The work Ole performed was like ripping off a band aid. Short term it will cause us pain. However it needed doing. Lukaku, Sanchez and Herrera might have ya higher up the table... but at the point where it was impacting our future revenue and transfer kitty.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær needs more time and respect at Manchester United
- Thread starter Rood
- Start date
Yes and maybe end up being relegated. There was no indication that it was impacting our future revenue at all in fact being relegated or not being in Europe will impact our revenues much more than the three players being sold.
No Ole should go and go now as he is incompetent as a manager and a coach for a big club.
That's debatable considering their performances during the time they spent at the club.
Herrera could've had an impact on the midfield, though. Shame he chose to leave when he did.
Fully in agreement. There are hot and cold elements, the run after Olé took over, 4-0 v Chelsea.
Nowhere near enough quality in the squad. Embarrassing how far the club has fallen and how little anyone that can make an impact cares.
We are obviously not being relegated FFS.
he ripped the wrong band aid off and then amputated the wrong limb. It's a hack job.
He got a plastic surgeon to come in and fix our defense when all we needed was a bandaid. Literally any decent right back would have done the trick over Ashley Young. Maguire was similarly a ridiculous spend at 80 million considering what he's bringing to the team at the moment. It's not a slight on him so much as ignoring the big gaping needs in our midfield and attack.
The expectation was set to play the kids. And here we are Gomes, Greenwood and Chong in the U23s, our first team not registering a shot on target AGAIN. He's mucked it up completely. Ed is at fault too but Ole's dug the hole even further.
He is the reason the squad is thin. He severely underestimated how hard it was going to be
FFS, Ole could have bought Tielemans if he wanted but he didn't.
Evans is our reject and is average at best, Soyuncu is also nothing special.
Ayoze Perez is another average player.
The reason this collection of above average players performing is due to Rodger's coaching, if Ole managed them they'd all be in relegation battle.
I dont agree with that at all and gave my reasons above
Lukaku offered some important goals even when the team was shite to be fair.
Well said
It's useless trying to be rational and stating facts. You are spot on. We could have got any of those players but Ole didn't want them.
People don't seem to understand that there is a thing called coaching and that's what make players better and teams better.
All these sorry excuses of thin squad and injuries etc can't be accepted because all teams have injuries. That's why there is a squad. Ole made our squad so thin. Now if we don't beat Norwich tomorrow and Newcastle win we are going to be one place above relegation position. As for some people saying we are not going to get relegated we have no divine right not to be relegated.
I don't think Ole wanted anyone besides what was on his list. He wanted particular players and if they weren't available he didn't want to settle for for a replacement. He alluded to this, Neville alluded to it as well and we all know he wouldn't back a strategy that was forced on the manager by Woodward.
Likewise, if Rodgers were at the helm of Utd, we would certainly be doing better than we are now. I’m not saying we’d be challenging but blimey, we’d certainly be looking more threatening.
Rodgers has done well wherever he’s been and got his teams playing well at Swansea, Liverpool and Celtic, now at Leicester. That’s not fluke.
How does it make sense
?It's getting increasingly difficult to buy any decent player in Europe and it's going to even more difficult to buy players from English clubs who are richer than many other top European clubs. We couldn't buy a guy who played 10 games in the PL this year, we may have lucked out with James this year but it's not going to work out every time.
As for Rogers he lost his CB to US and still he is doing a lot better. It's simply because he is a much better coach than Ole.
Well I have a different view, although I think some of what you say probably is true as well but its all just opinions as none of us actually know whats going on behind the scenes
Yes no other possible reason than that. Results of Premier league football matches are simply about how good the manager is.
If any of our manager's went for any of those players you would be going mad. Hindsight and all
How do you know he could have bought him? Are you involved in United’s business?
They are a good mix though. I’m not talking about players in isolation I’m talking about having a FULL SET of players that fit into one way of playing that is how a team is built. The Leicester team isn’t doing so well just because of coaching it’s also due to sensible recruitment for the style of play they wanted.
Of course coaching is a massive part of it but more importantly it’s having the players that can follow those tactics!
We don’t have the players completely yet and so you can absolutely argue that we could play a different style now but then that stops the long term development.
It takes time to build a title winning squad that can play how we all want and this insta-fix culture is concerning.
We couldn’t have gotten any of them because Ole wasn’t in charge when Leicester’s entire first team was bought... jeez.
I completely understand and appreciate how much of an impact coaching has on players progression but coaches aren’t miracle workers they need the players to be able to physically do the things they want them to and to do that you need XI players ideally working together with the same ideology. We don’t have that squad yet but we are not far off of it.
We could get relegated but does anyone actually believe That will happen?
That’s because he’s got the kind of player into the team over time that he wants.
He’s a very good coach and manager but you give him only 3 signings and players who want to leave and tell him to go get top 4 and he’d struggle. He is benefitting from good previous transfer strategy from Leicester and also the fact he is a great coach but no manager in world football has success without bringing in his type of player. Ole needs time.
Not only that but none of them would have been good here or played to their potential. This club is not set up for players to play well. Even good ones. We could sign Messi and he'd hit 25-30 a season max and disappoint most of the time.
You are forgetting a vital part. They looked very average with Puel in charge and only when they hired a very good manager, they look a completely different team. Our players are similar, they are not as bad as Ole's apologists think. Under a good manager we would look much better as well.
I think you don’t understand what I’d like from a footballer and are being a bit patronising to be honest.
Those players suited Leicester’s style. Our previous recruitment has not suited the desired style and we have changed styles more in the last 5 years than any other PL club I would argue.
That is a big part of our problem! Recruitment and instability.
Tielemans was bought for 40m, I'm sure we could have paid that amount for him but we decided not to, it's basic logic.
Oh another straw man argument about "insta-fix culture", no one here is demanding any instant or magic fix, if playing just competently against average teams in too much for Ole after an year in charge, he has to be kicked out.
As i said they're both underperforming their respective squads. Moyes was 7th when sacked, Ole is 14th. If anything Ole has achieved a further gap to the actual quality of his team.
There's not much logic to thinking Moyes deserved sacking but Ole deserves several more windows. Some strong tinted spectacles there.
Now this is a great response!
Now you are actually looking at coaching impact over transfer strategy and I 100% agree with you that Rodgers is a better coach and better suited the philosophy of play.
But I think where I disagree is that we are in similar circumstances. Leicester under Puel had 3/4 seasons of transfer policy building a new fresher technically and physically able side. Less counter and more control in their game. Puel should have done better with what he had but I think any manager would struggle at United at the moment because of our lack of creativity without Pogba. We need creativity elsewhere and depth!
Leicester have at least Maddison and Tielemans, City have a whole team, Liverpool have Salah and Mane etc all these sides have two or more outstanding outlets that suit their style of play.
We have Pogba and then arguabley Martial as our best threats and both have been out injured for a while and low and behold we’ve struggled without them.
If they were fit and we were in this position I’d 100% say the coaching is at fault here but to take those two out without depth is not solely Ole’s fault.
Lukaku, Herrera etc would not solve that
creative problem but did cause other issues.
Hang on. Our defence was awful last year. He’s done very well to make it up there with the best in the league.
As for not playing enough youth... I’ve never heard a less valid complaint in my life. They are consistently playing.
Well I already told you the logic - you might not agree with it, but thats just your opinion
and anyway Moyes was not sacked in October - if we are still 14th in February then Ole will probably have to go
So because he was £40m we could have bought him? It’s not basic logic you’re making big assumptions about his preferences etc the fact is you can’t say it would be easy to do as he already was at Leicester the year before and so was already fitting into their culture.
It’s not a straw man argument there are plenty of posters and fans wanting everything sorted and attacking football without appreciating how bad the club has been ran recently.
We are not a big club at the moment in
terms of our squad quality and this is not
all on Ole which is what some have suggested. He has tried to recruit well and he has done so with AWB, Maguire and James and I trust him with another window to bring in the right players for attacking football and athleticism in our play. But we need more creativity to go with it.
I genuinely don’t see how another coach would make Fred and Pereira into the creative dynamos we’ve needed against parked buses that we face regularly in the absence of Pogba etc.
Yes, but he's the only one. And by all accounts Ole would've kept him if it was possible. The others who've been let go, permanently or on loan, aren't worth mentioning at all - and are only brought up for agenda purposes, or to moan about the fact that they weren't replaced man-for-man. They were clearly not brilliant players who would have improved us greatly.
Anyway, disregarding his actual managerial prowess for the time being, the alternatives are these:
a) He's just another "4th or bust" manager - and he's horribly naive (at best).
b) He's just another "4th or bust" manager - and he's been horribly let down in terms of short-term recruitment.
c) Short-term recruitment was never an issue. There's actually a long-term plan in place (for a change) - and everyone's fine with sacrificing short-term results.
That defense was second best the previous two years running. Behind Spurs and City respectively, if I remember correctly.
It didn't just become awful because of the defenders. It had much to do with the players ahead of them and the fallout with the manager. Instead of strengthening the midfield, Ole let players go. Because he doesn't know jack squat.
When this new manager comes in and spends all that money on the defense it's because he doesn't know better. Heck, he sent the mainstay in those great defensive years to Roma and kept the CB that was a mainstay in the awful last season.
As for the kids, I was told we would play Greenwood, Gomes and Chong in the Europa League. If they weren't good enough to be starting those games consistently then how on Earth did we go into the season without more senior alternatives to Lingard, Mata and replacements for Sanchez and Rom?
That was the main reason.
Yes if we wanted Tielemans, we definitely 100% could have got him, if you think Tielemans is going to reject us to play for Leicester then you don't think much of our club, also if any top team had intentions to buy Tielemans, he would have rejected Leicester and chose them.
Yes there are a lot of idiots in the forums but you are addressing me so your argument was straw man because you decided that I demand instant results.
I agree that the club is badly run but Woodward has openly stated that he just signs the checks and has no involvement in the football matters and if that wasn't the case and if Ole had any balls, he should have told so immediately, the fact that he hasn't yet done that shows that Ole is the one responsible for our poor squad.
If buying good players will magically get teams attacking better, no team in the world would get into the hassle of getting managers, they'd all appoint DoF and be done with it. If Ole cannot get this squad to play competently, then there is no way he is going to transform us even if we sign the future Messi and Ronaldo.
Oh and any sane manager wouldn't go into a season with such threadbare midfield/attack, any capable manager would have sussed out that our youth players are not up to the mark/not ready yet and would have tried to buy players in the summer window instead of blindly walking into the season unprepared.
when a new manager comes in and spends on defence it’s because he doesn’t know better? What does that even mean.
Gomes and Greenwood are playing Europa League games. They didn’t this time as we had two senior players back from long layoffs who needed bedding in.
Garner and Williams played. Both did well. McTominay also started.
Damn, this post rather eloquently sums up the delusion of anyone still defending Ole.
I'd say all are true to an extent.
It's hard to believe Ole intended to enter his first full season in charge with such a thin squad at his disposal. You get the feeling he was let down by Woodward in a big way. We'll never know if that's true as Ole isn't the type to tell tales in the press. Mourinho, he is not.
The quotes OGS has put out really doesn't help him. If you're going to hype up Greenwood by saying "he's the best finisher at the club" but not play him regularly then don't say it, but then when Greenwood does play, he gets shunted out to the infamous right wing slot whilst 'Rashy' continues to look lost as centre forward.
These alleged stories about Mandzukic actually coming to join us in January doesn't help his case. When we were close to signing him in the last week of the summer window, you could possibly interpret that as "No, Rashy and Anthony will get the goals" and therefore Woodward and the board didn't pursue it further... now these stories are resurfacing again and you could easily say that OGS knew he fecked up and now wants him because those two aren't good enough at the moment.
These alleged stories about Mandzukic actually coming to join us in January doesn't help his case. When we were close to signing him in the last week of the summer window, you could possibly interpret that as "No, Rashy and Anthony will get the goals" and therefore Woodward and the board didn't pursue it further... now these stories are resurfacing again and you could easily say that OGS knew he fecked up and now wants him because those two aren't good enough at the moment.
Maybe maybe not. I'd go with not, personally. Lukaku was hardly a picture of physical fitness during his final season with the club, nor was he banging in the goals.
Although under current circumstances, the injury crisis on top of an already thin squad, he'd be a handy option to have available right now.
That just isn't true. Di Maria divided the forum because he was signed on the back of ONE good season in central midfield, an area that we were looking to address, despite being a world class winger for his entire career. Same thing with Lukaku, most were uncertain with the optimistic ones bringing up his Everton/WBA numbers and not his failure at Chelsea. Falcao was at least 3-4 years too late, was coming off a serious knee injury. In that list, I'd say Depay was the only one considered good and excited the caf when they were signed.
I have low WiFi where I am, but I refreshed redcafe
Can't check the other pages but if I'm not mistaken was he not pivotal versus Palace and West Ham? That's a 6 pointer right there we missed out on this season.