Ole is unhappy that we haven't bought a CM

[Bebestation]

This is not an excuse for Ole because I cba with that anymore but VDB is not a bloody midfielder he is a raumdeuter (however you spell that).

He is an attacking midfielder who is a goalscorer like Thomas Muller. Just because he can play as a CM doesn't mean he is good at it or it is his best position. Muller has also played in midfield but he plays better further up the pitch.


Ole has bought two attacking midfielders. All the deeper midfielders are Mourinho players.

 

[Tony247]

I said earlier on another thread - without a system and well thoughout plan, we are caught into a vicious cycle of always finding at least one position short to compete at highest level.

 

[GaryLifo]

I'm agreed on the Sancho point. If not for the right side of attack then why bother signing him? We've 5 players potentially for the left side now. Sancho, Rashford, Pogba, Martial, Ronaldo. You could probably add Greenwood to that as he's played there too.

When the next manager comes in I hope he goes longer term with

Rashford, Greenwood, Sancho as the first-choice front 3.

I want Pogba to leave no matter who the next manager is and he can take Martial with him.

Not sure how true this wanting a midfielder was, but what is absolutely true is that Ole made the call to keep Donny and told him and his agent he would play a lot more. That's on Ole for sure. How Donny can be worse than the ones we've seen fecking it up all season is beyond me. Give the lad a run of 10 games and tell him he will play every minute barring injury and get his chance.

 

[David De Gea]

I could have sworn not too long ago I was reading comments fro Ole saying he essentially didn't believe in having a dedicated 'DM'. Something along the lines of 'I think back to my day (roll eyes) we had the likes of Roy Keane who could do a job both ways'.

That is not verbatim but it was definitely along the lines that he thinks midfielders should be able to do both well and that having one solely focused on defending wasn't something he belived in. So there, all we need to do is find another Roy Keane and the team will be a great success. That should be easy.

Ah yes a quick google shows this:

https://www.unitedinfocus.com/news/...does-solskjaer-want-at-manchester-united/amp/

Solskjaer said: “We want central midfielders who can play. Today’s football is about he’s a good 6, 8, 10, back in the day (FFS) you had proper midfielders, Roy Keane, Paul Scholes, Bryan Robson.

No problems then, all we need to do is find a couple of Scholes, Keanes or Robsons lying around and then his tactical genius will be clear for all to see.

 

[kafta]

Ole should just resign. The board won't sack him, as he's doing exactly what they care about.

Its so obvious he is out of his depths, and our transfers are the smallest problem here.

 

[RedSky]

United always operated on a transfer/salary budget. That is why I was against us buying Maguire for 80m. It was evident that such a slow and quite frankly poor leader would need a pacey and top quality CB alongside him. That meant that we would have needed another CB ie more money spent ie less money to strengthen other positions. However Ole could have

a- never brought VDB in. Those 40m could have been spent in a DM
b- he could have raised funds by selling the likes of Lingard and Paul Pogba.
c- he could let the likes of Matic, Mata and Grant leave while restraining from signing Heaton. That would have kept the salary bill low enough to maybe squeeze another player in
d- he could have restrained himself from buying Sancho and then spend those 70m on a CM (or two) instead. Greenwood, Elanga, Diallo, Pellistri and Jesse were good enough

a. Agreed. Personally I think we expected Pogba to leave last Summer but we got no buyers and are now in a pickle regarding Pogba and Donny.
b. We'd have sold Pogba for peanuts and nobody wanted Lingard for the price we wanted. So either we sell them for feck all and then everyone complains that we're giving them away or we stick with them.
c. Agreed.
d. 3 of those players combined haven't even got 5 apps for us. Lingard was widely regarded as terrible on here. Sancho was 100% required, he's just had a slow start but when he gets properly going we'll see why he is an important purchase.

If you look at the deals we made this Summer we could very easily have brought in another player as none of the deals were pees paid upfront. They're all paid in relatively small installments meaning that we actually paid feck all this Summer. If that was our budget, then we worked miracles getting all those in.

 

[Revan]

This is the sort of thing that starts coming out when you lose the dressing room. Like Ole could have easily sold Matic/Donny/Lingard/Tuanzebe etc and bought a DM but we’ve hoarded players to such an extent that we have the biggest wage bill in the league again and look directionless. I think player power is a huge factor here this season. The players have stopped playing for every manager post Fergie and I want those players who stopped playing for Jose and Ole out now. I think his hands are tied though to an extent. Reckon Ronaldo was forced on him. We certainly look like we’ve no idea what to do with him anyway.

Players do not stop playing for the manager, it almost never happens. In fact, it does not happen in other professions though.

What happens though is: if there is a manager/group leader who is good at his job and innovative, he will be able to direct his underlings to do top jobs. He will give them good directions, keep them in high spirits (by providing them interesting jobs, being fair and impartial), know what job to give to what employee, and know how to help those who are struggling. Very often, this means that the team will overperform and be greater than the sum of its parts. On the other hand, a not so good manager would give confusing directions, put wrong tasks in the job (in case of football that might mean wrong training/tactics), not be impartial (some players like Maguire for example won't ever get dropped regardless of their performances, some like VDB won't ever start regardless of their performances) and essentially demoralize the team, making the team members not believe in themselves.

So, it is almost guaranteed that this is what it is happening, rather than players suddenly deciding, 'you know what, I decided to not bother today in the pitch, and will just not play good cause I do not like Ole'.

And even in the worst-case scenario when players have really decided to do so, then the real question should be how much is takes to replace those players compared to how much it takes to replace that manager. Let's assume that the cost of those (admittedly great players) is 300m, why should we replace them, take a 300m hit in order to keep an extremely underperforming (and let's face it, utterly clueless) manager in charge, when upgrading him would both cost a fraction of replacing the players, will be a clear upgrade, and will make those players play good, thus better results.

At the end of the day, United is (or at least should be) a football club with the goal of winning, not a religious cult of the manager. If you want a religious figure, and admittedly, many United fans seem to want so, it is probably better to choose Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha et al., rather than MoyesOle, the manager.

 

[Ronaldo's ego]

In the summer everyone was moaning that we hadn't signed a midfielder, now Ole says it we're all bashing him for it? Some double standards here for sure. But anyway, we should be doing better with what we have, even if midfield is an obvious issue.

Ole could’ve done something about it. We can’t.

 

[mu4c_20le]

Not sure why people are bringing up Donny. He's an attacking midfielder who has at times played as a CM, he's got the same weakness' as Pogba in his game just not as good offensively but perhaps a little less lazy at tracking back, he's a backup for both Pogba/Bruno. It's somewhat bizarre given our limited options we haven't given him more of a go mind just to see if he could play CM alongside Fred/McTominay.

Agreed, he is just saying the same thing most fans have said before. But people are seeing red at the moment, and there's nothing he can say that could help his case anyway.

 

[VP89]

This is a contradiction. Why is it then highlighted so many times that Ole has built a great squad if he doesn't decide who we buy? Change the narrative when it suits.

It's not a contradiction. He doesn't dictate how much a player is bought or sold for - that's all I'm saying.

He knows they don't come free and that buying them eats into the overall budget. We bought them all for the going price after all.

He knows the budget, has final say on transfers and I'm assuming he can do basic arithmetic.

If you look at the Pellistri and Diallo deals you'll see they aren't just flat transfer fees. It's the add-ons stipulated clauses that rack up the fee. I think combined up front was something like £20m and I'd struggle to think what defensive midfielder Ole could have brought in for the same amount who would be worth their salt. He likely only knew his budget for that summer, and it's not a case of "I have £50m so I should spend all of it now". There was a portion of last summer's budget that is transferred to this summer (in the form of Sancho).

Anyway, the point I'm making is, he will agree or disagree to certain players but he doesn't decide the fee or the add-ons. These examples are longer term targets that the scouts would had heavy input on when deciding worth. We can blame Ole for 101 things, including VDB, but beating him with a stick for Pellistri and Diallo seems bizarre.

The initial post I replied to implied Ole himself bought the players and its a one man show - it read something like "how much did he spend on Pellistri/Diallo etc." Obviously these players had input from other influential club members too. It's not just Ole storming into Woody's room saying he HAS to get them in.

 

[Sarni]

I'm sure Pep wishes he'd got a CF too. Ditto Tuchel with the CB they didn't get. And I doubt Klopp's dream summer consisted of one CB arriving.

They're still expected to make their teams work to a certain level regardless, because they're supposed to be top level managers who know how to set teams up to maximise their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses.

Exactly. I do understand how our midfield options are not perfect but I don’t buy they are so terrible you can’t make the team work with them. We played far better football with O’Shea and Giggs as our makeshift midfield under Fergie. When you have so much talent and creativity up front all you need is a decently functioning midfield that can do basic short passes and defending.

 

[spiriticon]

I don't think he would be playing as much on the left until Ronaldo came.

That move made Greenwood more of a RW again.

Sancho was probably only going to be a LW until Rashford was back but now Greenwood can't get in as a striker before Ronaldo.

I hope that you are right and it is indeed temporary for my sanity's sake. Paying £70 million for a 3rd, possibly 4th choice left forward instead of a CM leaves my head spinning

 

[Bebestation]

I'm agreed on the Sancho point. If not for the right side of attack then why bother signing him? We've 5 players potentially for the left side now. Sancho, Rashford, Pogba, Martial, Ronaldo. You could probably add Greenwood to that as he's played there too.

When the next manager comes in I hope he goes longer term with

Rashford, Greenwood, Sancho as the first-choice front 3.

I want Pogba to leave no matter who the next manager is and he can take Martial with him.

Not sure how true this wanting a midfielder was, but what is absolutely true is that Ole made the call to keep Donny and told him and his agent he would play a lot more. That's on Ole for sure. How Donny can be worse than the ones we've seen fecking it up all season is beyond me. Give the lad a run of 10 games and tell him he will play every minute barring injury and get his chance.

Ronaldo came after Sancho not before Sancho.

We should have allowed a 36 year old version of Ronaldo.

Kept Sancho the RW version.

After all 95% of the fans begged for Sancho an now people are blaming ole for him like they never asked for it - like they never had any influence on this stuff.

Now they beg for his sacking. Because they know they can make an influence.

 

[::sonny::]

Van de beek

 

[11101]

I'm sorry to say it but feck that.

First it was a centre back he wanted, we got him one of best in the league. He wanted another one, so then we got him one of the best in the world. He wanted a creator, we got him Bruno Fernandes. He wanted a right winger, we got him an 80m wonderkid (who he has since only played on the left, but that's for another thread). He wanted a striker, we got him Cavani. Then we backed it up by signing arguably the greatest striker in history.

We even got him a centre mid, and they're starting to make a dent in the bench they spend so much time on it. We could go and buy Verratti and in 6 months time he'll be leaking to the press how needs a new goalkeeper.

We can assemble the Harlem Globetrotters, none of it will make a difference as long as he is managing them.

 

[James35]

The excuses for him are becoming laughable. He really is getting desperate now.

 

[Bebestation]

My lord Van De Beek is not a Centre Midfielder

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

A central midfielder was more important than Sancho or Ronaldo, and it isn't new to anyone, fans have been calling for a CM for years.

We’ve been calling for a right winger for a decade.

We gave the manager a CM last season and he refuses to use him, despite our performances being utterly horrendous. Now he clearly had Greenwood as he favoured right forward you’d imagine he’d have vetoed Sancho and spunked that 85 million Euros on a top class CM instead.

All that though, would take some actual planning towards a gameplan, something we have clearly lacked for over 3 years.

 

[Greck]

A number of us are also unhappy the manager position wasn't strengthened.

 

[choccy77]

Next Summer,

Pogba Gone
Cavani Gone
Jesse Gone
Ronaldo potentially wants to leave
VDB gone
Matic Gone
Mata Gone
Martial Gone
Jones new Contract

Chances of signing a Top CM slim.

United will be going for an attacker

 

[devilish]

a. Agreed. Personally I think we expected Pogba to leave last Summer but we got no buyers and are now in a pickle regarding Pogba and Donny.
b. We'd have sold Pogba for peanuts and nobody wanted Lingard for the price we wanted. So either we sell them for feck all and then everyone complains that we're giving them away or we stick with them.
c. Agreed.
d. 3 of those players combined haven't even got 5 apps for us. Lingard was widely regarded as terrible on here. Sancho was 100% required, he's just had a slow start but when he gets properly going we'll see why he is an important purchase.

If you look at the deals we made this Summer we could very easily have brought in another player as none of the deals were pees paid upfront. They're all paid in relatively small installments meaning that we actually paid feck all this Summer. If that was our budget, then we worked miracles getting all those in.

A-B we would have sold them for peanuts but there were many CMs available for peanuts as well. Neves, Bissouma and Zakaria were all quoted around the 30m-40m mark
D- Cavani-Ronaldo were going to be our main strikers so we could play Greenwood as RW. Lingard, Diallo and Elanga were good enough for cover. Now we've got 9 wingers ( Martial, Rashford, Elanga, Greenwood, Jesse, Sancho, Pellistri, Diallo, Mata), three EPL level Goalkeepers (DDG, Hendo and Heaton) and just one 33 year old DM. How does that even make sense?

 

[FatTails]

If all we are missing is one CM, we wouldn’t be this bad. Anyone who thinks literally one CM would fix everything that is wrong with this team has probably not watched enough football.

Yes we need a CM, but Ole should’ve prioritized that. Maybe sold Lingard, VDB, and Bailly first who he doesn’t fancy. He’s had many transfer windows now. It also doesn’t excuse stupid decisions like starting Maguire yesterday, or the fact that our attackers shoot as soon as they can see the goal without binoculars. We’re completely devoid of ideas.

This is the issue with our fecking board. I don’t want the war of words, the leaks to the press, and for the fans to start properly turning on Ole. It didn’t happen at Chelsea because they replaced Lampard before it got bad enough. Meanwhile we’re just going to drag it on till there is overwhelming negativity around the club.

 

[Gary_Walsh_Nou_Camp_Hell]

Pretty much everyone on here says our midfield is shit. So strange that people criticise Ole for feeling midfield needed to be strengthened.

 

[macheda14]

Posted this in the Ole thread, but if I knew he wanted Sancho to play on the left mostly, I would have said: 'No, we should go for a CM instead, we have too many players on the left already"

£70 million would have got a pretty good CM.

Ole has been playing Sancho on the left because at the start of the season he was our best option for the left. Greenwood has been good on the right. Now that Rashford is back Sancho will most likely move to the right for most of his appearances.

To start of the season our left wing options have been Sancho or Martial.

 

[E-mal]

He knew how stingy the Glazers are in the transfer market when he agreed to become manager. Can’t turned round and be shocked he hasn’t been backed financially now.

That's falsehood.
No manager in the league has been backed as much as Ole since he took over the reigns.

 

[crossy1686]

Here we go, leaks from both camps in coming weeks. Solskjaers already getting his “I wasn’t backed” excuses out there to save face for his eventual sacking.

This is exactly what happened in Mourinho’s last season.

 

[RedSky]

A-B we would have sold them for peanuts but there were many CMs available for peanuts as well. Neves, Bissouma and Zakaria were all quoted around the 30m-40m mark
D- Cavani-Ronaldo were going to be our main strikers so we could play Greenwood as RW. Lingard, Diallo and Elanga were good enough for cover. Now we've got 9 wingers ( Martial, Rashford, Elanga, Greenwood, Jesse, Sancho, Pellistri, Diallo, Mata) and just one 33 year old DM. How does that even make sense?

Ronaldo happened at the end of the window. We had no intention of signing him until City went for him.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

My lord Van De Beek is not a Centre Midfielder

If he didn’t see him as a midfielder then he clearly saw fecking Pogba as one and spent that money pointlessly on a Bruno understudy.

Which is it??

 

[largelyworried]

If you look at the Pellistri and Diallo deals you'll see they aren't just flat transfer fees. It's the add-ons stipulated clauses that rack up the fee. I think combined up front was something like £20m and I'd struggle to think what defensive midfielder Ole could have brought in for the same amount who would be worth their salt.

You've missed out VDB, who was referred to in the original post. Add in his £35M and we're looking at ~£55M of cost.

 

[Greck]

They’re starting to throw each other under the bus, it’s only a matter of time now. I must say Ole has a cheek, how much did he spend on Amad, DVB and Pellistri??

That's their reward for backing him. Well deserved too. Didn't learn a thing from Jose. There isn't enough money in the world to turn a bad hire good.

 

[redshaw]

I'm disappointed he convinced Donny to come here for 35-40m last year and hardly plays.

Matic isn't getting any younger, Pogba is no good there, Fred and McTom are severely limited so I'm not sure why we're spunking 72 mill on Sancho with essentially no midfield and plenty of attacking options if it's one or the other. I'm sure Sancho will be brilliant in the long term and could help this season starting now with the bigger games coming up with more space but we're hoping McFred will start playing above themselves. We're one injury in midfield to playing any shocking combo over a very average at best combo.

Ole will need to get his coaching hat on and instruct and organize the midfielders better and yes Donny can play really well in midfield, see Leipzig at home or his Ajax Cl games, very good at quick pass and move to avoid the press, we had on the bench a player who could've helped against Leicester's midfield. Fred and McTom don't even start and still nothing and now asking where's my midfielder. Donny should claw his face off.

Not that this matters much as he decides to play Maguire and then bizarrely keeps him on goal after goal. He looked like he was coming off tranquilizers.

 

[largelyworried]

Pretty much everyone on here says our midfield is shit. So strange that people criticise Ole for feeling midfield needed to be strengthened.

Yeah, its shit because he didn't improve it.

 

[InfiniteBoredom]

So he didn’t loan/sell DvB/Martial/James (before Ronaldo)/Lingard, renewed Mata/Bailly, signed Sancho for 70m, and now it’s entirely the club’s fault that he didn’t get a midfielder? Does he think money grows on tree?

 

[Kurton]

It's not a contradiction. He doesn't dictate how much a player is bought or sold for - that's all I'm saying.

But he does decide what type of player the club buys right. Then it's entirely on Ole that we are overloaded in attack and lacking personnel in midfield. Its funny you say Ole doesn't dictate how much club spends in transfers, but surely he must be aware of budget and how much each player costs. Isn't it his responsibility to plan well to have cover for every area, especially seeing as he doesn't do the coaching this should be his main focus then.

The contradiction is because, Ole gets credit for improving the quality of players (by spending huge amount of money of course), but midfield being low on quality is on the club (after several transfer windows).

 

[izec]

I'd sack him on the spot.

He bought a 40m midfielder that doesnt play and spend 110m on right wingers the last 2 years. The money was there, he chose to spend it differently.

What a pathetic loser he is. Learn some coaching, it can help.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Pretty much everyone on here says our midfield is shit. So strange that people criticise Ole for feeling midfield needed to be strengthened.

Ole has spent 125 million euros on DvB and Sancho. I mean, we moaners can’t decide instead to spend that on a midfielder the manager will actually play. If Ole desperately needed a CM to make this incredible squad actually perform his gameplan, why the feck didn’t he prioritise it???
One of the above is either a Bruno understudy or a midfielder the manager thinks is shit, the other looks like he’ll be Rashford’s understudy in a position that’s already stacked.

Pogba has been kept on by Ole for 3 years, as a midfielder, so if he doesn’t rate him? What the feck is he doing?

 

[RedRonaldo]

He has spend 40m and signed one last season, just that he never use him much.

He also has bought Sancho for 75m this summer really unnecessary signing on hindsight, as we already have Rashford on the left and Greenwood on the right, who are much better. He could have spend the money on midfield instead as his top priority

 

[devilish]

Ronaldo happened at the end of the window. We had no intention of signing him until City went for him.

We might have left it late but Ronaldo was Ole's signing. Even if we didn't sign Ronaldo we had enough players on the flanks with or without Sancho. We should have prioritized on a DM instead. Its also silly that we needed to spend 120m on 2 CB just because after spending 80m on Maguire we suddenly fount out that our CBs are far too slow.

 

[sullydnl]

My lord Van De Beek is not a Centre Midfielder

And yet both VDB and Solskjaer have said he can perform as a central midfielder in our team.

Solskjaer: "He [Van de Beek] can play as a 6 with two [double pivot], he can play an 8 as an attacking midfielder, he can play as a 10."

VDB: “It’s really difficult to say because it depends on how you play as a team. I think the way we play for me the best position is as a number 6 or 8.”

 

[Enigma_87]

Not sure why people are bringing up Donny. He's an attacking midfielder who has at times played as a CM, he's got the same weakness' as Pogba in his game just not as good offensively but perhaps a little less lazy at tracking back, he's a backup for both Pogba/Bruno. It's somewhat bizarre given our limited options we haven't given him more of a go mind just to see if he could play CM alongside Fred/McTominay.

In this case why buy him in the first place when you have Pogba and Bruno who also find it hard to play together and on top of that you extend Mata contract on 160k per week..