Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion

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Ludens the Red

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Absolute horror show of a managerial performance.

- Benching Greenwood for what reason exactly?
- starting James and Mensah on the right
- starting a blatantly completely unfit Paul Pogba
The thing with Ole is he’s limited tactically and doesn’t know how to coach players. His strengths so far have appeared to be motivating the players and giving players a platform to express themselves. What we saw today was none of that. And that’s quite scary because what you’re left with is that abomination of a performance.
Why did our players display such grotesque level of match fitness?

I said it a while back but allowing the players extra time off was a dumb decision. And that’s been proven, we were never going to benefit from it. Fixture congestion and not being up to scratch for our first game was what the result would be and that’s exactly what would happen.

It doesn’t matter who you do or don’t sign if your manager and his staff can’t even get the players to do basic things during a game or have a decent level of fitness. It’s shameful.
 

flappyjay

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Why did our players display such grotesque level of match fitness?
One of the player started after having recovered from covid. Our other talented midfielder who had played pre season friendlies with us and Ajax sat on the bench.
 

Cardboard elk

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I guess the streak january to july was just a fluke. one game after covid short vacation proves that it seems.
 

Berbasbullet

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Ole‘s Mourinho moment as I stated without knowing the final result. It would have been more obvious if he started Lingard instead. Weird decision that was and that and his tactics cost us the game
Was that another Amadeus moment buddy?
 

Web of Bissaka

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He still do not understand his own players?
  • James cannot play at RW, and useless vs low blocks.
  • Only Greenwood can play RW.
  • McT is usually useless against "weak" teams. Just play him only vs the top teams.
  • Matic is useful against the "weak" teams, and especially in breaking low blocks.
  • Fred is useful vs pacy "weak" teams.
 

el3mel

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He definitely got the lineup pretty wrong. Some just didn't want to admit it before the game. Thinking about, this one really had a poor result all over it ever since I saw the main lineup.

He has done well in terms of transfers but I really can't see the board being as patient with him as they were last season. He'll need to at least deliver a trophy this season. Otherwise, can't see him being here next season.
 

BluesJr

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Really bad. So many ridiculous decisions and again the lack of cohesion is his fault ultimately that’s his job.
 

Berbasbullet

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You can claim that. We should be beaten a team like palace at home, but I questioned a dubious decision Ole had in his starting eleven that didn’t make sense to me even with some poster excuses on here. Greenwood came in at 45 min. I doubt fitness was an issue.
:lol: okay mate.
 

pratyush_utd

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What is our gameplan? Pass to the sides and hope Rashford beats his man and do something? There is no structure to our gameplay, we can't beat press from lower league teams. It's embarrassing.

Ole just plays his best team and hopes they do something?
 

AneRu

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I think the inconsistency we have in overall performances is worrying, the result can always be rectified but the issue is that with such a bottom level or how it easy it is to get us off our stride I just can't see us making enough progress to ever challenge under the current trajectory.

The whole defense is shocking and it's hard to believe that we have spent £160m on it over the last two or three years. What worries me is that, having invested so heavily in Maguire, AWB etc will the manager or a new manager be allowed to rectify this? I really can't see a back four that has Maguire, AWB and Lindelof ever challenging for top honours.

Then we have the Pogba-Bruno midfield axis which forces us to play 4-2-3-1 but Pogba doesn't look like a good fit playing as a deep lying playmaker, do we really have a DM reliable enough to play a 4-3-3 and can we trust Bruno with the defensive duties that come with playing as an 8 in a 4-3-3?

The sad thing is that some of these issues are fairly recent. We bought a RB that can't attack for a record fee and a slow defender whilst proclaiming we want to play a modern style with pressing and all that. However how do we play a high line with slow defenders or how do we press if our defenders are sitting deep.

We have a talented squad but by God it's a philosophical mishmash. To top it all we have walking disasters like Lindelof starting games for us in 2020. I think chasing Sancho or even contemplating spending a 100m on him when players like McTominay, Lindelof and Shaw are still starting games for us is a terrible misallocation of resources imo we badly need a DM, LB, CB and RW. Anything less we will regress.
 

PlayerOne

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I like Ole and he has been screwed by the board, but he does have a bad habit of repeating mistakes, he puts faith in players that don't deserve and haven't earned it.

Long season coming up, I hope he sees it through.
 

BulgarianDevil91

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I really love how people slate Ole for doing this and that, without putting any thought into it.

Why did he play an unfit Pogba would've been replaced by Why didn't he play Pogba even unfit, he's our best mid.

Why did he use James as a RW would be Why is he playing Mason days after saying the boy needs a rest.

The man can't win and the narrative will always be against him. At least he has the balls to go out and say we need more quality, something everyone here should appreciate. He's trying to change OUR club, at least give him that.
 

AaronRedDevil

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Sacking Ole will do nothing, that hasn’t already happened or is going to happen. Poch or whoever comes in and gets a big budget, buys more players and will perform better because of those players. And the squad will have more dept come next summer. That doesn’t change if Ole is still in charge. Let’s hope this was just a one of those games.
 

el3mel

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I really love how people slate Ole for doing this and that, without putting any thought into it.

Why did he play an unfit Pogba would've been replaced by Why didn't he play Pogba even unfit, he's our best mid.

Why did he use James as a RW would be Why is he playing Mason days after saying the boy needs a rest.

The man can't win and the narrative will always be against him. At least he has the balls to go out and say we need more quality, something everyone here should appreciate. He's trying to change OUR club, at least give him that.
I predicted VDB to start this, and wanted Greenwood to start it too. There were many who criticized his decision of starting such a terrible right flank before the match so this isn't true.

He fecked up with the main lineup 100% today.
 

Idxomer

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How many times are we gonna see the defense getting beaten on low crosses this season?

It's clearly not just a problem of individuals as we keep seeing it even after changing our fullbacks many times the last few months.
 

Idxomer

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I predicted VDB to start this, and wanted Greenwood to start it too. There were many who criticized his decision of starting such a terrible right flank before the match so this isn't true.

He fecked up with the main lineup 100% today.
It's not a coincidence there was a meltdown in the matchday thread over the lineup the moment it was announced.
 

luke511

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One thing that was very noticeable whilst watching the no crowd noise channel, was how much louder Crystal Palace's management were on the sidelines compared to ours, constantly barking instructions to their players, being the 12th man on the touchline. They obviously had more of a game plan as they knew what each player's role were and reminded them individually what they should be doing when necessary.
 

keithsingleton

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Absolute horror show of a managerial performance.

- Benching Greenwood for what reason exactly?
- starting James and Mensah on the right
- starting a blatantly completely unfit Paul Pogba
The thing with Ole is he’s limited tactically and doesn’t know how to coach players. His strengths so far have appeared to be motivating the players and giving players a platform to express themselves. What we saw today was none of that. And that’s quite scary because what you’re left with is that abomination of a performance.
Why did our players display such grotesque level of match fitness?

I said it a while back but allowing the players extra time off was a dumb decision. And that’s been proven, we were never going to benefit from it. Fixture congestion and not being up to scratch for our first game was what the result would be and that’s exactly what would happen.

It doesn’t matter who you do or don’t sign if your manager and his staff can’t even get the players to do basic things during a game or have a decent level of fitness. It’s shameful.
Good post.. +1
 

Foxbatt

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People are criticising Ole because he does not seem to have any plan. Look at Palace. They had a game plan and they stuck to it and won. We rely on individual brilliance to win games. When that does not happen our coaching staff does not seem to have a clue how to change things. Palace could have been 2-0 up by half time if Degea did not pull off a brilliant save. I do not blame Lindelof for the goal and the penalty. Should he have tried to block it? Yes but when you look at it at slo mo you see that it was crossed at exactly the wrong moment for him as his right foot was on the ground and anyhow Maguire and Shaw should have stopped Tounsend. It was two against one. The penalty he was unlucky. That does not mean he is suitable for us. He has to be replaced of course.
 

rotherham_red

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I like Ole and he has been screwed by the board, but he does have a bad habit of repeating mistakes, he puts faith in players that don't deserve and haven't earned it.

Long season coming up, I hope he sees it through.
I agree he's perhaps too loyal to certain players like Lindelof, but on the flip side the players he would have replaced him with in the team (Axel, Bailly) have had their fitness issues so I can cut him some slack on that front.

On today though, I don't think it was tactical per se, but that we were incredibly poor in the execution of those tactics. Our best players all collectively shat the bed yesterday in a big way. We've seen them perform well and yesterday was not a good day for them. The focus should now be on rectifying it and making sure we get back to what we're good at. I'm hoping it's physical rather than anything else because we've seen when these guys are at it, not many teams can live with us.
 

He'sRaldo

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I think the inconsistency we have in overall performances is worrying, the result can always be rectified but the issue is that with such a bottom level or how it easy it is to get us off our stride I just can't see us making enough progress to ever challenge under the current trajectory.

The whole defense is shocking and it's hard to believe that we have spent £160m on it over the last two or three years. What worries me is that, having invested so heavily in Maguire, AWB etc will the manager or a new manager be allowed to rectify this? I really can't see a back four that has Maguire, AWB and Lindelof ever challenging for top honours.

Then we have the Pogba-Bruno midfield axis which forces us to play 4-2-3-1 but Pogba doesn't look like a good fit playing as a deep lying playmaker, do we really have a DM reliable enough to play a 4-3-3 and can we trust Bruno with the defensive duties that come with playing as an 8 in a 4-3-3?

The sad thing is that some of these issues are fairly recent. We bought a RB that can't attack for a record fee and a slow defender whilst proclaiming we want to play a modern style with pressing and all that. However how do we play a high line with slow defenders or how do we press if our defenders are sitting deep.

We have a talented squad but by God it's a philosophical mishmash. To top it all we have walking disasters like Lindelof starting games for us in 2020. I think chasing Sancho or even contemplating spending a 100m on him when players like McTominay, Lindelof and Shaw are still starting games for us is a terrible misallocation of resources imo we badly need a DM, LB, CB and RW. Anything less we will regress.
I found it interesting that his signings seemed at the start to be good, since at Cardiff recruitment was a weakness of his.

I don't view Maguire and Dan James as money well spent, and for most of the others the jury is still out. So maybe his recruitment hasn't really changed that much. I think now that the "new signing" shines are off most of the players this season, we'll see their true evaluation.
 

flappyjay

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You have streaky players, Ole is the first streaky manager as far as I know. Patches of 3-6 games of good football and then shit sandwich for 10.
 

Eddy_JukeZ

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You have streaky players, Ole is the first streaky manager as far as I know. Patches of 3-6 games of good football and then shit sandwich for 10.
Those managers are typically the ones who top 4/mid-table managers.

Today's performance was just shocking. I really hope it was because of our lack of fitness. We should have scheduled more friendlies.
 

amolbhatia50k

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Absolute horror show of a managerial performance.

- Benching Greenwood for what reason exactly?
- starting James and Mensah on the right
- starting a blatantly completely unfit Paul Pogba
The thing with Ole is he’s limited tactically and doesn’t know how to coach players. His strengths so far have appeared to be motivating the players and giving players a platform to express themselves. What we saw today was none of that. And that’s quite scary because what you’re left with is that abomination of a performance.
Why did our players display such grotesque level of match fitness?

I said it a while back but allowing the players extra time off was a dumb decision. And that’s been proven, we were never going to benefit from it. Fixture congestion and not being up to scratch for our first game was what the result would be and that’s exactly what would happen.

It doesn’t matter who you do or don’t sign if your manager and his staff can’t even get the players to do basic things during a game or have a decent level of fitness. It’s shameful.
- Mctominay as a DM and starting ahead of Fred (added)

For a team to come out and be unable to play any sort of cohesive football, the manager needs to take the blame. Rubbish opening day display Ole's United. Very worrying.
 

amolbhatia50k

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You have streaky players, Ole is the first streaky manager as far as I know. Patches of 3-6 games of good football and then shit sandwich for 10.
Part of me agrees with this. His team's go on these runs due to a feel good factor when things click but the foundation's he creates (coaching, system etc ) aren't really strong enough to sustain it. That's the difference between a top coach and an alright one.
 

Foxbatt

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- Mctominay as a DM and starting ahead of Fred (added)

For a team to come out and be unable to play any sort of cohesive football, the manager needs to take the blame. Rubbish opening day display Ole's United. Very worrying.
When they started bossing the midfield and we were so slow in midfield why didn't he take off Rashford and bring on Fred in midfield and push Bruno a bit forward?
 

amolbhatia50k

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People are criticising Ole because he does not seem to have any plan. Look at Palace. They had a game plan and they stuck to it and won. We rely on individual brilliance to win games. When that does not happen our coaching staff does not seem to have a clue how to change things. Palace could have been 2-0 up by half time if Degea did not pull off a brilliant save. I do not blame Lindelof for the goal and the penalty. Should he have tried to block it? Yes but when you look at it at slo mo you see that it was crossed at exactly the wrong moment for him as his right foot was on the ground and anyhow Maguire and Shaw should have stopped Tounsend. It was two against one. The penalty he was unlucky. That does not mean he is suitable for us. He has to be replaced of course.
For me, when I look at a football team to determine how well managed they are, it's about the plan in place, how well it's being implemented, how well they're finding each other and instinctively knowing what to do next i.e in a way , how intelligent they seem on the pitch. You see the best coached teams and the players appear smarter than their opponents players. It's not always due to a high football IQ but how well drilled they have been into playing patterns and a style of play.

Despite Oles good runs here and there we never truly look an excellently coached football team but instead ride on the coattails of individual brilliance.

And that's not good enough.
 

amolbhatia50k

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When they started bossing the midfield and we were so slow in midfield why didn't he take off Rashford and bring on Fred in midfield and push Bruno a bit forward?
I have no idea. When you're pressed high up the pitch, surely you either try to increase the numbers in midfield or play someone deep who can take the pressure. Mctominay can barely pass. Ole for me doesn't really get possession football. He just wants us to get it forward , bang , bang ,goal. Which of course doesn't always work out.
 

Foxbatt

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For me, when I look at a football team to determine how well managed they are, it's about the plan in place, how well it's being implemented, how well they're finding each other and instinctively knowing what to do next i.e in a way , how intelligent they seem on the pitch. You see the best coached teams and the players appear smarter than their opponents players. It's not always due to a high football IQ but how well drilled they have been into playing patterns and a style of play.

Despite Oles good runs here and there we never truly look an excellently coached football team but instead ride on the coattails of individual brilliance.

And that's not good enough.
Exactly. This is the point I keep making too. It is not about high IQ but about drilling and practising what to do as you say. The great sides are always drilled well and then they also have the individual player who can do his own thing. Without that drilling no team can win most matches. We are just a bunch of individual players thrown together. I would love to see what they do in training actually. These are not Sunday pub players. All of them are International players playing for great teams.
 

Mindhunter

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Absolute horror show of a managerial performance.

- Benching Greenwood for what reason exactly?
- starting James and Mensah on the right
- starting a blatantly completely unfit Paul Pogba
The thing with Ole is he’s limited tactically and doesn’t know how to coach players. His strengths so far have appeared to be motivating the players and giving players a platform to express themselves. What we saw today was none of that. And that’s quite scary because what you’re left with is that abomination of a performance.
Why did our players display such grotesque level of match fitness?

I said it a while back but allowing the players extra time off was a dumb decision. And that’s been proven, we were never going to benefit from it. Fixture congestion and not being up to scratch for our first game was what the result would be and that’s exactly what would happen.

It doesn’t matter who you do or don’t sign if your manager and his staff can’t even get the players to do basic things during a game or have a decent level of fitness. It’s shameful.
Very good post. Accurately captures the issues OGS simply created. Either he was making a point to Woodward or the other players were unfit to play.

I don’t see any reason why he would pick this side otherwise. It’s strange really.
 

passing-wind

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One thing that was very noticeable whilst watching the no crowd noise channel, was how much louder Crystal Palace's management were on the sidelines compared to ours, constantly barking instructions to their players, being the 12th man on the touchline. They obviously had more of a game plan as they knew what each player's role were and reminded them individually what they should be doing when necessary.
It's not a surprise unless Solskjaer can win something Hodgson is a slightly more prolific manager tactically. We have struggled against Palace more often than not under Solskjaer.
 

Sky1981

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It's one game.

Give it time.

We kept our player exactly the same as last year + VDB. Same coach/manager, we should be improving on last season. I'll wait for 5 games before giving a judgment. Although squandering a supposedly easy home game against CP is a big lost, it doesn't get easier with Wolves/Leicester/Arsenal/Everton in the mix for top 4.

PS: 1st game of the season after 1 month holiday + preseason, how the hell can players be not fit??? Not sharp probably, but you shouldn't start your 1st game not fit
 

He'sRaldo

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Just saw this video of Tuchel, I think this is a good way to ask for new players in a press conference. Especially if there is a pressing need somewhere.
 

Arka_BleedingRed

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For me, when I look at a football team to determine how well managed they are, it's about the plan in place, how well it's being implemented, how well they're finding each other and instinctively knowing what to do next i.e in a way , how intelligent they seem on the pitch. You see the best coached teams and the players appear smarter than their opponents players. It's not always due to a high football IQ but how well drilled they have been into playing patterns and a style of play.

Despite Oles good runs here and there we never truly look an excellently coached football team but instead ride on the coattails of individual brilliance.

And that's not good enough.
This is so true that I cannot understand how the board has failed to realize this. Which highlights the incompetency of the board itself. Sacking Ole isn't going to change anything in a major way, the board needs major changes too. But, I have lost hope that this will ever happen, so this sh!t show will continue. Mediocrity and mid table mentality, here we come(maybe we already are there)!
 
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