Ole is unhappy that we haven't bought a CM

MackRobinson

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Yeah, this is on him. He's had multiple windows to address this. I honestly didn't think United needed Sancho but it's still early. In hindsight, I would take Rice over Sancho for United.
 

tomaldinho1

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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.
Fair, I was just responding to the post re Ole not deciding player prices. I personally want more younger signings in their early twenties - I don't like the direction we've taken (which seems to happen under every manager) where you start out going for young hungry players and then just give up. Our last window was Ronaldo (36), Varane (28), Sancho (21) & then Cavani (34), VdB (24), Telles (28)...VdB doesn't play so the only younger signing is a £73m Sancho who looks lost in our system.

Right. You do know the hyped up version of VDB was once he started moving up the pitch? He wasn't that good when he was playing that deep for ajax. Literally his goals in the CL shows what a raumdeuter is and your sitting their talking about football manager.
This genuinely made me :lol:
This was the season the hype started: Tactical Analysis: Ajax's midfield sensation Donny van de Beek (totalfootballanalysis.com)
 

Berbaclass

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I don't know about that but what VDB is does that he finds free space and scores.

We saw this vs Crystal Palace on his debut when he played exactly like that. Ever since that he has playing deeper and deeper and not scoring a single goal.
I'm not disputing that VDB is better in a more offensive position.

Bruno Fernandes biggest strength IMO is his ability to make key passes and break lines. His defensive work rate is also excellent and I think he would be very good in a box-to-box type role in front of a proper defensive midfielder in a 4-3-3.

Like any good 'offensive' midfielder he also has a goal in him, which doesn't make him a goalscorer but is nice to have.
 

Levenstein

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Neither of those statements are true. Sancho can play on the right but you can't say he's better there. He was arguably better on the left for Dortmund and Fred can't play the 8 position as his passing isn't good enough. We see how poor he is there when partnered with Matic.
You might me right about Sancho. Still I think Rashford is better on the left and Sancho is better winger than Greenwood and he should play on the right. I can be wrong, but I would like to see.

About Fred - pairing with Matic haven’t been very good, true. But he needs to play higher so we can get best out of him - pressing and harrashing opponents early.

Pogba - Matic - Bruno is too unbalanced
I think one of Bruno or Pogba has to sit out.
 

Enigma_87

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Our scouts identified him as a Pogba replacement, Real Madrid went in for him so we moved on him. Hindsight, we probably shouldn't have got him, but lets see what he can do when Pogba leaves in the Summer (let's be honest, no chance he's staying, right?). That opens the door up for DvB in the squad and means we can focus our attention elswhere, i.e. buying a fecking midfield.

If we look at that whole window it was a bit shite. It was a medium/long term investments all because we didnt land Sancho when we wanted too. If we had signed Sancho that Summer then the money we paid for Sancho this Summer would have gone into a midfielder. Still, Diallo, DvB and Pellestri all might end up being decent purchases in another year or so.
I'm not sure even Pogba knows his best position as he has been playing all over the midfield including left wing.

As for Donny - he's #8 from what I've seen of him at Ajax and what is IMO his best position, not AM. He played as #6 numerous times and as far as I can remember even in the EL final against us when he was subbed on from the bench.

Regardless, doesn't make sense to buy him as a #10 when you currently have 2 #10s that are better than him and then also Mata on extended contract. It's either not buy him or we bought him to play in numerous positions and mainly not as #10.

Either way the CM problem is entirely down to Ole so no excuses there. When you spent half a billion and you have 3.5 years already on helm, there's absolutely no chance you can cry wolf you don't have a certain position filled.

When you can't get a Rolls Royce you either buy a Toyota or walk - either way it's your decision.
 

FootballHQ

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Who did OGS actually want? It's o.k him moaning but if he's going after unrealistic targets like Rice and Bellingham that's difficult for club to pull off considering who else you signed this summer.

Does seem he's consulted the Mourinho manifesto of how to deflect blame in last few months of reign before being sacked and is using this to save his image a bit.
 

Revan

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We clearly needed better CB's and quality CB's are not cheap. Maguire was over priced, everyone knew that but he was an upgrade on what we had and has done well with the exception of a few small dodgy spells. How much would you want to spend on two CB's? 40m? 60m? 80m? 100m? Who would they be? Our defensive recruitment has been brilliant, the lack of clean sheets is due to the midfield protection and coaching. Personally we struggle with the very basics at times, so to me the issue is clearly coaching and bringing in new coaches will make our defense much better.
Dortmund bought Hummels (better than Magure) for 33 million pounds, City bought Dias (better than Maguire) for 60m. So, here are two CBs who cost less than him and who are both better.

80m in Maguire is uninspiring at best, 50m in AWB is lunacity, 15m in Telles is probably ok (backup). 45m or so in Varane is great, no doubt there. However, I wouldn't call the entire defensive recruiment brilliant in any shape or form.

We didn't have enough players on the flank at all. You literally named 3 kids an 1 player the entire forum complained about for years. Our wide senior options are: Rashford, Martial, Greenwood, Pogba, Lingard
Why five senior players and three talented kids (Diallo, Pellestri and Elanga) are not enough for two positions?

Recruitment under Ole has been excellent, James who was deemed a bad signing was even sold for a profit. DvB is the only other signing I would question right now. I will say that we should have brought in a proper DM last Summer and if that meant missing out on Pellestri/DvB/Diallo then we really should have just done that. It's not an excuse for Ole though, we have the players in the squad to be doing much better and our defensive organisation in particular this season has been abysmal.
The only excellent signings Ole has done are Bruno and Varane (the second one was obvious). Ronaldo will be too if Ole knows how to play him. The others have all massive question marks (overpriced Maguire), has no clue what to do with him (VDB), no clue what to do with him and probably not needed (Sancho), bd player (AWB). Oh well, Cavani is a decent backup and Telles is an okay one.
 

Random Task

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There weren't enough Ole bashing threads, so you had to go and create another one? Oh well, that's the United forum these days I guess.

And Ole is right for what it's worth. We should have signed a midfielder in the summer, and I'm sure he would have made it happen if he had more direct control in transfer negotiations, rather than being just another member of the transfer committee.
 

devilish

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We clearly needed better CB's and quality CB's are not cheap. Maguire was over priced, everyone knew that but he was an upgrade on what we had and has done well with the exception of a few small dodgy spells. How much would you want to spend on two CB's? 40m? 60m? 80m? 100m? Who would they be? Our defensive recruitment has been brilliant, the lack of clean sheets is due to the midfield protection and coaching. Personally we struggle with the very basics at times, so to me the issue is clearly coaching and bringing in new coaches will make our defense much better.

We didn't have enough players on the flank at all. You literally named 3 kids an 1 player the entire forum complained about for years. Our wide senior options are: Rashford, Martial, Greenwood, Pogba, Lingard

Martials been shite for almost 14months now, Lingard was deemed shit and struggled here, the other three are decent options but you can't have three for the entire season. Sancho is a great option to bring in. Why are we even debating this? It's clear we needed more goals/creativity from wide and we've sorted that with Sancho.

Recruitment under Ole has been excellent, James who was deemed a bad signing was even sold for a profit. DvB is the only other signing I would question right now. I will say that we should have brought in a proper DM last Summer and if that meant missing out on Pellestri/DvB/Diallo then we really should have just done that. It's not an excuse for Ole though, we have the players in the squad to be doing much better and our defensive organisation in particular this season has been abysmal.
Few small dodgy spells? The guy makes at least 1 big mistake per game. He's also painfully slow which meant that once we bought him up we had no choice but to bring in a top quality pacey CB to do the running and the thinking for him. I lost count of how many Serie A fans I know who had taken the mick out of us for spending 80m on such an average CB. As said we spent 120m on 2 CBs and yet we still depend on McFred in midfield. That 7 defensive minded players out of 11.

Also what's the point of producing and buying top young talent if we keep on handling contracts to the likes of Mata and Jesse while buying the likes of Sancho? We keep talking about the United way and yet Ole's solution to every problem is to throw money at it.
 

Random Task

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Who did OGS actually want? It's o.k him moaning but if he's going after unrealistic targets like Rice and Bellingham that's difficult for club to pull off considering who else you signed this summer.

Does seem he's consulted the Mourinho manifesto of how to deflect blame in last few months of reign before being sacked and is using this to save his image a bit.
Ole doesn't decide which players are signed and which are not. His only input in proceedings is to discuss his preferred targets with the transfer committee. Ditto for Jose.
 

Crimson King

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You might me right about Sancho. Still I think Rashford is better on the left and Sancho is better winger than Greenwood and he should play on the right. I can be wrong, but I would like to see.

About Fred - pairing with Matic haven’t been very good, true. But he needs to play higher so we can get best out of him - pressing and harrashing opponents early.

Pogba - Matic - Bruno is too unbalanced
I think one of Bruno or Pogba has to sit out.
Pogba shouldn't be starting any games whilst his contract is running out, same with Lingard. They should have been sold before reaching this point.

They're both obviously vying for a big bosman move, especially Pogba.
 

spiriticon

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So the cafe is now pretending it didn't want Sancho?
The caf wanted Sancho to play on the right. If he doesn't play on the right, it's pointless.

I know Greenwood is playing well, but Sancho needs time to find his feet on the right too and create a connection with AWB. I pray that is going to happen now that Rashford is back.
 

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Who did OGS actually want? It's o.k him moaning but if he's going after unrealistic targets like Rice and Bellingham that's difficult for club to pull off considering who else you signed this summer.

Does seem he's consulted the Mourinho manifesto of how to deflect blame in last few months of reign before being sacked and is using this to save his image a bit.
Seems so. The main difference is that Mourinho had an image (albeit a flawed one) and he was always going to get second-tier jobs. Ole on the other hand, doesn't have much, so I think this is him more being frustrated and desperate, rather than really deflecting blame so he can get something in the future.
 
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Given that rebuilding the squad was his biggest success, I'm not sure your claim really does him any favours.
In modern football the coach will identify what players he wants moving on and what areas of the pitch need strengthening - then the DoF goes and does the business. O
Because he didn't feel it needed to be strengthened enough to actually do it. He's grasping at fecking straws leaking this sort of tripe, it's pathetic.

Keeping VdB and Martial and Lingard and Mata around to prop up the subs bench was more important to Ole than scouring Europe for a good midfielder to sign. And there's no shortage of promising midfielders out there.
Non of us have the slightest clue what discussions Ole and the club had about the comings and goings, or how the decisions are made.
 

devilish

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So the cafe is now pretending it didn't want Sancho?
Fans wanted Sancho as they wanted every single top player there was/is around. Its up to the manager to prioritize his targets. Problems aren't always solved by opening the cheque book else Ole would have remained at Molde while we would have been busy winning trophies with the likes of Batistuta or Vieri upfront.
 

LARulz

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Pathetic from Ole if true. Do we need a midfielder? Of course. But to say that is the reason we have no idea how to play football and win games is a joke. The guy has had 3 years and implemented nothing except good vibes for a bit

All teams are lacking in parts but they make up for it but everyone having a clear idea of their job and what needs to be done. Our players seem to just be told to just hope for the best
 

Skills

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Ole doesn't decide which players are signed and which are not. His only input in proceedings is to discuss his preferred targets with the transfer committee. Ditto for Jose.
So what does OGS actually do? Genuine question. He doesn't coach - because that's someone else's fault, but that was okay because he was overhauling the squad. But now his input in the signings we are making is also minimal?

What are we paying him to do?
 

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I’m sure he would but it comes back to the same thing - Klopp didn’t get the players he wanted, nor Pep. But they still get a tune out of the players they have.

Plus it’s a bit like when Jose was moaning he didn’t get a CB and that’s why we weren’t challenging. The board bought him Bailly and Lindelof in successive summers, and he didn’t play them. If you were putting the money up would you be pleased? It’s a similar thing with Van De Beek - the board got him a midfielder the year before and he barely plays.
 

RedSky

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Dortmund bought Hummels (better than Magure) for 33 million pounds, City bought Dias (better than Maguire) for 60m. So, here are two CBs who cost less than him and who are both better.

80m in Maguire is uninspiring at best, 50m in AWB is lunacity, 15m in Telles is probably ok (backup). 45m or so in Varane is great, no doubt there. However, I wouldn't call the entire defensive recruiment brilliant in any shape or form.
Hummels only wanted to go to Bayern. Dias was a punt by City which paid off. Is Hummels actually better than Maguire? Unconvinced. Dias is quality though, agreed.

Why five senior players and three talented kids (Diallo, Pellestri and Elanga) are not enough for two positions?
I'm pretty sure if I went through your posts i'd find several examples of saying Martial/Lingard aren;t good enough and need selling (which they do). Neither are good enough or consistent enough goal scorers/creative outputs, we're basically left with Rashford/Greenwood and an unorthodox Pogba, who is creative but never scores. Therefore, no not enough. Sancho was 100% required in my opinion. An injury to Rashford/Greenwood and we'd be in serious trouble without Sancho.

The only excellent signings Ole has done are Bruno and Varane (the second one was obvious). Ronaldo will be too if Ole knows how to play him. The others have all massive question marks (overpriced Maguire), has no clue what to do with him (VDB), no clue what to do with him and probably not needed (Sancho), bd player (AWB). Oh well, Cavani is a decent backup and Telles is an okay one.
So then his recruitment is very good, if in your book there are very few duds, most Managers have a pretty small hit rate when it comes to quality players. Just look at Peps record, he's signed a bucket ton of defensive players at City and the majority have been utter trash.
 
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Fans wanted Sancho as they wanted every single top player there was/is around. Its up to the manager to prioritize his targets. Problems aren't always solved by opening the cheque book else Ole would have remained at Molde while we would have been busy winning trophies with the likes of Batistuta upfront.
Sancho was clearly needed and Greenwood was going to play upfront. That was clearly the plan, but then the club decided to bring Ronaldo back...
 

Red00012

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How is he going to feel next summer when he’s to replace Matic and Pogba as well?
 

largelyworried

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In modern football the coach will identify what players he wants moving on and what areas of the pitch need strengthening - then the DoF goes and does the business.
So the club spent £400M+ on players across 3 transfer windows, except for midfield, where they refused to buy him any player he wanted? Seems legit.
 

Hansi Fick

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Guys, "Raumdeuter" is not an actual term for a position. It's a joke, a pun, Müller made when he was asked to describe himself (and you know Müller loves his bad puns) and it's a play on "Traumdeuter", 'dream interpreter' as in Freud.
Surely you wouldn't consider Müller and Van de Beek as particularly similar players?
 

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Most managers can only dream of getting Varane, Sancho and Ronaldo in one transfer window. And that ex academy Goal Keeper whatshisname.
With the glazers Its Real Madrid lite but lacking in any real ambition strategy or vision. Sancho should hopefully be good player for years to come but the Ronaldo, and Varane to a lesser extent, were a gamble that’s upset the team balance and for me they were obviously not the right transfers for a team in transition. We should have went younger, more aggressive and talented. We should have just picked up 2 winners with it all to prove coming into their prime.

If you want to beat Real Madrid then you either need to find an angle or you keep 24 year old Ronaldo or go out and get Haaland and Mbappe. Stop signing players on their farewell tour and acting like we are a top club based purely on the money we’ve spent. It’s the same waste principle as those horrible massive contracts we give everyone. We are like Reals annoying little brother. Spending elite money without any vision or system is never going to get us anywhere when there are other clubs players can go to that still spend more than us and offer much greater chance of success.

Of course big players in their prime are going to go to a club that’ll offer them a million a week and guaranteed leagues and then they are more than happily to come here when Real are done with them.

If spending money is your only plan then at least spend it well. City traditionally haven’t gone head to head with Real and PSG or even us for the bigger transfers and wages. They’ve found a system instead and brought in players based on that. If a player doesn’t work they take the loss and move on. It’s one or the other. If money is no object then by all means, it might all magically click one day but in the meantime we clearly need a better plan than hoarding transfers who just haven’t worked out in our non existent system and adding players Real don’t need anymore. Find a fresh angle.
 

devilish

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Hummels only wanted to go to Bayern. Dias was a punt by City which paid off. Is Hummels actually better than Maguire? Unconvinced. Dias is quality though, agreed.



I'm pretty sure if I went through your posts i'd find several examples of saying Martial/Lingard aren;t good enough and need selling (which they do). Neither are good enough or consistent enough goal scorers/creative outputs, we're basically left with Rashford/Greenwood and an unorthodox Pogba, who is creative but never scores. Therefore, no not enough. Sancho was 100% required in my opinion. An injury to Rashford/Greenwood and we'd be in serious trouble without Sancho.



So then his recruitment is very good, if in your book there are very few duds, most Managers have a pretty small hit rate when it comes to quality players. Just look at Peps record, he's signed a bucket ton of defensive players at City and the majority have been utter trash.
Well it depends

If you take the ridiculous fees we paid for them then both AWB and Maguire were duds. You don't spend 130m only to end up depending on Varane to nanny them. James was half decent for 15m. VDB, Diallo and Pellistri weren't given a chance. I wonder why the feck we bought them in the first place. Telles can't defend. Varane and Ronaldo will do well, there again we're talking about two top quality players here while Heaton seem to be on an expensive side for a cheer leader.
 

devilish

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Sancho was clearly needed and Greenwood was going to play upfront. That was clearly the plan, but then the club decided to bring Ronaldo back...
We needed a DM more then we needed Sancho. Yet Ole thought that McFred + Matic (whom we recently renewed his contract) could do the job. That was Ole's gamble and it backfired spectacularly.
 
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So the club spent £400M+ on players across 3 transfer windows, except for midfield, where they refused to buy him any player he wanted? Seems legit.
That's clearly not what I said.

The Manager will have discussions on areas that need strengthening, and ideal targets and then the club go and see who's available and make the deals.

It's well known that this is how modern football works. Liverpool's transfer committee etc. United now have a similar model in place.

The days of a Ferguson running everything is long gone.
 

Berbaclass

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Guys, "Raumdeuter" is not an actual term for a position. It's a joke, a pun, Müller made when he was asked to describe himself (and you know Müller loves his bad puns) and it's a play on "Traumdeuter", 'dream interpreter' as in Freud.
Surely you wouldn't consider Müller and Van de Beek as particularly similar players?
I read that as Fred :lol:
 

devilish

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Oh Jesus fecking Christ :lol:

I'd tell you to go wash your mouth out with soap, but I'm in your house
British talent is ridiculously rated in their own country. Which is why England fans tend to end up shocked when the likes of Italy schools them at Wembley despite them having the Hurricane, the Yorkshire Pirlo and the most expensive CB in football on the pitch.
 

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Well it depends

If you take the ridiculous fees we paid for them then both AWB and Maguire were duds. You don't spend 130m only to end up depending on Varane to nanny them. James was half decent for 15m. VDB, Diallo and Pellistri weren't given a chance. I wonder why the feck we bought them in the first place. Telles can't defend. Varane and Ronaldo will do well, there again we're talking about two top quality players here while Heaton seem to be on an expensive side for a cheer leader.

His recruitment was reasonably good because they were mostly ridiculously
Why are either Maguire/AWB considered duds in the first place? AWB's still young and improving with each season, he might not be the most effective going forward for a modern fullback but he does his defensive work on the whole well. I wouldn't consider him a dud at all. Duds are players that are clearly not good enough and get sold after a season or two. Neither Maguire or AWB fit in that bracket. They were overpriced, we all knew that at that time but they're hardly terrible players.

AWB for example has been one of our better players this season. While Maguire was in brilliant form last season (after the initial dodgy opener following his Greece... issues.).

Personally I feel Maguire and Shaw are having post Euro hangovers. As both went into the Euros in excellent form and came back to us deflated and in poor form. I actually think if you look at the England squad as a whole, that fits for the majority of the players that were part of the squad, but thats for a different thread. (feck Southgate).
 

devilish

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That's clearly not what I said.

The Manager will have discussions on areas that need strengthening, and ideal targets and then the club go and see who's available and make the deals.

It's well known that this is how modern football works. Liverpool's transfer committee etc. United now have a similar model in place.

The days of a Ferguson running everything is long gone.
So when our new signings do well then its all thanks to Ole but when they do shit its the committee's fault? Also what does Ole do exactly? Our tactics are crap and our coaching is shit
 

hobbers

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Non of us have the slightest clue what discussions Ole and the club had about the comings and goings, or how the decisions are made.
Yes we do, because Ole was stupid enough to make promises to players agents and those agents have gone on to announce it or leak it to the press.

That's how we know Lingard, VdB and Martial were kept at the club in the summer, all on the promise of more game time that Ole is not delivering on. And we also know that through this awful squad management we maxed out our 25 man squad limit and so bringing in any more bodies was impossible without first getting a player off the books.

That's actually the only reason I think Ole let James leave, because Ronaldo coming in caught them all on the hop, and someone had to leave or there'd have been an unregistered squad player. Ole is the exact opposite of what he was originally billed as. He's a deadwood hoarder.