He already have 2 excellent goalkeepers, he went and bought a whole new set of defenders LB, RB, 2 CBs, he already had the worlds most expensive midfielder and he went to buy 2 extra midfielders. He already had 2 young attackers (wingers) who are one of the most talented players in the world and a CF who was recently sold to Chelsea for 100m, but he went to buy 2 more CFs and 2 more wingers. More excuses.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
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This mythical “Ole’s DM” so many folks are pining for, won’t magically make us a free-flowing side who put on a top style football. The issues in our team are structural, this is bleeding obvious when you watch us play. From the way we are in possession, to our lack of coherent pressing to or organisation (lack of) when defending.
You could put prime Essien in our team and it still won’t solve our problems. But, anything to give Ole a longer leash I guess.
You could put prime Essien in our team and it still won’t solve our problems. But, anything to give Ole a longer leash I guess.
To be fair, we were sixth when Mourinho was sacked, and comfortable in passing the group stages of UCL. We could easily be sixth by the end of this weekend if we draw, or seventh if we lose, while being in a very dangerous position in UCL.
I think that Mourinho’s failing is a bit exaggerated as is Ole’s never failing. For all the disastrous Mourinho’s third season in charge, we were 6th when he was fired. For all the Ole’s emergence in that season, we were sixth when the season finished. We finished that season with 2 points in the last 5 matches (while being fighting for UCL), which is worse than anything we ever did under Mourinho.
I think a better phrase is that ‘Ole was given the chance to redeem himself when he failed, something that was not given to the other managers, at least not as much as in case of Ole’ (for what is worth, I think that the other managers should have been sacked earlier, while Ole should have been sacked at the end of his first season, survived the second season, sacked in last December, sacked in the summer, and sacked already this season).
So to measure a manager you need to look at the lows and not the highs? Both of Mourinhos full seasons we're better in results, and he won trophies. Also Solskjaer is the first manager to not do better than the previous manager post Fergie. van Gaal did better than Moyes, and Mourinho did better than both. Solskjaer still haven't done better than either of Mourinhos two full seasons.
How does the worsening of the defence in 20/21 compared to 19/20 season spell progress? 1,30 goals conceeded pr match is almost twice as many as both full Mourinho seasons. A defence Solskjaer by the start of 20/21 had spent 160m euros to improve.
As for the entertainment argument, I can't say many games this season has been very good to watch.
Problem is when people say Ole's football is better and try to make a justification out of it by pointing out Jose's shit on a stick football. If youre happy with what you see in the past 4 games then I dont know what to say. The only time when Ole's team was exciting was when he first joined as a caretaker manager. What Ole has over Jose by a significant margin is his man management and transfers.Outside of that its just tiny improvements (less parking the bus). Not even worth mentioning really.
True, but there's a huge difference between being 3 points(at most) behind top 4 with 30 games left to play and being 11 points behind top 4 in the middle of December. The former is a minor setback, whereas the latter is a total collapse(from the context of a team that finished 2nd the previous season).
It isn't. And I say this as someone who was "Mourinho in" slightly longer than the average United fan.
Going from 2nd place to 11 points behind top 4 in mid-December is terrible. On top of this, it was becoming clear that a lot of his signings weren't really that good and ultimately a waste of money. He also had a falling out with our biggest star(Pogba) and was being a dick to Shaw as well(who's been our 2nd best player under Ole). The whole club reeked of negativity.
How many points behind the league leaders will it be ideal to sack Ole by December?
That's just not true... We were the 2nd most scoring team in the league last season. Inconsistent? Sure. Lacking a clear pattern? Sure. Should we dominate more? Absolutely. Have the last four games been abysmal? Totally... Yes we won some Mickey Mouse cups with Mourinho, but the football under Ole has been 10 times better.
Let's see if we are even behind before we start this hypothetical sacking.
We will be. That's why I'm talking about it"We're not making top 4 now. Just sack Ole and get it over with."
- RedCafe in early January 2020.
"With this shite transfer window we'll be scraping top 4 yet again."
- RedCafe in September 2020.
At least the negativity during those periods made a little sense. We were genuinely in a bad position pre Bruno and top 4 looked almost hopeless. And last summer we did genuinely have a terrible transfer window, seeing as we needed 3 starters and only got Cavani(who people weren't convinced about anyways).
The current negativity makes no sense. We're 2 points behind 1st place with 31 games to go. We have the best team(on paper) since Fergie. We've had some key injuries and some players are still settling in, so there's reason to believe that things will improve. Ole has built enough credit(6th -> 3rd -> 2nd) for his position to be safe(for the time being). And yes, I don't give a flying feck about minor trophies. My only focus is the PL and CL. And no one can seriously claim that we should have won either of those by now.
And that's all I will say for the time being. I'm just gonna end up repeating myself again and waste everyone's time, seeing as the most active posters in this thread already made up their mind a long time ago. And many of them are on my ignore list anyways, so I reckon things will become very confusing very fast if I keep posting
- RedCafe in early January 2020.
"With this shite transfer window we'll be scraping top 4 yet again."
- RedCafe in September 2020.
At least the negativity during those periods made a little sense. We were genuinely in a bad position pre Bruno and top 4 looked almost hopeless. And last summer we did genuinely have a terrible transfer window, seeing as we needed 3 starters and only got Cavani(who people weren't convinced about anyways).
The current negativity makes no sense. We're 2 points behind 1st place with 31 games to go. We have the best team(on paper) since Fergie. We've had some key injuries and some players are still settling in, so there's reason to believe that things will improve. Ole has built enough credit(6th -> 3rd -> 2nd) for his position to be safe(for the time being). And yes, I don't give a flying feck about minor trophies. My only focus is the PL and CL. And no one can seriously claim that we should have won either of those by now.
And that's all I will say for the time being. I'm just gonna end up repeating myself again and waste everyone's time, seeing as the most active posters in this thread already made up their mind a long time ago. And many of them are on my ignore list anyways, so I reckon things will become very confusing very fast if I keep posting
8 points off top 4.
Not sure if you're testing me to see if I actually left the thread, but you're wrong
We were 11 points behind top 4 after Mourinho's last game(December 16th, 3-1 loss to Liverpool).Nope, 8 points.Not sure if you're testing me to see if I actually left the thread, but you're wrong
We were 8 behind Arsenal on 5th place, 11 behind Chelsea on 4th
Weird, the graphic I'm looking at has us 8.We were 8 behind Arsenal on 5th place, 11 behind Chelsea on 4th
Edit: Just checked up on this. The graphic I was looking at was wrong for some reason. It was indeed 11 points. That was some achievement by Jose being 11 points off top four in December. Top dedication to sabotage things that much.
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Not saying you're wrong but historically under Ole we've tended to do well, or at the very least, not lose in both of the two standout fixtures we have this month. There is no reason why can't pick up 4/6 points on offer and turn this slightly disappointing start into a decent one
It's hard to believe those negatives makes his football 10 times better than Jose's football. 10 times better when in comes into transfers maybe.
10 times better? Good to see hyperbole is alive and well in this thread. You can also guarantee had Ole won the EL of LC, the narrative in here certainly wouldn't be that they are 'micky mouse cups'.
Tbf a lot of us were calling them Mickey Mouse cups as we played semi finals and the EL final
Anything more than 10 points he has to go. Simple as that really. We are out of the League cup, I dont see us winning the CL under him, getting out of the group is hard enough for him, let alone even winning it.
They are? But for certain posters in here, you know full well had Ole of won them, they would be elevated to far more than 'micky mouse cups'. I would still rather win things, than not win things tbh...
You missed the point on why Pep and Klopp wont fare well with the squad. Regarding Ole, most of Ole signings were to provide depth to the squad rather than replacing them. Anyway i cant expect your lot to agree as you have already made up your mind that anyone is better than Ole
The "Ole plays good football" myth is the one that needs to die soonest. His football is as boring as anything seen under Mourinho.
Mourinho's football was dire for the most part, but we did play some good stuff at the start of his second season. We've had far more big victories under Ole, and we don't set up quite as rigid. But yeah, Ole doesn't seem capable of having us playing good, consistent football. We played brilliant against Leeds, but since then, it's been every bit as bad as Mourinho's football, bar the odd spell here-and-there.
Yup. They both play dire football with the occassional exciting game but that'll happen with world class players against open teams. The main difference is we still won cups playing Mourinho's dire football because at least it had a structure & wasn't just dire freestyling.
How many good defensive performances have we had under Ole asides from those big games where we sit back? I rarely ever feel we can keep a clean sheet. Even in some of the games we scored plenty
Of course but the poster that replied said we it's possible we would be league leaders after by December.
OGS football is mostly boring apart from the handful of games where we can counter attack and that’s it.
So many games I can count in my head, that follow a pattern of the game being constantly on a knife edge and we got a 1-0 or 2-1 win, or the opposition think they can get a draw but feck it up because they play into our hands due to good counter attack with good players and it’s 2-0 or 3-1 late on.
I can’t think of many OGS games which have been 1-0 or 2-1 and watching the game, felt like Utd were in total control of the match despite only the one goal lead and the other team look nullified and harmless. That’s a sign of a good side as well. No-one can realistically expect 4-0 blowouts every week but a 1-0 controlled win goes a long way too. It demonstrates the teams ability to be calm and show they’ve got control of games. I don’t think I saw a game like that once last season.
Most games with OGS are tense in some way. The slow starts, The need to concede first to wake up, The way we still look apprehensive even when leading. The inevitable brain fart from an individual, The individual magic moments etc
So many games I can count in my head, that follow a pattern of the game being constantly on a knife edge and we got a 1-0 or 2-1 win, or the opposition think they can get a draw but feck it up because they play into our hands due to good counter attack with good players and it’s 2-0 or 3-1 late on.
I can’t think of many OGS games which have been 1-0 or 2-1 and watching the game, felt like Utd were in total control of the match despite only the one goal lead and the other team look nullified and harmless. That’s a sign of a good side as well. No-one can realistically expect 4-0 blowouts every week but a 1-0 controlled win goes a long way too. It demonstrates the teams ability to be calm and show they’ve got control of games. I don’t think I saw a game like that once last season.
Most games with OGS are tense in some way. The slow starts, The need to concede first to wake up, The way we still look apprehensive even when leading. The inevitable brain fart from an individual, The individual magic moments etc
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I dont know what you people remember. It's really not. But I think it would have been just as bad or even worse if Ole had the players Mourinho did. Though I give some credit to Ole for recruiting much better than other managers post Fergie
Ole has always been Mourinho-lite in terms of tactics. The guy plays two high energy CDMs at home to promoted teams for chrissake.
Two games against suicidal Leeds, one vs 10 man Southampton where they went to pot, and a flurry of goals in 10 minutes vs Leipzig do not change that. For every freescoring game like that I can name you 10 where our style of football was just dire and we struggled to create anything.
Two games against suicidal Leeds, one vs 10 man Southampton where they went to pot, and a flurry of goals in 10 minutes vs Leipzig do not change that. For every freescoring game like that I can name you 10 where our style of football was just dire and we struggled to create anything.
I actually think this is the perspective of 'Ole inners' and myself to an extent .
Ole inners don't see the point calling for Ole to be sacked when it's just 7 games into the season and we are still very much on track to meet this seasons expectations - a title challenge. But the outers are not just looking at the table as to whether we can challenge or not with Ole. There have been signs that Ole does not have what it takes.
I also don't think majority of 'Ole inners' assume Ole is good enough to win us the league. It's more of the case of " he has so far at least met my expectations in relation to the squad strength he has had to work with and this season is the first time our squad is good enough to challenge so let's wait and see". I'd be surprised if many people are still backing Ole if we are straying away from a title challenge
I think your post is very fair and reasonable. Ole is not getting sacked until he is mathematically out of top 4, this is something most Ole outers including myself recognize. It's unfortunate that we will have to have a terrible run before he gets sacked rather than the club recognizing he is not good enough and being proactive. I think it's just frustrating for a lot of people looking at the Lampard to Tuchel change how willing we are to "waste" another year. You might say Ole has earned this year and I'm inclined to agree but his limitations are so obvious and the football hasn't been great either so tension is building.
It’s possible to not be happy with our start to the season while still acknowledging that the Mourinhoball era truly was a steaming pile of dogshit.
Some on here will support Ole, no matter what. That much is obvious. It's a small minority, but it is what it is. Also, why not say 10 games instead of 7? Out of the other 3, it reads 2 defeats and a win. It's kind of selective just going by league form. Overall it's: P10 W5 D2 L3. Given who we've played, it's not a great start to the season. I suspect the two points off the top narrative will be dead and buried going into December.
Agree with the rest. I haven't totally lost faith, but I feel that I likely will this season. A title challenge was fully expected this season, and anything less, really isn't good enough. The time for excuses has passed. The time for praising squad harmony etc. has also run its course. While Ole has done commendable work, now is the time to deliver. Whether some like it or not, three years managing a top club with no trophies to show for it, is a hell of a long time.
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No better way to attract a proper set of midfielders & top class manager than the promise of Europa League next season
Ole truly needs to turn things around ASAP, especially the team performances, he has to change something, it's still early, but he has to change starting from this weekend.
i know a lot of ya'll want him gone, and i can't blame you, but for me this season he has to deliver a title challenge at the very least, and for that to happen, he needs to hit some milestones at least results wise and it starts with a convincing win against the foxes this weekend.
i know a lot of ya'll want him gone, and i can't blame you, but for me this season he has to deliver a title challenge at the very least, and for that to happen, he needs to hit some milestones at least results wise and it starts with a convincing win against the foxes this weekend.
Not to mention probably losing Pogba and Messi Lingard this summer. Gotta love the United way!No better way to attract a proper set of midfielders & top class manager than the promise of Europa League next season
This whole 'can't sack of a manager until they're mathematically out of the top four' that we apparently abide by, is absolutely insane.
An unfortunate reality though.
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