Seen a lot of people saying Ole isn't Ruthless enough, and I guess its because Young and Jones were given new contracts rather than be sold, but I think when one looks at the overall picture, he is being ruthless.
Rojo and Darmian are transfer listed, which is all Ole can do, it's up to Woodward and Judge to find buyers and not price them out of the market. Valencia, club Captain, was released. However bad Jones and Young are, Rojo and Darmian do need to be sold before them. Young and Smalling are also being demoted to squad players, with AWB and Maguire replacing them. Changing half a back line in one window is already a lot of change. When looking at the overall churn and how difficult it is to get quality defenders, this is a good and ruthless upgrade already of the defence.
Fellaini was immediately sold, Herrera was offered a paycut ie. demoted, Pogba is most likely being allowed to leave and for all the public comments of Ole I do wonder what might have been said behind closed doors to make Pogba want to leave, but regardless, seems we will entertain genuine offers. Yes, perhaps we could have not renewed Mata, but with 3 out already it is hard to have enough midfielders in the squad as it is, and Mata has been an exemplary professional compared to our other midfielders. There has been frequent reports that we would let Matic go too, indicating he might be transfer listed and potentially demoted. We might be seeing Bruno, James, Savic, Longstaff coming in meaning our entire midfield 3 would have been axed, Savic Longstaff Bruno instead of Pogba Matic Herrera. Can't be more ruthless than that. Whether this will prove to be better, and whether we manage to get the replacements over the line remains to be seen and again depends on Woodward and Judge.
Lukaku was dropped immediately and told to get fit, and is being sold, which is very ruthless. James has been bought I suspect to push Martial to try harder or actually replace him. I think we will see James oust Martial this year. If we buy Ben Yedder too we could conceivably see Rashford out of the team. I think the right wing will go to Greenwood and Chong more than Lingard and Mata.
So we have Darmian, Rojo, Valencia, Fellaini, Herrera, Pogba, Matic?, Lukaku, 8 players out or transfer listed. Plus a number of demotions or increased competition for places. Considering Ole hasn't even been here a year I think that is as ruthless as he can realistically be. Whether Woodward will be as ruthless in successfully selling remains to be seen.