Ole Gunnar Solskjaer | W15 D2 L4

[TMDaines]

I thought after PSG, United would do enough to see Ole be confirmed in the permanent job headed into the international break, but I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see the club take a deep breath now. As the underlying metrics had been suggesting, results were flattering us and we’ve now only won four of the last eight.

I love Ole and have loved the run, but the honeymoon is over and there is no harm in waiting for a bigger sample size before making a hasty decision. Last thing I’d want is for us to commit and it continues to peter out or goes tits up, when there is no reason not to wait. It’s one thing to make the announcement when it is the worst kept secret in football and is becoming a distraction, but Solskjaer becoming our permanent manager sadly shouldn’t be an inevitability right now. Things need to pick up again. We can’t dine out on mugging PSG off. The standard at United is to challenge at the highest level. Ole now has until the end of the season to prove he can do that, not just over 15 games when the cloud was lifted and things are breaking our way, but over a longer period when the novelty has worn off.

Feel free to call me kneejerk or entitled, but we shouldn’t suddenly swing into allowing the club to be ruled by sentiment as a reaction to the prior management appointments.

 

[Fracture90]

I agree. But I also think the psychological boost masked the faults in the team. Mourinho was pretty diabolical near the end, but the players got off scot free when Ole came in. In reality, the players were shite for a while before Ole came in and it wasn't just down to the manager. We're not good enough.

Another important summer coming up and I can't say I'm confident we'll address our faults significantly.

Yeah, there are some burning issues in the team no matter who's the manager, ie RW position. What surprised me the most was absence of youth attackers in Chong, Greenwood and Gomez, we had no options on the bench really.

 

[rcoobc]

Despite results going in our favour, I feel that the football is on a constant decline for a while now. Honeymoon is over, Ole needs to step up.

I love oli an absolute club legend he’s come and lifted the team but he’s out his depth the honey moon period is now over god knows where we go from here,I cannot see us finishing in the top 4 and definitely not progressing in the champions league.

He's has a bit of a mare tonight to be honest.

Reactionaries

 

[Casanova85]

I hope the PSG game has not drained the squad. 2 consecutive loses after Paris can't be a coincidence.

 

[Amadaeus]

This is exactly what my assessment was about. No doubt that Wolves is a tough team, but can we really say that Ole is as tactically competent as the other proven managerial candidate?

I want United to have a manager where we can go to a top team and take control of the game, rather than putting an emphasis on a tactical approach of letting our players enjoy our football. I still don’t understand what our philosophy is under Ole. It seems it changes with who our opponent is. Tuchel outplayed us, but we won, Pochettino outplayed us, but we won. What I am getting at is, our football needs to improve from a philosophical perspective where we are the team that dominate all aspect of the game. Although, we did this early against the weaker team, but it seems our football has been on a decline since then. This will be another test on Ole, towards how he will get us at the level where we were when we were at our honeymoon period.

 

[All 3 United]

Everything to do with tactics has looked utter dross tonight. Set plays are also utter dross. Over reliance on youngsters/homegrown below standard (lingard) players is costing him big time.

Subs, tactics and over playing players all very naive/poor.

Sorry but this is why we need to wait until the summer. There is a reason he’s been at molde for so long.

 

[sect2k]

Disappointing today, looked devoid of ideas, wrong subs, wrong time, seemed resigned to loosing. This was his chance to show he can pick the team up after an unfortunate loss against Arsenal, unfortunately he stumbled. Hope he learns his lesson here.

 

[Kostov]

Too nice for his own good this is turning out to be. He's being let down by players and he continues to blow smoke up their ass. Lingard absolute garbage today and he keeps him on till the 86th minute.

 

[Ban]

Honestly, I'm wrong to say it's all been bad as it hasn't. It's just, to me, we haven't played anywhere near as well in any game as his first 3 and it's a little worrying.

still love him, still would be fine with him getting the job, but I'm just calling it how I personally see it. Fair enough if you disagree.

Up until all the injuries it was all right if not very good. 2 defeats on the trot though we need to step up, that's for sure.

 

[pascell]

Got pelters on here last week saying the Arsenal result raised question marks about Ole for me. I'm not 100% convinced how tactically astute he is, teams have countered our tactics far too easily at times without a reply from our end. Tonight we've been played to perfection by Wolves, they've allowed us to have the ball as much as we want, whilst they've sat back and we've not had any answer to it whatsoever.

Against Arsenal they deployed Monreal as a CB to counter Dalot as a RW, meaning our right hand side was completely nullified, same again tonight. Our right hand side is absolutely shocking, I cannot believe we've ignored it for so many years.

 

[passing-wind]

It's

Bar 3 games? That's a complete exaggeration.

It's not an exaggeration, the football we have played has been poor at times its the individual quality of the team that has scraped us results.

After all the games solskjaer has managed, we are a better team off the ball than in possession. I can't see any patterns of play, coaching implementation etc to say we are a good footballing side.

I said after the PSG home leg that the result was significant because it gives a blueprint into how to play against this team.

 

[Fracture90]

I love Ole, but decision on whether he gets the job or not should not be made before the end of the season.

 

[Catt]

Both the club and the fans are in for a rude awakening next season. I've very carefully expressed my concern before with regards to his tactics and if that is good enough.

We need investment but also a manager with a very clear vision of how to play.

 

[Fracture90]

Reactionaries

Delusional.

 

[Triple.Threat]

Twice in one week, we didn't have answers to teams who are playing 3-5-2

 

[Catt]

I love Ole, but decision in whether he gets the job or not should not be made before the end of the season.

And that's why it's very sensible of the club not to jump the gun.

 

[Bastian]

Reactionaries

Reactionaries? As in reacting to what we're all seeing? Let's be honest, we were super lucky against PSG. We did OK against Arsenal but were pretty woeful in front of goal. And tonight we simply did not show up, like many many times this season pre Ole appointment.

Also, Ole did not manage to change things tonight to figure out a way to better counter their game plan.

Surely we can speak about how things are without being knee jerking.

 

[el3mel]

Is this the first time we have seen this kind of performance ? I mean we can blame Ole for late subs, I do, but let's check from last season only :

Huddersfield away, lost 0-2.
Newcastle away, lost 0-1
Brighton away, lost 0-1
Bristol away, lost 1-2
WBA home, lost 0-1
Southampton home, draw 0-0
Burnley home, draw 2-2 after getting down 0-2. (Similar to Burnley game this season under Ole as well)

Any link ?

Isn't this exactly the same performance as these games too ? The same lackluster attitude, with no urgency and playing as if we're winning anyway ?

The arrogance of our team is absolute trash.

In certain games like these we enter them acting like we have the God-given right to win anyway, that we can put any kind of trash performance without much efforts and we'll still win, till we're shocked with being down.

Ironically these games always, always tend to come after big performance like PSG this season or defeating City 3-2 last season. It's like the arrogance gets to the players more and more.

Our attitude is absolute trash. We're very arrogant as a team, arrogant for nothing. I don't think Ole didn't give them a go at the break, but he needs to do it more.

The players need to understand they don't have the right to win without putting fecking efforts.

As for Ole, he also needs to sort out his late subs, as it's starting to get on my nerve.

 

[Wilt]

I love Ole, but decision in whether he gets the job or not should not be made before the end of the season.

Agreed, let’s see where we are at the end of the season.

 

[Bojan11]

Not much we can do when Lukaku and Sanchez are injured.

The isssue I have is these two will be starting again next season and we’d have the same problems.

 

[dove]

No manager can do anything when half you team perform like ours have tonight

Pogba,shaw,martial,rashford,lingard,lindelof and Herrera have been utterly shit

The rest have just been shit

You can at least try something using subs. Today, like pretty much always I thought Ole made subs way too late.

 

[Fracture90]

And that's why it's very sensible of the club not to jump the gun.

Yeah, thus far they did good in not jumping the gun on it, aftermath of the PSG game was a huge test.

 

[V.O.]

Looked like an issue of fatigue more than anything else to me. With the run of games we've had and the sheer number of injuries, I think a game like this was probably about due in hindsight. All this while trying to implement a much higher intensity style of football in the middle of a season as well.

Hoping the international break does us some good.

 

[JustinC00]

He needs to come to the realization over the break that Matic should not be starting

 

[Cloud7]

I don’t want to get too hasty, but it is a little bit concerning that for the past two games, one against a top 4 rival and the other a cup quarter final, pretty much the entire team has looked below par. Can’t say why, but hopefully this is the end of it and the team puts in a performance in our next game. The injuries certainly haven’t helped either.

 

[Stepney73]

This is why it would have been silly to appoint ole after the Spurs,Arsenal,Chelsea or PSG results having said that its the same to say he isn't good enough after results like tonight.

Make the decision at the end of the the season.

 

[Minimalist]

at morons who think 'tactics' had anything to do with us losing against Arsenal and tonight.

We lost at Arsenal because our strikers couldn't put the fecking ball in the net despite dominating the play. We lost tonight because our attitude stunk and we produced feck all quality.

Ole is 100% responsible for results - that's the same for all managers in the game but let's see how things go before we start pretending we're experts in football tactics.

 

[abailey123]

This is now Ole’s biggest test and I think the international break has come at the right time.

Wolves set up perfectly tonight, compact and broke on the counter but we just tried to play in front of them all night.

There was a bit of ring rust in that performance from the likes of Herrera and Lingard and Martial blew cold all night, the press wasn’t there also.

Still, in Ole I trust. We were poor tonight but it’s a process. Ole will work his backside off to get us back on track. It’s a learning curve for him aswell.

 

[Hernandez - BFA]

Honeymoon is over. Time to show his worth because today we were abysmal.

I’ve said it before - he makes changes far too late. We were being dominated in the midfield in the second half in particular, and we had an invisible Lingard and an ineffective Martial wasting away a position. Take one of them off and bring a midfielder on to get control again. But no, let’s wait till they score until we make a sub.

I’ve been behind him all the way and I still am, but I’ve said that we should hold on from pressing the “hire” button until we hit a rock. We’ve hit it. People might say “it’s only two games”, but at this stage of the season two games can kill or end your season. Another PL loss and we’re done for top 4.

 

[Yagami]

Up until all the injuries it was all right if not very good. 2 defeats on the trot though we need to step up, that's for sure.

to me,even before the injuries, our football was reverting back to the dull stuff we were witnessing beforehand. Our defence, for some reason, went back to constantly passing it sideways and dilly-dallying instead of those fast, carrick-esque passes between the lines they were doing in his first games which went a long way in rejuvenating our football.

 

[mancan92]

That was awful today. Why werent him and the staff able to get a performance out of any of the players ? Such a big game after a poor result at arsenal surely you would expect the players to put everything into today.

 

[Damien]

His biggest mistake is that the players coming back from injury have just strolled back into the starting 11.They look out of form because they haven't had a chance to work they way back to form.

I don't think there was much option with the front three as Lukaku picked up an injury and Dalot was moved to rightback due to Young's suspension. As for the midfield it probably would have been better to start two of Fred, McTominay and Andreas instead of Herrera and Matic. Four non-match fit players was probably too much.

 

[BlueHaze]

Both the club and the fans are in for a rude awakening next season. I've very carefully expressed my concern before with regards to his tactics and if that is good enough.

We need investment but also a manager with a very clear vision of how to play.

But that's the thing, what manager is currently available? Zidane is now not an option anymore and Poch has a lot of question marks around him on his own. I sincerely hope things doesn't start to go to hell now for Ole because I'd much rather have him.

 

[Raw]

This is why it would have been silly to appoint ole after the Spurs,Arsenal,Chelsea or PSG results having said that its the same to say he isn't good enough after results like tonight.

Make the decision at the end of the the season.

Definitely.

I had a feeling we'd announce it during the international break since we'd be away from club football for a while, but after 2 losses in a row I doubt it.

 

[Fracture90]

Both the club and the fans are in for a rude awakening next season. I've very carefully expressed my concern before with regards to his tactics and if that is good enough.

We need investment but also a manager with a very clear vision of how to play.

This. I feel like we're far too pragmatic as of late, at first I thought it was down to fatigue but I'm not so sure now.

 

[Amir]

His biggest mistake is that the players coming back from injury have just strolled back into the starting 11.They look out of form because they haven't had a chance to work they way back to form.

Agreed, should have eased them back.

Kind of reminds me of late 2002, when we had a few injuries but our makeshift side - Fortune and then Phil Neville in midfield, etc - managed a string of big wins. Then the big guns came back - Rio, Keane, Beckham - and suddenly we lost two in a row.

 

[Judas]

I think we'll see a few more games like tonight before the end of the season honestly, and it's not totally Ole's fault. We've got a poor squad, and its looking tired. So many "big" games left, I don't see how we'll cope.

 

[Catt]

But that's the thing, what manager is currently available? Zidane is now not an option anymore and Poch has a lot of question marks around him on his own. I sincerely hope things doesn't start to go to hell now for Ole because I'd much rather have him.

Really don't know who the alternatives are but hopefully the club has done their job here and not let feelings dictate.

 

[2 man midfield]

I don’t want to get too hasty, but it is a little bit concerning that for the past two games, one against a top 4 rival and the other a cup quarter final, pretty much the entire team has looked below par. Can’t say why, but hopefully this is the end of it and the team puts in a performance in our next game. The injuries certainly haven’t helped either.

They look fecking knackered. They’ve been run into the ground and most of them are injured or lacking fitness as a result.

That said, the fitness will come. He’ll add to the squad and we’ll be in much better shape next season.

 

[Dec9003]

We lost today because we didn't put all our effort into the match, nothing to do with Ole or the 'tactics'
We'd be silly not to keep Ole on after the end of the season, Iregardless of tonight's results.

 

[SiamDevil]

Must take some of the blame today. Started Lingard (edited: and Herrera) immediately after he’s back from injury, no change in tactics throughout the game and selected a shite bench.