I think United fans need to take a deep breath. Relax. See the last game out. Sit tight and see how the summer unfolds in terms of comings and goings. All this talk of Ole being a bad choice is pointless at this point. He is probably as puzzled as fans as to the Jekyll and Hyde nature of the playing staff. However he doesn't have a magic wand he can wave. All he can take out of his time so far is that the squad is talented but inconsistent. He has Sanchez on silly money most likely making negotiating new contracts with those he wants to keep a nightmare. It will also make his acquiring players all that harder.
United can undo the mistakes post Ferguson but it needs to learn lessons from them and navigate a shrewder path going forward. A number of things boggle me though.
Moyes. I know United fans didn't take to him but his record at Everton suggested he was a good team builder. His two main signings were given sufficient regard by his next two successors to be not sold on. Why wasn't he given longer? Yes I know his style of play might have been boring but let him build a team then judge him. I can appreciate that asking a manager with no medals to command the respect of a multiple medal winning squad was ludicrous. But he was in place with a six year contract. I wouldn't blame Moyes for bringing his own management team to OT. Most managers do that. Possibly should have incorporated Phelan into the equation unless he felt that Phelan might have had the player's ears.
LVG was a manager who played a very strict style of play which was never going to be cavalier and exciting. He did overhaul the squad with mixed results. Only the sale of Zaha and Evans could be criticised from their subsequent careers. He got two seasons and won the fa cup in his second. So why not grant him a third season and see where that would have taken United.
Mourinho was a ludicrous appointment in that he falls out with every dressing room he manages except maybe Inter and Porto. He makes it all about himself and to my mind was never a suitably dignified figure to lead a globally respected sporting institution like Manchester United. Leopards don't change spots. Giving Mourinho a renewed contract was idiotic. Allowing the signing of Sanchez on those wages was idiotic.
By chopping and changing the manager with the frequency United have done so post Ferguson each successor is left incomplete work by their predecessor therefore having to start from scratch.
Allowing Ferguson to chose his successor was in hindsight a mistake. None of his successors has seen three full seasons in charge. It takes three seasons to build a team unless like City you have unlimited resources. Even Guardiola has made use of signings from the Mancini and Pellegrini era.
The United board can't undo the past but at some point they need to give a manager time. They need to identify a style of play they wish to see. They then to need to assist the manager in recruiting players who fit that style. They need top class people in recruitment. At a club the size of United the manager should not be in sole charge of recruitment.
I have to agree with you. All of the managers since Ferguson were not given enough, time or support (though I think Jose gets himself sacked on purpose after 3 years at all clubs for the compensation). United fans were just not willing to wait a few years to see if things settled down.
The chopping, and the changing has created the frankenstein monster that is this team, a mish mash of bits and bobs.
But....
The trouble is in the modern age with the media/social media, and fans with expectations and demands like united's, guys like Moyes, and (certainly) Ole are not realistically likely to succeed, because it's just too brutal a working enviroment. That's why they start trying to lower expectations, but the more they kick out at the pressure, the more the noose tightens around their necks.
Once the media/fans turn, so do the players, especially if the manager lacks credentials, and starts to piss them off by dropping, or criticizing them in public. The rot really seemed to set in at the everton game, I suspect because Ole had just publically called certain players out.
He's truly doomed now, and has the Moyes '2000 mile stare' of the damned.
Ole hasn't had a transfer window yet, so there is little harm done, apart from the compensation, and loss of face to all concerned.
But it's rather like generals who send millions to their deaths in a lost cause just to avoid the indignity of defeat. They will be overun and overtaken by events in the end anyway. They just desperately want to delay the inevitable, and so sacrafice the troops for the sake of themselves over and above the nation they are supposed to be fighting for. Willing supporters might follow their generalissimo Ole and call it 'loyalty' but in the end they are just aiding/accelerating their own teams eventual, and inevitable destruction.
Allow Ole to bring in his own players, and if it doesn't work out (I really can't see how it could) it will be the same problem all over again. More odds and sods for the Frankenstein monster, and more players locked into lucrative contracts that the next manager will be stuck with, and will want to offload if they don't suit his playing style (or are just duds).
I feel bad for him I really do. I said, even before he got the job, that to give it to him would not be fair on Ole himself, because I remembered Moyes. Every time I see him on the touchline especially when I think how his dream job turned so sour, I just think it could have all been avoided.
Always had the deepest sympathy for Moyes for the same reason, who was treated like a national joke in similarly unfair, and toxic circumstances.
But both men just didn't have the stature for such a massive undertaking, and there is no shame in that. It's truly a massive job.
Should put an end to it before it goes any further.
