I think Ole's done a decent job this season. When you look at the absolute mess Mourinho left us in, there was serious work to be done. There was an awful lot of deadwood (Fellaini, Rojo, Jones, Mata, Sanchez, Lukaku) on massive wages to get out, and so far we're phasing them out of the squad and club quite well (it was Ole who signed on Jones and Lingard, but our squad was so thin we couldn't just get rid of everyone in one go. I really wouldn't have extended Jones given his injury issues, though).
We went from a geriatric lineup of Sanchez-Lukaku-Mata up top to the exciting trio of Rashford-Martial-Greenwood. The development of the forward players has been exceptional under Ole - we nearly lost Martial under Mourinho, Rashford was on the bench and low on confidence while Greenwood probably wouldn't have ever seen the light of day.
Obviously Bruno was a huge turning point, and one of the reasons we finished so strongly. But he was Ole's signing, someone we'd been after since last summer. Post-lockdown also aligned with almost all of our players coming back from injury (seriously, we were so unlucky with the stretches we lost Martial, Pogba and Rashford for), it wasn't just Bruno that made us a top 4 team. Last summer's transfers were decent too. AWB was badly needed and is improving going forward all the time. I know Maguire isn't popular here and definitely isn't worth £80m - he gets beaten by tricky players far too easily - but he was a big upgrade and is very robust (brilliant in the air at the back and no injuries (a rare boon in our defense)). James is out of form now but a decent squad option, possibly a long term upgrade on Lingard.
Our defense gets a lot of flak, but it is the third best in the division, conceding just three more than Liverpool's. The age of our backline is 22 - 27 - 26 -25, so I think we'll see them improve further as the seasons progress if they're held together (as Ole seems to want). Obviously De Gea's been a major issue, many goals we concede being howlers from him, and I think Henderson will be our #1 by 2021.
Going forward - our transfers this summer look massive. Sancho and Grealish would be exceptional buys. Grealish for depth would be such a massive upgrade and he has great press resistance, and a front 3 of Rashford-Martial-Sancho with Greenwood in reserve is arguably the most exciting on the planet. IMO we need a long term Matic replacement (or is Ole hoping McTominay will grow into the role?) and Ole has a big keeper call to make (I think we'll get one more year of DDG then Henderson after another loan will be our #1 from 2021).
There's a lot to still improve. Ole's in-game management is poor (we rarely recover from poor starts, and it's almost as if he's scared to make subs, they come so late) and we burn out far too easily from overplaying our best XI. But with Sancho on the way and others sure to follow, something very special seems to be building at the youngest squad in the league.
I'd give Ole a 6.5 for the season, up to 7.5 if we win the Europa. There's something very good brewing and we're improving all the time. Hopefully, with strong improvements this summer, as well as cleaning out more of the Ferguson-hangover deadwood, we can challenge for the title next season and put together a good CL run, incorporating more of our promising youth in the national cups and some league games.
DDG
AWB Maguire Lindelof Shaw
Matic Pogba
Bruno
Sancho Martial Rashford
How many teams on the planet are there with first XIs better than that?
Even if it all goes to shit next season, we start horribly, are ninth in December and Ole gets the boot, he's still built a phenomenal squad for the next manager, compared to how Mourinho left the team. Seriously - imagine having Perisic, Mata, Young, Boateng, Alderweireld, Sanchez and Lukaku in the lineup, with no Bruno or Sancho and Martial off the books altogether. I hope we never hire a manager that plays dour football again. Picking up a few tinpot cups wasn't worth spending hundreds of millions on garbage and turning the fanbase against some of our best players. Luckily, we seem to finally be moving in a long term direction.
I'll be honest, back in December/January I thought Ole was finished, I would have gladly taken Poch on then. But full credit to Ole, his signing of Bruno, development of our attackers and getting players back from injury really helped us kick on. I'm far more excited now than I ever was under Moyes/van Gaal/Mourinho. We're incredibly young (only DDG and Matic are over 30 in our XI), and I'm very excited to see where we end up.