 was like.
I would have been less optimistic if I was a Leicester or Chelsea fan who spent most of the season in the top 3/4 only to drop down at the end.
After all, the meaning of progress is to improve as you go along, which is what we did throughout the season last year. Just so happens it took until the last day for us to get 3rd, but it was after a massive run of progress from the half way point. And we’ve continued that progress for yet another half season or so.
There’s nothing to say, other than instinct, that we cannot continue on this trajectory.
This is where we differ then. Because to me there's no real difference between us and them. We all had forgettable seasons overall imo.
I agree in general, and I'm not trying to come after every single point you're making, but again, I feel we started so terribly, that it was hard to not improve from the first few months. We was literally in the bottom end of the table, and people was actually talking about relegation at one point it was that bad.
I'm not so optimistic. We all know how reliant on Bruno we are, and his (unsustainable) form has shown signs of dropping off recently. Our trajectory is 74 points, which should put us among the top 4 places, but still not anything amazing. I agree there's positives with our calendar year form, but until we convert that form into a trophy, it doesn't mean much. I'm not a fan of the fact we still struggle to go toe to toe with the top sides, always turtling it. I do believe that if we can turn the significant amount of draws into wins, and make a final we might be on to something though.
The problem with looking at league positions is that it ignores the effect of what's going on with the other clubs. The truth is we are able to fight for second because while one of the top two teams of last season (City) improved, the other (Liverpool) suffered a massive drop. We haven't improved enough to challenge the terrific City/Liverpool teams of previous seasons.
Of course not. That isnt normal... they had exceptional seasons.. largely because they were great and partly helped by everyone below them being awful.. We finished 3rd with 66 points.. that is rubbish.
A normal title winning team gets about 90 points.. +/- a few.
If we improve from being a team in the mid 60 points to around 75, that will be a clear improvement.
We got 70 points in 2014-15.. and the only time we did better was the 81 point season under Jose. We are very likely going to finish with our second best points total post Fergie this season..
Below are quotes from Ole from a recent interview he did with Norweigan media. And he makes it clear that he doesn't coach the team. So it seems the coaching is left to Kieran McKenna who is a talented young coach, but wouldn't Solskjaer be best served bringing in someone more experienced alongside McKenna to help him?
Interviewer: Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola is the innovative tactician. The mastermind. Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp is the charismatic motivator. The showman. And Tottenham manager José Mourinho is the cynical winner, the ruthless badass.
– Who are you?
– "I am me. I am not any of them".
– "We all have our own ways of leading a club and a team. I have my way to do it. I have never hidden that I am not the one who is on the training pitch leading all the sessions. I am more of a manager. I have had good coaches with me and fantastic staff around me. I have always been dependent on good coaches as well as patience in the club and that we believe in what we have agreed", Solskjær says before concluding:
– "How would you describe me? It is up to you. I do not describe myself often. I am myself."
Interviewer: Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola is the innovative tactician. The mastermind. Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp is the charismatic motivator. The showman. And Tottenham manager José Mourinho is the cynical winner, the ruthless badass.
– Who are you?
– "I am me. I am not any of them".
– "We all have our own ways of leading a club and a team. I have my way to do it. I have never hidden that I am not the one who is on the training pitch leading all the sessions. I am more of a manager. I have had good coaches with me and fantastic staff around me. I have always been dependent on good coaches as well as patience in the club and that we believe in what we have agreed", Solskjær says before concluding:
– "How would you describe me? It is up to you. I do not describe myself often. I am myself."
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We will keep going in circles if we keep measuring progress in a 2-3 year periods.
The zero trophies for me is the most relevant stat. We hadn't previously gone 2 years without winning anything even after SAF left. Really highlights how subjective optimism can be when we can frame our current situation as progress but our past situations where we actually won things was deemed failure. If we don't get one this season we are on a fool's errand with this so called rebuild.
I like Ole and he's done a lot over the last two years that I don't see how anyone can claim we haven't progressed over that period. For me I like the style we play as of now, although ultimately would like us to dominate games we are expected to win a lot more than we do as I don't see any other way we can challenge City and a proper functioning Liverpool with any other style.
Over the last 3 years you see this two going into games against ourselves, Chelsea, Tottenham, Leicester and Arsenal has heavy favorites and picking up 3 points is expected either home or away, until we get to these point I don't think anyone can say we are at their level. I do trust the process though and at the start of the season no one thought we are at that point yet especially with our poor recruitment in the summer, so for now Ole is doing well. My one issue with him though is his refusal to drop certain under performing players either because they are his favorite or he his afraid of losing the dressing room if these players are influential in it.
There are certain players regularly making the first 11 that I don't see the need for since we have better options in the squad right now and the only reasons I can see that this changes have not been made is because he doesn't want to lose the dressing room or especially the backing of some influential players in there.
Now I'm not a manager and there is probably a way to go about dropping these sort of players without rocking the boat but still I don't see any reason why he keeps starting someone like De gea who has cost us plenty of goals and points this season alone and the annoying part is I watch teams deliberately target his weak point every game and he makes no attempt to change the perception. Watching the Arsenal and Man City game for example made me furious, Arsenal took plenty of corners against City and not one was in the near post or not once did they attempt to crowd out the keeper, same thing with Everton, Southampton, Sheffield, Newcastle and almost every other team in the league they almost all only see it as a viable tactic against just Man Utd mostly because of De gea, I believe if Henderson had started the number of games De gea has we would be 6-8 points better off than we are right now. Then there is Lindelof, I don't get how almost every fan and pundit can see he his not a good fit for his partner and our manager can't, this one is may be more understandable has the alternative is rarely ever fit but even when he is Ole rarely ever starts him. The less said about the plodder upfront the better.
Over the last 3 years you see this two going into games against ourselves, Chelsea, Tottenham, Leicester and Arsenal has heavy favorites and picking up 3 points is expected either home or away, until we get to these point I don't think anyone can say we are at their level. I do trust the process though and at the start of the season no one thought we are at that point yet especially with our poor recruitment in the summer, so for now Ole is doing well. My one issue with him though is his refusal to drop certain under performing players either because they are his favorite or he his afraid of losing the dressing room if these players are influential in it.
There are certain players regularly making the first 11 that I don't see the need for since we have better options in the squad right now and the only reasons I can see that this changes have not been made is because he doesn't want to lose the dressing room or especially the backing of some influential players in there.
Now I'm not a manager and there is probably a way to go about dropping these sort of players without rocking the boat but still I don't see any reason why he keeps starting someone like De gea who has cost us plenty of goals and points this season alone and the annoying part is I watch teams deliberately target his weak point every game and he makes no attempt to change the perception. Watching the Arsenal and Man City game for example made me furious, Arsenal took plenty of corners against City and not one was in the near post or not once did they attempt to crowd out the keeper, same thing with Everton, Southampton, Sheffield, Newcastle and almost every other team in the league they almost all only see it as a viable tactic against just Man Utd mostly because of De gea, I believe if Henderson had started the number of games De gea has we would be 6-8 points better off than we are right now. Then there is Lindelof, I don't get how almost every fan and pundit can see he his not a good fit for his partner and our manager can't, this one is may be more understandable has the alternative is rarely ever fit but even when he is Ole rarely ever starts him. The less said about the plodder upfront the better.
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What we saw under Mourinho and Van Gaal is the building of a team ethos. The way that the team played was more important than the individual quality of the player.
What happened? We ended up having significant less quality players in the squad because it would be covered by the team's ability to defend like parking a bus or holding possession like we only ever made side passes.
The quality of our squad dropped significantly- our individual quality was around players like Fellaini, Lingard, Lukaku, Lindelof, Fred season 1, Mkhitaryan, the craving for Perisic, Valencia and Ashley Young etc
In come Ole and he directly addresses the individual quality in the team instead whilst man managing the players better than they ever recieved (Shaw, Fred, Lindelof etc) He clearly learnt this from SAF because it's well known from Rio Ferdinand, giggs etc that SAF wasnt this super tactical manager as people think and instead was a manager with a very good varied approach of managing his squads.
What happened? We ended up having significant less quality players in the squad because it would be covered by the team's ability to defend like parking a bus or holding possession like we only ever made side passes.
The quality of our squad dropped significantly- our individual quality was around players like Fellaini, Lingard, Lukaku, Lindelof, Fred season 1, Mkhitaryan, the craving for Perisic, Valencia and Ashley Young etc
In come Ole and he directly addresses the individual quality in the team instead whilst man managing the players better than they ever recieved (Shaw, Fred, Lindelof etc) He clearly learnt this from SAF because it's well known from Rio Ferdinand, giggs etc that SAF wasnt this super tactical manager as people think and instead was a manager with a very good varied approach of managing his squads.
That’s an incredibly black and white outlook imo.
Of course trophies are preferable to no trophies, but i think most fans would agree getting top 4 is much more important than getting one of the domestic cups.
Plenty of teams have won the FA cup without facing a top PL team even once. So you can get a trophy, but that in itself is not a mark of progress
League position and points haul does not tell the full story eiher. For example i was much more optimistic after Joses first season where we ended 6th, than his second where we got 2nd with 15 more points. The reason was that in the first we played actually played some really good football at times and looked like a good team in the making.
Second season on the other hand, we were dire to watch and was routinely bailed out by DDG who was inhuman that year. It felt like we had no room to grow as a team, yet were so far behind City so it felt like an impossible task.
Cavani aside, all the players brought in undet Ole have been fairly young and with room to improve. This is in stark contrast to Jose who usually opts for ready made stars. This had lead us to having a starting XI which is quite a bit younger than the other top teams.
Another bit of progress under Ole is the cleaning job hes done in the squad. Getting rid of the likes of Sanchez and Fellaini wont win you trophies or better your points haul, but its still a big leap in the right direction and good for the long term health of the club.
-I don't really care about league position or points. I care about trophies. That Bruno Fernandes Pl Table for example didn't even see us win one trophy. Best form in Europe and we somehow bottled 4 cups in the same time frame. Till we start winning the clear progress people think they see will start edging closer and closer from opinion to delusion
-Aren't you also being a bit of a hypocrite discrediting Jose's wins using De Gea when you no doubt hate it when people use "Penandez" to discredit Ole? I'd think anyone defending Ole from this will know better than to go that route.
-I also don't know about top 4 being better than winning a cup, in fact that might be ridiculous, but in any case whichever one is better is irrelevant because they aren't even competing interests. It's not a pick one scenario
-Btw of course we had cause to be more optimistic under Jose's first season, we won 2 trophies and got CL qualification so we had the trophy+CL qualification metrics ticked. That was our most succesful season since SAF retired and not because of subjective morale, league position or points tally, it was because we won silverware period
Ole is not on his last 10 years of management and furthermore out of all of SAF students it just happens to be Ole who just picks up his tactics of management.
Haha interesting thread. The amount of people on both sides who would cherry pick evidence to support an argument is quite simply astounding.
Either way Ole is the manager now, debating on hypotheticals and stats of other managers will never paint a full picture. I think we are in an era of football where there will never be that perfect manager to do the job for a whole host of footballing and non-footballing reasons. Perhaps you could make an argument for Pep and Klopp being the best in the world but I can’t really think of anyone else who deserves to be in that same league.
This idea that there is an ideal manager out there waiting to take the reigns is a flawed one. As humans we love to look for neat coherent solutions that don’t really exist. It’s in our nature.
Either way Ole is the manager now, debating on hypotheticals and stats of other managers will never paint a full picture. I think we are in an era of football where there will never be that perfect manager to do the job for a whole host of footballing and non-footballing reasons. Perhaps you could make an argument for Pep and Klopp being the best in the world but I can’t really think of anyone else who deserves to be in that same league.
This idea that there is an ideal manager out there waiting to take the reigns is a flawed one. As humans we love to look for neat coherent solutions that don’t really exist. It’s in our nature.
I know this is your game but who claimed they've won anything?
It's showing progression.
When you make comments like that you would think trophies and titles where handed out weekly and we are missing out...........sack him sure
If this doesn't expose the nonsense you talk I don't know what will
Fluking a league, they firing out league titles like candy, why took Liverpool 30 years to win one again
I hope we fluke our way to 2nd in the league and a trophy or two.
I'll be happy, deluded, and even more optimistic for next season.
I'll be happy, deluded, and even more optimistic for next season.
Not really seeing your point here. Arteta was Guardiola's assistant and he hasnt seem to pick anything up. Some people do and some people dont. Some people dont turn to managers at all and fail because of other reasons like Neville at Valencia or like Keane for not being able to have a personality for management like SAF or Ole might have in the dressing room.
People comparing point tallies between different seasons completely baffle me. Each season has it's own dynamic, makes no sense to compare them.