Interesting take. He's selfish for trying to win us silverware, am I interpreting that correctly?
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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How dare Ole try to win the FA cup. Disgraceful behaviour.
Yeah we do need a trophy. But what for? Arsenal got a trophy and what has it done for them. If we are progressing we are progressing... at the end of the day these are side notes. The aim is the league the mini trophies are just time buyers. What was Klopp’s first trophy?
If you believe you believe.. when I say selfish @Raven I’m talking about playing Rashford with a bad back in the FA cup to try and secure a victory in a what 5th round game against Wolves. Nearly ruined a guys season and for what? Only to rotate a semi final to secure a top 4 spot. It’s all decisions to keep him job as he knew an Fa Cup and no Top 4 might have got him a sack.
If you don’t agree I don’t really care. We need progress not free hits. The aim is the league. The mini cups are nice but over 5 years we have done that. Are we back to being a cup club?
The aim is to go as far in the cups as possible AND to do as well as possible in the league. Once it came down to having to prioritize one over the other, last year, the league was more important for obvious reasons. Without covid and the congested schedule we may not have had to do that.
I don't know why you seem to be suggesting we bin off the FA Cup this season by playing kids when we have a big enough squad at the moment to ensure we progressed and also still be able to put out a strong team in the league.
If you're in a competition you want to win it, surely? Or is that a bad thing now?
You want to win for the joy of winning trophies. That is what the sport is about in my opinion.
Sure avoid relegation and staying in the top 4 is part of football, but every club should want to win things.
Poch famously claimed he didn't care about domestic Cups. Maybe that's it.
Strange given that he didn't win much else. Even if you did win the league you would want more. Treble is legendary for us and a double is great too.
You are totally missing my point. We have a massive squad. So let’s use it. Instead we rotate the squad terribly. I was shocked Maguire didn’t start yesterday.
But back to my point I dnt see why he can’t still embed new youth. I’m not asking for an Aston Villa starting XI but I’m sure a youngster could have got promoted against Watford. Maybe it would have been Pellistri before COVID. However this round wasn’t that important that it needed Rashford and Martial off the bench to try and secure a win.
When did I say there was something wrong with winning. One of my points was what was Klopp’s first trophy. The end goal isn’t the fa cup and league cup.. but every year they seem to play an important role.
I'm not really getting you I'm afraid. Rotation this season has been much better and I had a feeling Maguire would get his long awaited rest. It's just a pity Bailly got taken out by Henderson.
Without having covid, yeah it was younger Pellestri may have been involved. Although I think that would have been if the game was safe but as we were only 1 nil up it was fairly standard to bring on some first teamers.
As it went, we rested our first team and got minutes into our squad players and got the win.
We have one of the youngest if not still the youngest (it was in June) squads in the league with all indications being that Diallo and Pellestri will be integrated in the second half of the season and your criticism is that he's not blooding more youngsters?
I can't agree that that's a valid criticism.
If anything we probably need to buy an experienced player or two to round out the squad.
Absolutely, you try to win them all.
You are being harsh here. Ole started Williams & Greenwood, both are 20 and 19 years old which still considered as youth. There are stages of where you are giving youth chances, some youth are ready while some are not ready, you need to slowly integrate them into first team not just throwing them straight away. Players like Williams, Greenwood, Laird, Garner, Chong & Gomes have trained with first team for ages mean they have learnt more about the tactic and what type of players they are playing with. Elanga and Mengi are still considered newbies, fact is Mengi only just started training with first team end or mid of last season.
In short you can’t be an advocate of promoting youth and be scared to introduce them. That’s a Jose tactic.. hence why he gets his label. Whether it was 1-0 or not he shouldn’t fear brining Pelistri on. Just as an example. Which goes back to what I’m saying.. it’s not long term it’s always about job security.
So if you advocate promoting youth you must do it all the time or risk being called a fraud? You shouldn't prioritize winning a cup match over some ideal a fan on a forum has in his head?
Where does fear come into it? There has to be a balance. You don't throw an untried kid on when you need another goal to be sure of winning a game. That's called desperation.
There is a way to blood young players that gives them the best chance to develop. Pellestri is far from the finished article by all accounts and wasn't even available in any case.
How you can claim this manager is afraid of promoting youth, doesn't do take a long-term view and, also compare him to Mourhino is bizarre in the extreme. You're not making any sense at all. Compare the age profile of Mourinho's PL United squad to the current one. There's a big difference.
Maybe the fear in bringing him on was because other players could catch COVID from him?
TheFA is a historical cup and we should always aim to win that trophy and any other trophies for that matter.
Isn't it point of playing in cups and league to win? If we don't want to win then it is no point to even be in competition. So I expect that we try to win everything we can.
Despite making Klopp like he has dominated and collected league trophies he only have 4 trophies in five years for Liverpool and "only" one league in five years. So if you want to praise a manager for winning league, maybe there should be others then Klopp. Now when you mention Klopp, he surly takes cups serious too when you consider he fields almost his first XI against 16-17 year old kids.
Really? What a wierd thing to say when he couldn't get hand on any trophy during his managment career. He maybe thought he was bigger then what he was and that is why he failed to win anything.
You are really reaching to find something to complain about now that ole is at the top of the table
Yep fear.. fear of selling Lukaku and Sanchez and playing Greenwood instead.
Fear but when Luke Shaw was injured played Williams instead and sold Young.
Fear when we played Chong / Greenwood away to PSG.
I think he said it at one point early on and that Top4 and competing in the CL was the main priority. It may have been prompted by a line of questioning he didn't like after being knocked out of two cups in four days.
This was the line I find hilarious. Can you imagine if Ole said this:
"We are going to create a debate that to win a trophy is going to help the club,” he said. “I don’t agree with that. That only builds your ego."
My post was a little tongue-in-cheek. He clarified later that obviously winning cups is important and that of course, he wanted to add titles to his legacy.
"I know now that talk about ego is a negative expression in England, maybe in other countries we talk about it being more superficial. It’s because, in the past, I’ve been asked if winning a domestic cup will help the club to the next level. Winning a Carabao Cup or FA Cup reaches the next level? I cannot agree. I only wanted to say how well we’ve progressed in recent years.
I want to win cups. I’m not naive. It’s tough for me because, after three or four seasons, we’re always talking about the cup I want to build my CV winning titles, of course. I’m the first who wants to win. I think, in the last five years, we’ve played in four semi-finals and one final. "
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He started Williams, Greenwood and Axel.
The reason why those players you mentioned weren't on the bench is because, right now, they aren't near the first team picture. Neither Elanga or Mengi have really kicked on from last season. The group we have in the reserves right now are at least a year away from being close to the first team because they have only just stepped up after the previous year's group matured and left on loan/permanently.
In fairness I do kind of get what he's saying. Carabao is a meme cup and the FA cup is degraded by the Carabao's existence in my opinion - think how much more value there would be in the FA cup if the Carabao didn't exist. There would be one domestic cup, one league title and then Europe. I think Ole's approach to Watford was bang on whereas, aside from beating City, there was no incentive for me personally in the semi and I wish we'd rested some players - he could have essentially created his own mini winter break for players like Bruno, Rashford, Maguire who play too many minutes by resting them between Villa & tomorrow.
United's goals every season are to finish as high as possible in the league, with top four generally seen as the minimum requirement, and to go as far as possible in the CL. Of course we don't throw domestic cup games but, in reality, the Carabao means very little (both financially & in terms of prestige) and whilst the FA cup is an historic cup it is still a minor trophy and vastly less important then finishing top four. This is purely down to how lucrative the CL has become, despite many of us having fond memories of the FA cup.
Time will tell if there will be a knock on effect from fielding a full strength squad versus City - it seems like Pogba, Shaw and Lindelof picked up niggles (assume with Lindelof it's his back again) but let's hope the first two in particular are fit for Pool. Hopefully we can get by without them for Burnley.
There have been improvements across the board. You don't go from 6th to 3rd in one season and then on to currently 2nd without there being improvements made, no matter which way you splice it (even if you take into account the points position - we've currently amassed half of our total points tally from last season in 16 games and are currently 9 points ahead of where we were this time last season).
If you're question is when should we expect a proper title challenge, then that would be when we've bought at least 2 (probably 3) of the following: a DM, CB, RW, and Striker. Get those players in and we'll see where we are and how far Ole takes us. That has always been my thought with Ole, and as long as he attains Top 4 in the interim while those players aren't here, then there should be no threats to his job.
Are you just going to ignore that he's starting and building around the players Jose didn't actually want and in some cases was trying to sell? Pogba, Martial, Fred, Rashford, Scott, Shaw (though I will concede Jose liked him but never saw him beyond a squad player). All players who were often conspicuous in their absence at various points under Jose.
Ole has done remarkably well to instigate a rebuild by buying well when needed and making the most of the talent that was already at the club who never really got their chance under the previous management.
For you to highlight it as a negative tells me all I need to about you and your thoughts re Ole.
Is there any surprise when half of our fan base seem to want him sacked, sometimes even after a win?
And those fans would have been the first to complain had he thrown in a load of young players to get beat by Watford.
Comparing him to Jose is disingenuous. The way they work is world's apart.
So very true. But, there is really no point in arguing with some people on Caf. Your best friend is nice little ignore button.
Consistency is the key. If someone’s opinion isn’t consistent then you have a point. People don’t need to disagree but you should never disregard someone’s point if they don’t agree with you. Which is the main problem with the caf these days. Everyone’s too touchy about their opinions.
So you're saying people shouldn't change their opinion? When talking about football of all things?
Owning up when you've got something wrong is a strength, it helps people grow. It's very counter-productive to stick to your guns no matter what.
Very true but there should always be evidence. Saying someone is crap after watching them for 5 minutes then after they score saying they look amazing. I wouldn’t generally trust those types of opinions. We are all entitled to our opinion and the right to change it if we choose too.
I tend to trust those who don’t switch so quickly as it normally comes with a great amount of thought.
Quality control
Unorganised football , no tactics , no experience , dead wood in bench . Seems to makes substitutes before the game even played , Ole is out of his league even him knows this. No big team can employ someone like Ole, with that cv he have or what he done at United.
What a ridiculous claim to place against Ole. Of all managers, he has consistently shown that he has the long term future of the club at heart.
He's released many experienced players and has placed faith in building the team around youth, to the extent that he ended up going into last season with a squad that was pitifully short of the standards required for a top EPL team. He took massive flak for the performances when the club failed to sign Bruno and he was stuck with Lingard and Pereira as his only options at #10. He didn't panic buy someone else. He waited until January to get the right player.
He replaced Valencia, Young and Smalling with Wan Bissaka, Williams and Maguire. He replaced Sanchez and Lukaku with Dan James and Greenwood. He's brought McTominay and Fred into key midfield roles and built the attack around Rashford and Martial, who were bit part players under Jose. His whole squad rebuild is about taking a long term view.
At this stage of the club's development, winning a trophy is vitally important. The team has shown they can beat top teams, beat lesser teams, go on long winning runs, secure comeback wins but what they really need to show is that they can get a win in a key game when trophies are on the line. That is part of the development of young players and a young team and helps to build confidence and winning mentality in the group.
Throwing youngsters into an FA Cup game for a one off appearance is of no tangible benefit if it's not part of a long term plan to get those players in the first team. Just look at all of those blooded by LVG and where they are now. It was a worthless approach and had no long term benefits for those players.
A little past your bedtime, no?
I think this FA cup tie gives us another interesting perspective. If the team can best Liverpool I think that's a big question asked about us against the big boys this season. Given the calamity of City / Liverpool's form over the season I still think we need to end this year with some silverware. People can call it mickey mouse cup and meaningless but at the end of the day the only criteria to judge a manager at the TOP is the trophies obtained throughout the course of their tenure.
Three days without a win now, the PE teacher obviously has no idea what he's doing, any bigger club would have sacked him already.
Your very much right and wrong all at the sametime. It’s quite amazing. A lot of your points need fact checking though. But I’ll leave with one. Did he decide to go into a season short handed to give youth and his squad a try or was he just let down by the board? James Maddison was also our number 1 midfielder target there was also Sean Longstaff too. I don’t recall it being Bruno or no one. But maybe I just read things differently to you.
I honestly have no idea, but I take what I think is your implied point that the ship of Dan James has crashed into rocks and is sinking quickly.
I could be wrong, but I think James was Ole’s first signing, so I completely understand Ole sticking with him this long. But it’s just not happening. I hope we get to see youth players over the next few months, but if we do remain in the title chase we’d probably all agree that the time for bedding in youth players will have to be postponed.
I genuinely wonder how the forum reacts if Ole wins the premier league.
I can imagine some users say “thanks for the title but time to go Ole”
I can imagine some users say “thanks for the title but time to go Ole”
It's amazing how we now have a fourth groupSaid nobody this week but you
- Ole out
- Ole in
- Ole inbetweeners
- Ole in who behaves like an Ole out even before Ole outs say anything, camouflaging and waiting for a chance to pounce
In all seriousness mate, you have absolutely zero idea of what Carrick does on a daily basis, what Fletcher does, what style of coach either of them is, how many of each of their styles of coach a professional club needs let alone how many would quantify as “saturation”. It’s really odd that you even pretend that you do.
Honestly say it to yourself a few more times and have a think about what you’re implying, both the inside knowledge that you would somehow have to make that judgement on two backroom staff and the level of knowledge you would need on the club’s coaching setup, the makeup of the squad and how it’s distributed, even professional coaching in general.
“Oversaturated” give me a fecking break.
Yet you know enough on me not knowing enough to be confident that I’m wrong but your right to defend against me because?.........
Yes. I’ve seen your posts here over the last decade. You know very little about anything.
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