True story. All the impact players are already playing or on the treatment table.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
- Thread starter Samid
- Start date
- Status
Good taste in tv series. Succession is brilliant.
Its tough to instill a work ethic into the squad when your centre forward is a stone overweight and won't do anything about it. He needed to go even if it hurt us a little in the short term.
It's less than I expected to be honest. The keep/sack Ole poll has actually moved in favour of keep since Poch got sacked.
Obviously there's a section on here who decided pretty much in advance that he could never be good enough for us because he doesn't have a glittering CV and managed in Norway. But there's still clearly plenty who can see what he's trying to do and feel he's on the right track.
Any fair minded person can see that we don't really have enough CMs fit to be sure of anything against Sheffield United. So I'd imagine at least half the people on here will cut him some slack if it proves to be a difficult game for us.
He don’t inspire me.
We’ve had Pogba missing for ages now, no ones cut him any slack on here, if it’s anything but a win tomorrow the claws will be out!
That's because we've now an opportunity to gain some points on Chelsea, if City beat them and we've already lost to Bournmouth, Newcastle and Palace, we can't keep on losing these games. If the claws aren't out, I'd be worried for our fanbase, cause we're fecking mid table.
Some have to be fair.
But yes, there's definitely a good few on here desperately hoping for another bad result so that they can vent their spleens. We've some awful supporters.
West Ham too, the pressure is definitely on!
What pressure? I want him gone but i gave up from that. He is obviously having 100% backing from board and our young players. He will win small games which will keep us around 6-8 place so this season we will finish with him no matter what.
Only way how he will get sack is to start losing home games against dross and that will not happen because our squad is too good for that.
It's the big games he's doing well in. Only two defeats against top 6 and PSG in 13 games. The games in which United struggle is against smaller teams playing a low block, aka "small games".
The pressure of getting results whilst Pochettino is unemployed! That’ll be on his mind for sure.
Exactly, which we will inevitably be fixed because this is about mentality and being relentless. And then, we will become a viable team.
If Spurs finish above us this season, it'll be interesting to see how the Ole apologists explain this in a positive way.
Anybody who knows anything about football knows that Ole is not good enough and is doing a terrible job. Nobody can deny this. BUT, Woodward is the one who needs to be removed. Even if Ole is fired and we bring in the new flavour of the month, that new manager will also struggle to do well, under the current structure.
In a perfect world, I'd like to see Woodward removed from all footballing operations (ie. he has absolutely no say in which player is bought/sold), a DoF who knows about football is brought in and he decides on who to bring in to replace Ole.
Anybody who knows anything about football knows that Ole is not good enough and is doing a terrible job. Nobody can deny this. BUT, Woodward is the one who needs to be removed. Even if Ole is fired and we bring in the new flavour of the month, that new manager will also struggle to do well, under the current structure.
In a perfect world, I'd like to see Woodward removed from all footballing operations (ie. he has absolutely no say in which player is bought/sold), a DoF who knows about football is brought in and he decides on who to bring in to replace Ole.
Doing well with parking the bus and waiting for counter attack. Didn't we sack Mourinho because of that?
I think that our standards have fallen so low, that some fans are actually quite accepting of being a mid table team.
You need to remember that there are many new fans who have not seen us win league after league after league. They are used to seeing us finish in and around 5th place, so finishing in around 8th place to these people isn't as bad as it feels to me (who has seen us win EVERYTHING).
The truth is that this year, we have taken a big step backwards. And I believe that if Ole remains, next season shall also be a write-off.
The board is basically, setting fans up to accept mid-table finishes and some fans are falling for it. Meanwhile Brendan Rodgers (who was the butt of many a joke on here), is now sitting in the top 3!
And let's not forget about Frank Lampard who has even less experience managing in the EPL, than Ole, who is also in the top 3.
Lampard and Rodgers don't need 3 years to make top 4, but apparently Ole does and also needs hundreds of millions of pounds, to achieve the same. None of this makes any sense.
No. Mourinho got sacked because he fell out with the players, the club and the fans, plus it was obvious he could not take the team further (as in achieve success).
I didn't mean literally. I meant that a lot of fans( who support Ole now which is interesting) hated Jose and wanted him sacked because he played defensive football in big games. And i respected that opinion. Some of us want results, some want nice football, some want to see youth...no problem. But Ole is more defensive in those games even than Mourinho and he is excused from that with some weird explanations like it is some modern progressive football with two blocks and quick counters and shit like that. But in reality he ....well he parks the bus.
What would there be to explain? Better manager, with a better squad, with a new manager bounce? I don't think there would be many expecting Spurs to finish behind us after appointing Jose. There is no denying Jose is a better manager, he just wasn't the right manager for us at this time(or probably ever, stylistically).
You don't seriously think that this segment (I have no idea how many belonging to this, in many ways, remarkable category post on the Caf) make out the majority of the "Ole in" fans?
I mean, the idea is stunning in itself: a new segment of United fans, who have started supporting the club post-Fergie, and who are perfectly fine with us being a bit shite (because that's the standard now). I'm sorry if I have misunderstood your point here, but as I take it that makes very little sense. What attracted this odd crew in the first place? Noodle sponsorships?
Mid table teams also have fans you know?
The act of following or supporting a football club is a joy in itself even if the football club isn't winning everything. In fact the fact that they're not makes the wins that much sweeter. I definitely appreciate the 3-1 wins against the likes of Norwich a lot more these days.
Jose at Spurs is the newest stick to beat him with.
It says a lot about him...
That doesn't make any sense. I don't think we got too many new fans since Fergie left and majority of fans are those who have seen us win everything. I love how fans get blamed for things they can't change and are not responsible for.
+
Offf now that is a complicated can of worms.
First off, there's really no definite yes or no answer to the question of should you let a player leave. It's all down to things like coverage, position in the team, value, the players professionalism, the teams structure, etc etc. It's really all case by case basis.
It's easy to defend Lukakus leaving for a few reasons:
1) Lukaku had lost his spot in the MUFC starting XI. His status was that as a sub. Now we can agree or disagree that he should have been a starter, but hindsight is not a valid argument. You either make the argument at the time, or come up with a solution. Hindsight is cheap. So what do we do with a substitute that wants to leave? Lukaku is not a substitute player.
2) Mason Greenwood is being given a lot of playtime and space to get into the team. He's ranked as #16 in the world of young talents. Jadon Sancho is currently ranked as #1 ahead of Vinicius Junior. Greenwood is the only MUFC player to feature on the top50. Now, talent ranks are insanely arbitrary but do also apply some statistical data. The only thing we can agree on is that talent ranks are hit or miss most of the time. With that in mind, the brass probably made a few decisions that left us where we are today.
3) MUFC tried their very, very best to sign both Dybala and Mandzukic from Juventus in the summer transfer window. Lukaku was the trade chip. A money deal was also on the table after Lukaku joined Inter August 7th. MUFC were prepared to lay out £80m for the pair per tier1 journos. Mandzukic was obviously intended as a depth option, a 75minute sub.
4) Lukaku REALLY wanted to leave. Reports stated that he returned to training camp, 9lbs overweight. We now also know that Lukaku went to Ole personally, and told him that he wanted to leave the club. Apart from handing in a transfer request, this is as clear an indication that your head is no longer here that you can give. See point 1) for why.
5) Ole has things like team harmony to consider, and this is a very important factor. You can't just have "anyone" in a group that spends so much time together. They need to be able to work together and pull in the same direction. I get that this sounds secondary, but having lead teams myself for years, disturbing elements can bring the whole building down. Someone who is openly sulking has no business being in a environment that wants to foster winners. Philipe Coutinho is the best example of this, one of the biggest babies in football who cried his way out of Liverpool. Now, Lukaku might not have done that, but showing up with some chub sends a relatively clear message that he's not really into it.
6) This is pure speculation, but at the end Lukaku posted a picture with MUFC's sprint data on twitter. something which made Ole furious and was promptly deleted. Their relationship might not have been great from a mix between this and 1) + 4)
7) The staff DID take a big gamble going into the season. And this is where hindsight comes in. Yes we should have had a striker, the gamble didn't pay off, but it's easy to sit here and pretend to be oracles who saw this coming. Marcus Rashford was slotted to become "the guy" - Martial was slotted to increase output - Greenwood was slotted to develop - Lingard/Mata/James rest was expected to put up some here and there. And then there is always the Pogba contribution. So far Marcus Rashford is well on his way to shatter his career best for scoring. At this rate he will/can reach 30 in all competitions, 20 in the Premier League. Martial is looking to have a good season minus his injury issues, Greenwood is online in Europe, still waiting for his debut goal in the Premier League. And who knows what Pogba will do when he returns. Maybe a lot, maybe not all that much.
8) As for letting a player leave WHEN replacement is bought. Well, it's not so easy when there's so much money involved. Yes of course the clubs can agree to deals. But we tried that didn't we? There was no second best option that we wanted. As Ole has said: "IF the right player is available, we will buy him. We will not buy second best options"
9) With our struggles in August, OGS admitted that letting both Sanches and Lukaku go without a replacement highlighted the need for a forward signing. Marcus Rashford missed so many shots on open net at the time (and still does), that if you look at the advanced statistics, when averages even out over a season, Marcus Rashford will become the top scorer in the EPL 19/20 (Now of course this is unlikely to happen, but it highlights how bad it has been, and how many points we've dropped because of it).
10) January is on. A forward is the target, and Erling Braut Haaland is the likely candidate as well as Jadon Sancho. They are both heavily rumored and we know that the club tried to buy Jadon Sancho last summer but Dortmund would not entertain a bid. Haaland has a £30m~ buyout clause. We'll see if any of those happen, but something will happen.
11) To wrap this up: I'll just quote OGS: "
“It was time for Romelu to go. He knows that. He didn’t want to be here. What is the point in having players that don’t want to be here?
“And it’s no point getting players in that you’re not 100% sure about. When you get players in you need the right ones that are going to stay here for a longer period and that’s the long-term thinking we have to show. I cannot think: ‘I need a player because this is my reputation.’ No, it’s the club.”
Of course they do. But the idea that a new generation of United fans who are perfectly fine with a mid-table status should have emerged, and become vocal, on the biggest online United forum - seems a bit outlandish.
I have said this many times, but here goes again: as a United fan born in the mid 1970s, I never considered myself a fan of a mid-table club in the pre-SAF era. I considered myself a fan of a very special football club, one with a rich history and one that should be challenging for the biggest prizes. The fact that Liverpool was on their "fecking perch" (to use Fergie's famous phrase) was considered an affront, not something that was to be accepted as inevitable (and it wasn't, as we all know).
We are a and I hate the term a 'sleeping giant' now. We need a spark to awaken us up. Klopp was Liverpools, will Ole be ours? Who knows? We need him to have the season I think. Lets see after the next transfer window in Jan who we have bought in. Lets see if there is a big improvement from now on.
Spot on. I have been a fan since the 60s and even when we where in the old 2nd division none of us accepted that was where we belong. We always believed that we were among the biggest in the world and we should be on top of the 1st division. The fact we did not is a different story. We may have been yo yo ing up and down the table but on our day we could beat anyone. But now it is the other way about. We are liable to get beaten by anyone. We always scored goals and it was the defence we seem to have problems then. No club would think that they could play against us and it is a sure win. Now all the clubs would play against us and think they can beat us.
We had top Managers though some of them failed. Doc was a top class manager, so was Sexton( it is another story that he was boring and if my memory serves me right when he was sacked we were either 2nd or 3rd. So was big Ron.
Now it seems that 10th place is perfectly fine for some fans.
Why is it that ordinary players like Tielemans, Söyüncü and them are playing so well like world class players? If they were that good why did we not buy them? Both of them combined was about 64 million only.
So is our rebuild just going to be a big doughnut as we just keep ignoring our CM. I mean we are targeting back up strikers when we need a first team midfielder.
No we know. We are just waiting for the fans to wake up with the 'sleeping giant'
Ole will last the season and as the injured players come back performance will continue to improve (like when Martial came back) by the end we will win the Europa but if Chelsea or Leicester falter we will take them over in top 4 too. I'm only a fan who realises that for our shit results this season that we should have won all games except West Ham and including Liverpool. Our performances have been mostly ok considering the players we have been missing. If you have any doubt go rewatch our games because we 'deserved' a win in most of them.
It's traversty we're 10th. Conspiracy i tell you. All those years of fergie brown envelope starting to catch up on us now the don is retired. The 5 families is out to get us guys.
We deserved to win and should be top 3 by merit if not for the corrupt FA.
Bournemouth astana rochdale Newcastle must have been paying the fa bigger envelopes
I don't really understand what you're saying to be honest. But surely you aren't questioning whether injuries to key players affect a team? Also it's not conspiracy but we really did deserve to win most of our games. Just like Klopp's Liverpool and Pep's City did in their first years.
People can’t see the wood for the trees when it comes to managers at United.
Fundamental change was needed from the bottom up at United. There are glimpses of positivity and key Requirements the previous managers didn’t implement:-
-Selling off highly paid tripe and mercenaries
-Buying well in the transfer window (and should have been provided a guaranteed replacement for Lukaku, that’s Ed’s fault not Ole’s)
-At least attempting a high press for the first time in what must be 20 feckin years (this is fundamental for United to progress in the modern game)**
-Player improvements, McTominay, Martial, Perreira all look to have improved and kicked on under Ole.
Rashford and Martial linking up fat better than before
-Youth players introduced and both them and the existing youngsters we had in the side are doing well.
Brandon Williams, Tuenzebe, Dan James*, AWB all look excellent and well coached ready for the starting 11
-Ole has identified Martial as the first choice number 9, something people on here have been crying out for under previous management. Switching Rashford to the wing and their partnership has really kicked on.
The Ole Out brigade simply won’t acknowledge the above but imo they are big positives when rebuilding the foundation, some are fundamental for us to move forward (I.e. player acquisitions, high press, player development.)
All things considered when the spoilt people realise we have been playing with a threadbare squad, full of kids, missing key players and we still have an outside chance of top four. That matched with the above points I feel is a move in the right direction.
It’s not about league position or fan ego’s right now, it’s about getting things right and getting our feckin house in check so we can really start progressing back to where we want to be, the manager merry go round is the alternative...
Fundamental change was needed from the bottom up at United. There are glimpses of positivity and key Requirements the previous managers didn’t implement:-
-Selling off highly paid tripe and mercenaries
-Buying well in the transfer window (and should have been provided a guaranteed replacement for Lukaku, that’s Ed’s fault not Ole’s)
-At least attempting a high press for the first time in what must be 20 feckin years (this is fundamental for United to progress in the modern game)**
-Player improvements, McTominay, Martial, Perreira all look to have improved and kicked on under Ole.
Rashford and Martial linking up fat better than before
-Youth players introduced and both them and the existing youngsters we had in the side are doing well.
Brandon Williams, Tuenzebe, Dan James*, AWB all look excellent and well coached ready for the starting 11
-Ole has identified Martial as the first choice number 9, something people on here have been crying out for under previous management. Switching Rashford to the wing and their partnership has really kicked on.
The Ole Out brigade simply won’t acknowledge the above but imo they are big positives when rebuilding the foundation, some are fundamental for us to move forward (I.e. player acquisitions, high press, player development.)
All things considered when the spoilt people realise we have been playing with a threadbare squad, full of kids, missing key players and we still have an outside chance of top four. That matched with the above points I feel is a move in the right direction.
It’s not about league position or fan ego’s right now, it’s about getting things right and getting our feckin house in check so we can really start progressing back to where we want to be, the manager merry go round is the alternative...
Last edited:
If we deserve to win all our games then why are we 10th?
Having an injury, or not finishing your chances, or creating zero shots on target while can be classed as bad luck doesnt make us deserved ti win.
Stop creating excuses for our predicament. You can argue we should be 2 position better at most down to many factors. But suggesting we DESERVE to win all our matches? Laughable
Are you sure we have “many” new fans in the era where our football has been absolute dire?
Also, no one has made top four in November. If end of season, were not in top four, Ole will be very likely gone.
Theres no drop off in the standards of the fans, just some being more patient and are seeing hints of improvement.
We've been amazing and Ole has been very unlucky. Don't for a second suggest that other teams also miss chances and have injury problems because we know that's not the case.
Because we didn't win all our games. Weird question.
If you take off the blinkers for a second and look at the Arsenal and Liverpool match, we should have won those if not for defensive mistakes. That's a 4 point difference and would be 5 positions higher, sitting in 5th. If we did better against the small teams, of which we either drew or lost by a single goal, then we'd comfortably be in top four.
Yeah the general consensus I feel from people is that we won't have the ability to break down teams until we add more midfield creativity.
So in other words we aren't beating any of those teams until next season as Ole is only looking at loans.
We will beat plenty of them. It just won't perhaps be as easy as it would be with some real creativity in midfield. Getting Pogba fit and playing him infront of Fred and Scott would work wonders.
- Status