The point being that making a switch for the sake of it might take you backwards as well. Hell, look at Spurs as well. If someone is doing a good job, there's no point sacking the manager because you think xyz manager will do a spectacular job, as there is no guarantee.
There are no guarantees at all. If you are looking for that, you can just stop playing because that only that will guarantee you something, zero success. But obviously I get your point, don't know why you argumenting against "switch for sake of it" because I said I wouldn't switch but at some point, we maybe should. For every Spurs with Mourinho you might have Flick to Bayern after Kovac, a Tuchel to Chelsea so being taking risks can pay off.
And thats all I am saying. Ole earned the job, he earned this season and I hope he will be successfull because that would earn him even more trust. But if he isn't able to achieve it, we have to look at the reasons. And I, for the life of me, cannot find a reason to stop searching when it comes to the manager. To be honest, I am sure, in a chat about it, Ole would agree with me. Performances have to be evaluated. And that without sentiments. And until now he has proved that he is an alright manager, potentially a really good one man-management-wise, but that is about it. When we start looking at the striker position next year, everybody talks about Haaland. Or Mbappe, noone talks about Patrick Bamford. Or Danny Welbeck. Because "good" is not good enough.
Or we lost it because we were burnt out by then. Maybe we lacked depth to play 2 games a week every week.
I would like to agree with your logic, but then I'd be saying Southampton, Everton, Leicester lost the title as well.
Burnt out after half a year? Being able to play better and pretty successfull a few weeks later? I don't know... What I know about burning out is, that it isn't just a temporary effect unless you do something about it. But we didn't do anything. Our schedule was bad way longer than our bad streak went.
My logic applies to all other teams as well, they all lost out on the title. But we have been the closest ones. Because we were top of the table, in a position where we theoretically needed only the same results as our competitors. Against this city side with the waaay better squad, we have been there - on top of them. Just like Liverpool was repeatedly. So this notion that it is impossible is madness. It is absolutely possible. It is very difficult but that is the magic of the game isn't it.
I completely agree with the last para and completely disagree with the 1st.
Looking at the scheduling - I believe our side minus 2-3 players are good enough to beat pretty much every bottom 10 side 9 times out of 10, but football doesn't work that way. FOr example look at the above part of your post. Did you consider that we were jaded towards end of Jan as we had played far too many games? Or how about this, should we miss 3 players in a game vs some mid table team and go on to draw/lose, would you give us a pass, or say that "Ole relies on individual brilliance"? And there you have the root of the problem
What is the root of the problem? I don't get it.
I try to answer: I don't evaluate squad strength before the season - I evaluate it before kickoff and look at each game on his own. If we miss 3 players for example against Everton, it depends on who is missing and how Evertons side will look like. If we miss (last season) Bruno, Rashford and Cavani it is a different outlook than missing Shaw, Lindelof and McTominay. And Everton with DCL and Richarlison isn't the same as with. So yeah I would give Ole a pass if we draw or lose. I would even give him a pass against fecking Sheffield if the game looks like our dreaded semi-final against Portsmouth in 07/08, were we created plenty but couldn't finish and ended the game with penalties having all strikers on the field. Because noone would have said, we didn't try anything we could.
Maybe that is where you misunderstand me: I want to be fair, I acknowledge that there are factors the team and the manager cannot influence. Bad luck finishing, great performance by keeper, harsh VAR or ref decision - whatever. I can live with it. What I have problems with are issues that don't get touched over weeks and months - obvious issues with Rashfords decision making, our dreaded issues with set pieces, sleeping for 45min only to wake up when receiving a goal against, not challenging an opponent enough, not upping the tempo, keeping Bruno high up next to striker when it is obvious that we struggle in builtup, not using the squad players.
I know, the players are human and I am not expecting freak results. But over the course of the season I don't want to feel like we just don't get the lesson. Heck a year ago I would have been fine if we set up for counters all day long against anybody. If we wouldn't have conceded but missed out on points we got 10 goalless draws because we couldn't score I would have accepted it saying "alright, that is the way we want to play and that is what the players are suited for. Have a plan, execute it." But last year after having this group of managers and players together, it should have been a bit more. A more refined plan A, at least somewhat of a plan B. This is what I have my issues with.
