I am terrified he cannot see an issue with Lindelof & Maguire
Ole Gunnar Solskjær | 2021/22 Discussion
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
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Oh I agree. But back to my point, just because Pep can improve one player, doesnt mean he can improve another.
And also theres nothing to suggest Rashford would be better than he already is, as a lot of time has moved on from when Rashford started to where he is now (and its about the time Pep came in). Rashford, imo, lost some time of development under Jose but I think Ole has done a really good job with him.
Now of course Pep is a better manager than Ole, but weve seen Pep have some 'stinkers' too. And with Sterling, some of his decisions arent better than Rashfords at times, but then other times it is.
So its hard to say with certainty one way or another.
I'm not going to say anything about Ole's approach to last night but this quote from him is pretty poor.
“It is not psychological. You meet good teams in the semis and at the moment they are the best team in England and we did not have enough. I don’t think it’s a mental issue."
Over the past 6 PL games, we have been top performers and marginally better than City and over 10 games, clearly we performed better.
I see no justification for bigging them up more than the scoreboard did and trotting out a lame excuse which really undermines what the team has achieved lately.
Really poor choice of words which reflects badly on him.
“It is not psychological. You meet good teams in the semis and at the moment they are the best team in England and we did not have enough. I don’t think it’s a mental issue."
Over the past 6 PL games, we have been top performers and marginally better than City and over 10 games, clearly we performed better.
I see no justification for bigging them up more than the scoreboard did and trotting out a lame excuse which really undermines what the team has achieved lately.
Really poor choice of words which reflects badly on him.
I’m not bothered by the defeat yesterday in a cup competition few people care about. I would like to have seen Bruno on the bench and brought on if we needed a spark, but I understand how important this match was to Ole.
Needs to finally show some guts and drop Lindelof when he is actually fit which he hasn't done yet and see no reason why that is ever going to change with his unhealthy obsession of playing these two clowns together. He also needs to accept that at some point you have to start prioritising competitions and stop trying to go strong for every game. I also think the favouritism thing comes from seeing Fergie doing it with the likes of Fletcher and thinking that blind loyalty to certain players is the way forward when it clearly isn't at all. Maybe he should take a page out of Pep's book and pick the right partnership, only need to look at the fact Laporte is on the bench to see he knows what works best at CB
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Has anyone found out yet what was his idea of the 89th min DVB change? What did he ask DVB to do in 4 minutes?
Not the first time he has done this season either which makes it look even more dodgy
Who on the team is playing the best football of their career.
It's tough decision honestly from the manager, even I wasn't too sure who to sub off.
The front four Pogba, Bruno, Rashford & Martial didn't have good game. Pogba & Rashford were probably the best of the worst from that front 4 while Bruno was the worst of the worst. The logic will be taking Martial & Bruno off but Bruno is a player that even playing poor can make something out of nothing which means Ole had right to believe in him while Martial is a goalscorer.
DVB only came on for Fred as we went 2-0 down, it makes sense not to take off your DM when you were still 1-0 down. Probably took 3-4 minutes for tactical instruction and hoping for the 1999 Camp Nou.
Ole's stubborness in keep picking Maguire & Lindelof together and insistence on 2 holding players in the big games just to protect them two will end up knocking us out of this title race and maybe see us miss out on the top 4 altogether. Another problem with that partnership is it means AWB & Shaw aren't able to get wide to attack and have no choice but to tuck in.
VDB was brought on for Fred, who had picked up a yellow card earlier in the game. With the game all but gone, there was no point risking him doing something stupid (which he has history for) and picking up a needless 2nd yellow and a ban.
Nothing, probably just to let him have "some" gametime when the game was clearly lost.
I dont really see how they were at fault for any of our goals. Werent good in any sense, but Lindelof is a smarter defender than Bailly in general, so I dont think it was a bad choice in principle.
Lindelof will defo start against Liverpool and rightly so.
He definitely wants a quicker CB beside either of Lindelof/Maguire. Every time Bailly is fit Ole has put him into the team. I think the timing of Lindelof's return from injury when Bailly had played four games in a row for the first time in years meant Lindelof had to come in.
If Bailly is fit I think he plays against Liverpool. Bailly/Maguire is the better partnership, allows us to play a higher line as Bailly has recovery pace and he carries the ball better than Lindelof.
Just saw this on Twitter, this lad thinks Ole should be playing with a 4-4-3 diamond. I actually think this one might work.
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It may well have just been a case of giving Bailly a rest, remember he just came back from injury and is an injury prone player.
It is clear to most people that Bailly and Maguire is the partnership to go with. It remains to be seen whether Ole agrees.
Not sure if srs
I agree its very promising, but 4 good games doesnt make anything "clear" in my eyes.
That is genius. Overloads all over the pitch
Of course there's a question of consistency but in terms of form it's the obvious choice right now.
Let's see... Fred, McTominay, Rashford, Martial are just four off the top of my head. Could add Bruno too, seeing as he's sustained his pre-Utd form on a bigger stage, which isn't a coincidence either.
It's not stubbornness. Lindelof was shifted to RB to make room for Bailly against Leicester in the first place. The only reason Bailly was rested was because he has a poor injury record and played 4 full games in under 10 days. It's sensible load management.
Having two players protecting the defence is because we don't actually have that player who can do that job alone (other than Matic who doesn't have the legs for it). Both Fred and McTominay are box to box players. You put one of them on their own and our defence will be exposed time and time again, like it did when Ole first came in to the job and played that system.
I'd go with a 4-4-4 just to make sure.
I don't see why people get so offended over subs.
We were on top around 60-80 mins, normally peak time to make subs...we were moving the ball forward, through Pogba and pressure was mounting and they were getting deeper and deeper. If that wasn't happening and they were contolling the game at that point, we probably would have made earlier subs.
It's not always worth changing things for the sake of it on the hour mark, its not Football Manager its real life.
He brought him on just to give him some minutes, he'll no doubt play 90 mins v's Watford.
4 minutes, he touched the ball like 5 times. The only explanation is Ole thought DVB can help us score 3 goals in 4 minutes to win us the game.
Minutes. You said so yourself. 4 minutes. The only explanation is not that DVD can help us score 3 goals in 4 minutes. It would have been to get minutes, try to contribute yes, but also to get an appearance, get exposure to an English Cup semi, to a Manc derby, and to no doubt follow it up tomorrow in the FA Cup.
I don't blame Ole for not giving him marginally more minutes. Bruno is currently one of the best players in world football, Pogba was playing very well, Fred was anchoring and breaking up City attacks very well.
He could have not brought him on at all you know, would that have made you happier?
Instead he got direct exposure to a Cup semi final in England for the first time, involvement in a Manchester Derby. He'll 100% play tomorrow meaning he's been involved in the past 2 games.
Some fans need to get their knickers out of a twist. He's trying to break into one of the best form teams in the country's first team. His time will come tomorrow.
Fred played better than this at Shakhtar
McTominay has rarely played good, only on occasion, but his level isn't that high
Rashford I will give you
Martial, eh, he did okay at first under Solskjaer, 12 in 38, then he had a good run of form, now he's looking awful again
Bruno has played exceptionally well at times but i'd hardly say he's elevated his Sporting form yet
Players have have also regressed, Maguire looked much better at Leicester, AWB at Crystal Palace, De Gea not been great for seasons now
Shakhtar are in Ukraine, which I'm sure you are aware is a massive step down from where he is now.
McTominay (and Fred) were barely even in the first team picture when Ole arrived. They are now firm fixtures in the first team squad - therefore there has been an improvement from them. Surely you're not saying that the McTominay and Fred under Jose were as good as they are now?
Martial had his best ever season's goal tally under Ole. That is a quantifiable fact.
Bruno was arguable either way, but you don't maintain the sort of level he has without being set up to succeed.
I could also add Shaw, and his introduction of Greenwood and Williams to the team from the Academy.
Maguire hasn't regressed, I don't know where that opinion is coming from. His introduction to the team (along with AWB) turned our defence from barely midtable level to the 3rd best in the league. He had a patchy start due to the stuff he went through in Greece as well as little to no preseason, but he has recovered well.
Likewise AWB has improved upon his attacking end product from an admittedly very low base.
DDG has been dodgy for the last couple of seasons but other than that 3rd Leipzig goal, he's been fine this season - pulled off some top saves v Newcastle, PSG, Villa, etc.
I have already said in another thread that I can understand Bailly being rested but could we not have played Tuanzebe alongside Maguire instead, yes I will admit that he really struggled in that game against Istanbul and wonder if that's why Ole didn't give him an opportunity against City.
The worrying thing with using the 2 holding players is there doesn't seem to be any indication that Ole sees a problem and zero solid links to us buying a proper DM which I don't understand when Matic isn't an automatic starter. Initially I thought Caicedo might be a talented prospect but sounds like he is more of a box to box player and the story has gone cold recently anyway.
Axel has barely played this season though. PSG was a one off because both Maguire and Bailly were injured at the same time. He'll get his chance v Watford I'm sure, and then it's up to him if he can have the performances which make Ole sit up and take notice.
That's one way of looking at it, the other is that the summer transfer window is a long way away and we won't know the club's plans until much later in the season. This time last year no one thought that a LB was a priority, or even a month or 2 ago, no one thought RB was a priority for us either. It might also be the case that Ole thinks McTominay can grow further and develop into that player for us. We just don't know. It's not like he hasn't played that system here before, but the issue is, is that with those players we had back then it was a bit of a disjointed structural mess, even if it was entertaining.
That's one way of looking at it, the other is that the summer transfer window is a long way away and we won't know the club's plans until much later in the season. This time last year no one thought that a LB was a priority, or even a month or 2 ago, no one thought RB was a priority for us either. It might also be the case that Ole thinks McTominay can grow further and develop into that player for us. We just don't know. It's not like he hasn't played that system here before, but the issue is, is that with those players we had back then it was a bit of a disjointed structural mess, even if it was entertaining.
Time to stop the myth that he gives youth a chance? He doesn't. Bruno, Rashford, and Martial on the bench. James, Lingard, and Mata from start. Couldn't even get Elanga or Mengi on the bench for this game. He's very afraid of losing. Very.
True, but even the old hands could barely scrape a 1-0 win tonight. Handing the reins to youth players probably would have cost us the match.
with all these players going to shit - he’s done a bloody great job. Win our next game and we are top of the league.
imagine what he could do if he could get players to play well
just to be clear, I’m humouring you.
shit post of the year contender and we are only a few days in.
I might be wrong, but I think it's difficult to throw youngsters in willy nilly this season due to Covid bubbles
Fair point, although these players are good enough to beat Watford so really not an argument if the coaching is spot on, which we know isn't with Ole.. but do you think it would have made a negative difference if Elanga played instead of James?
Look he is meeting standards so there is no issue but I got a question for people here. At what point do you expect big improvements ? Overall the league position looks healthy but we are out of the CL in the group stage and we can’t get past a semi in a cup.
I’m just saying we are favourites to finish 3rd and most likely won’t win anything so while we might get more points when do most people start wanting more ?
I want to point out that I’m not saying get rid or anything I’m just curious as too what people think
I’m just saying we are favourites to finish 3rd and most likely won’t win anything so while we might get more points when do most people start wanting more ?
I want to point out that I’m not saying get rid or anything I’m just curious as too what people think
I think we should go for titles this season. Not buying a 5 season rebuild that people talk about. He is still mainly using players from Mourinhos time anyway and DWB is not even first choice nor is Cavani and Telles.
If we fail in everything we need to consider other options. If we are close, but still fail he might deserve another season to see if we can take the final step under him.
I’m in the same boat but a follow up question would be if we finish 3rd and drop off and end up finishing 15-20 points off the league were would you stand. As my thinking was to give another start to season to see if can start a challenge straight away but then if we do fall behind and sack him we need to get a manager in with no window and need time to bed in.
I see it as top 4 is guaranteed job at United now which I find disappointing but we haven’t sacked a manager unless top 4 is gone seems to be the aim
Maguire, AWB, Cavani, Martial (who was out of favour), Bruno Shaw/ Telles, Fred/ McT (who weren’t starters under Jose).
yeah / looks like a Jose team. You are one of the biggest WUM on here. On par with Glaston and some of the remaining Liverpool posters.
in fact a better way of looking at it, is how many players Jose brought in are still playing?
not many.
Lindelof/ Bailly at CB
Fred - although he barely played under Jose
McT - you can give Jose credit for giving him his debut
Pogba - £90m squad player
That’s about it? How much did he spend? What do we have to show for it 2 years later?
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