Liverpool and Chelsea would consider this a pretty crap season in the league for themselves, very much below par. Finishing above them is better than finishing below them... But it's not some massive success.
Our Progress
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Anybody got stats for goals conceded from set pieces in the league? We conceded 44 goals this season, only 2 less than Brighton and Villa. We did however finish 2nd highest goal scorers, but we're far too easy to score against and until we address that we ain't winning shit.
There would be room to spend more if we didn't have so much interest to pay annually on the debt (let alone paying it off).
But yes the main problem has been how we have spent money, not the lack of spending.
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Every manager wants to improve their squad, and every manager brings and sells players but only Ole has been given this "rebuild" narrative which is basically a excuse to freeze all the titles demands. I just don't buy it.
So having a squad that finished second with above 80 points and everyone wanted half a new team it's called a rebuild, but having a squad that finishes second with 70 points and everyone wants half a team is called "upgrading" the team. Sorry mate but you are just changing the narrative.
Every manager wants to improve their squad, and every manager brings and sells players but only Ole has been given this "rebuild" narrative which is basically a excuse to freeze all the titles demands. I just don't buy it.
You do realize the shit he was left with after Lvg and Jose broke everyone?
I agree we don't have specially dominant players in the air besides Maguire, but we are not talking about being an average side. We are talking about being the worst side in the whole league I mean surely there something really wrong with out coaching in that regard it's can't all be on the players.
I don't think that one is that easy to solve at all, bringing a new CM press resistant or whatever won't magically make our defense know how to move in blocks how to isolate the pressure, it will still be the same improvised playing out from.the back that as soon as it's countered with a high pressing team we crumble.
That's one way to look at it, but scoring lots of goals is not necessarily an indication about how good a team is breaking down a side. Since the only goal that break the defense is the first one you score. The way I look at it is we had 7 0-0 draws in the league, we definitely need to improve on that. This team can score the 2nd, 3rd and 4th goal after breaking up the defense with ease that not the problem. The problem is scoring that first goal which is the hardest.
I agree we do look like a team with potential, but we should be more than that by now. Still you talk about 3-4 new players, just like it was before Ole came. Nobody matter who comes, we will always ask for a new player. No team sudden says "well this is it, now I'm complete we don't need nobody else" it's constant changing and while we definitely have specific positions that are way below the requirements I think that we also have crucial coaching problems that won't be magically solved just by bringing players.
This narrative has been going on here for some time now, I don't agree with it at all. I think it's a narrative to ease up the pressure on Ole. "Sure he must deliver, but even if he doesn't it's not failure because he's building something for a future manager". Like I said I think it's just a narrative to lower the expectations bar so Ole doesn't fail.
broke everyone? what does that even mean? players fall appart with managers all the time. Chelsea went through the same shit with Mourinho, Conte went there and won. No one was crying about a whole 3 year rebuild that was needed because "Mourinho broke everyone".
That excuse cant be used anymore, not after 2 and a half seasons.
It’s like banging my head off a brick wall for no reason. I’m done with this thread
The squad isn't anywhere near City, Liverpool and Chelsea when they are injury free and managed correctly. It's still 250m worth of players behind them to challenge them seriously for a title. Conte or Zidane might get closer but they aren't winning.
The squad is far from City, but were on par with Liverpool and Chelsea. I agree even with a top manager it would be hard to match City, thats why its critical to get one. Like saying we shouldnt get a better driver because the car isnt fast enough. Well I see it all the way around, we should get the best manager possible to try to close the gap between the squads.
Except it is. Does anyone remember the progress we made in the late 80's ? If not for 1989 fa cup giving more time to fergie we might have gone into oblivion.It is really not
Football is about two things, challenging and winning. Currently were doing neither.
Do the dippers look back fondly 15 years ago when they finished second to us ? Do they feck, that was a failure and anything else is a lie.
Its not. Look it up bro. Progress is not about the finale results like winning silverware. Winning silverware is a result of working hard and steady (progress).
Progress in itself means nothing if it doesn't lead to silverware. Look at spurs and there progress in the previous half a decade. Does anyone give a flying feck ? Have you seen spurs fans being over the moon with there progress (which has runs its course, now a new cycle of progress needs to start for them because they're back to square one). There star player who himself is a fan is leaving them because of a lack of silverware.
If leicester had came 4th i would have said they've had a more successful season than us.
There are people on this forum still excusing the loss vs Villareal because of our depth.
It's maddening to read.
It's maddening to read.
It's a perfectly justifiable excuse. Is there another team in world football who have had a fixture list as congested as United over the last 18 months.
The only one that comes close is City who have far better depth.
Others with nowhere near the fixture congestion are having excuses made for them because they "collapsed" due to one off circumstances.
Where's the credit for United for not collapsing and finishing comfortably ahead of them?
Ole is an excellent motivator. It's his best attribute. His subs (or lack thereof) in the final were really poor though. You can't argue with the criticism there.
He's made mistakes but, where United currently are, he's the ideal coach. Nobody is perfect and, with Ole, the pros significantly outweigh the cons.
He doesn't have any credit in the bank among fans because unfortunately, most are idiots who think what the media tells them to think, convinced it's their own opinion.
The same fans who will celebrate the success of the protests will criticise Ole for losing games after being put in an impossible situation due to those protests.
What when he keeps saying we didn't turn up? Doesn't sound like an excellent motivator to me
The progress we made under Fergie was having one of the best young managers in the game with a stellar track record who had been working to transform the club from the bottom up and whose outstanding record in management before he got here earned him the patience and support from the board you wouldn’t expect for most others.
I feel like every summer most people say we just need 3 players to compete. And by the time summer comes around the players the fans want to sign never happen and we end up with one overpriced ‘good’ player which took 2 months longer than necessary to sign. And the price of that player compensates on the other two targets.
The club needs to be more proactive in signing players, even if one target is done almost immediately that calms down the fans. Agents and opposing clubs can’t then use that pressure to hike up prices for our other targets. Think about it how long did Herrera, Bruno, Maguire take to sign? Even Cavani was available all summer and we decided the last day of the transfer window to sign him. He then wasn’t match fit for 2 months. Now we are doing the same again with Sancho. It’s just poor planning and our biggest hindrance to success.
The club needs to be more proactive in signing players, even if one target is done almost immediately that calms down the fans. Agents and opposing clubs can’t then use that pressure to hike up prices for our other targets. Think about it how long did Herrera, Bruno, Maguire take to sign? Even Cavani was available all summer and we decided the last day of the transfer window to sign him. He then wasn’t match fit for 2 months. Now we are doing the same again with Sancho. It’s just poor planning and our biggest hindrance to success.
Don’t have too much faith in him but 6th 3rd 2nd is progress so he deserves another year
Precisely.
The ‘You would’ve sacked Ferguson after three years’ arguments are as immaterial as they are lazy. Even a cursory comparison of contexts between 1986-1990 and 2018-2021 indicates this but some folk continue to spout the same inane nonsense.
What Ferguson achieved in Scotland is among the most impressive in club football history yet we have folk we pretended we found him wandering around Salford Precinct and stuck him in the dugout for a laugh. He got a considerable amount of time and patience because he had earned that right, not because of some romantic, PR-wet dream notion of a popular ex-player leading us to the promised land once more.
Maybe it's just relative.
Better than "we need to aspire to be like City", not knowing your player's name or telling the media a player is so stupid you need to make all his decisions for him.
There have been lots of instances where United has improved significantly after half time this season. Also, numerous comebacks to win from losing positions. He clearly has the ability to influence games by his half time team talks.
I agree with you on your first point but I cannot escape the feeling that the biggest hindrance to our success at this juncture is our management/coaching structure. Watching the match on Wednesday night, did you genuinely look at what was unfolding and say to yourself, “You know what this team is missing? A Sancho or a Kane.” I certainly didn’t. Signing those players is all well and good but I don’t see them propelling us to a title. They will be ‘moments’ players for us in the same vein our other attacking options are.
I long for the day we are a side that is greater than the sum of our individual parts (if that ever happens we’ll be some team as we have some brilliant players) and not a side who plays like a crowd of strangers. The easiest way to rectify that is to upgrade on our management/coaching structure, IMO. The Bayerns, the Madrids, the Citys, the Liverpools, the PSGs etc. all never hesitate to get the best man in if they are any question marks over their current manager whilst we dawdle. That is our biggest hindrance and until it is remedied, we will have plenty of false dawns with inevitable failure, ultimately.
The biggest hindrance to our success at this juncture is the lack of proactivity in our dealings - each and every year.
So Liverpool have got Konate and other teams are decisive in their buying strategy so why do we have to go through:
United are considering, are in talks, advanced dealing, blah blah and more blah blah and rarely finalise.
We MUST buy players before the Euros start or we'll have another season of being so near but yet so far.
So Liverpool have got Konate and other teams are decisive in their buying strategy so why do we have to go through:
United are considering, are in talks, advanced dealing, blah blah and more blah blah and rarely finalise.
We MUST buy players before the Euros start or we'll have another season of being so near but yet so far.
The Ole-In crowd is really getting desperate.
"Ole is as good as SAF!" "Well, Ole is better than Mourinho!" "Tuchel lost a game, see we knew Ole was better!" "Pfft, Zidane doesn't know what it's like to manage at a club like Man Utd! So what if he won 3 UCLs in a row, that's not the United Way!".
Just some of the strawman arguments we hear everyday here to protect Ole just because he scored a tap-in in 99. It is sad how some people would rather die on that hill than have an ounce of rationality.
Can you show me any poster who claimed Ole is as good as Sir Alex?
That's exactly what I thought when Rashford wasted yet another excellent attacking opportunity and looked like he'd be the least mobile player in my O35s team. I was hoping Ole would replace him with Mata. If they had Sancho, he'd have been a great option.
I don't know what people expect. United were up against a parked bus for 90 minutes. Breaking that down was always going to be difficult, especially when you gift the opposition a lead from a set piece.
Do people really think that with a bit of coaching United would be ripping teams up with McTominay pulling the strings in midfield and Wan Bissaka jinking his way through on the right?
Salah and Mane are "moments" players. When Liverpool were regarded as "the greatest EPL team ever TM", they often were in even games until a moment of class from Mane or Salah put them ahead with their first half chance of the game.
This season, they lost form and Liverpool were toothless. If you have talented players in good form, they find a way to score. That opens games up and then it's easy to look impressive.
Jesus. It’s really no one that believes they are on the same level
The things we discuss are if we got a progress that are good enough for us going forward.
Ole have done a lot good, but also questionable decisions. It’s human to do mistakes. Mistakes are progress as well.
IMO we have not got the backing from the owners regarding players in. I hope to see full backing this window, but I won’t hold my breath.
Why would anybody be feeling desperate as a supporter of Ole? It seems highly likely that he is going to be getting a new contract this summer and besides nobody really has any doubts that he will lead the team into next season. His position is as secure as it has ever been.
On the other hand we have a large portion of this forum that clearly have agendas against him and have spent two years arguing about why he should be fired, going to ever increasing lengths to justify your opinions, clearly in many cases delighting over any setbacks so you can come back and rage, and yet you're stuck with him. It sounds like the sort of scenario that would generate feelings of desperation within the moaning community, and the posting always very clearly reflects that desperation.
I’d actually say him and his coaching staff are terrible motivators. A well motivated team does not play like we do in most first halfs. Slow ponderous play with players looking half arsed is not a sign of a motivated team.
Fergie would have had that team whipped up into a frenzy before kickoff Wednesday. We’d have hit the ground running at 100 miles an hour.
I just couldn’t believe how uninterested the team, minus Cavani, McTominay and Wan Bissaka looked. It’s a final for Christ sake and our intensity indicated that we were approaching it like a pre season game!
Yup! He was hardly backed last season with players he needed/wanted too. Got to hope he gets his choice of RW/CDM/CB. If he goes backwards next season after being backed then he should probably leave.
Jury is still out on some of his tactics and style, but one more year to prove something is the least he deserves after the mess we were in after Jose.
No Manchester United fan has an agenda against Ole for god’s sake! The agenda is against the club seemingly accepting mediocrity.
it’s blatantly obvious that Solskjaer will never be the manager to return this club to winning PL titles and CL’s.
Would you be this loyal to Roy Hodgson if he was manager and had an identical record to Solskjaer? Or do you forgive Ole’s major deficiencies because he’s a playing legend?
Ive said it before. Our progress would be better if we had proper coaches behind Ole. Hes said he doesnt coach the team he handles the man management and motivation. What other big club would have the majority of coaches as novices?
Get a defensive coach in wth vast experience. Get a tactics and technical coach in. These 2 would elevate the club with the players we already have no end. Ideally get an attacking coach as well. We can carry one novice, but this club shouldnt be a job for the good old boys. A good even great player doesnt always turn into a good or great coach.
Get a defensive coach in wth vast experience. Get a tactics and technical coach in. These 2 would elevate the club with the players we already have no end. Ideally get an attacking coach as well. We can carry one novice, but this club shouldnt be a job for the good old boys. A good even great player doesnt always turn into a good or great coach.
I forgive his deficiencies because his strengths and what he is doing for the club outweigh them, and no manager is perfect.
You saying that it is blatantly obvious he'll never win here IS an agenda. You've made up your mind already. Its unfair to write off a manager and a team that have made progress and doing so is evidence of an agenda I'm afraid.
This is exactly how I feel. If you watched us with LVG you could see the plan - here is a coach with a set system and the ability to coach it. It didn’t work but I could very easily see this is where we were and this is where we are now. That’s all we should demand from any coach: implement a style, give them a transfer window and assess.
If you can see evidence of their style after a season and they reach objectives, you get another window and assess again. If it’s not good enough you try with someone else.
So if Hodgson or Moyes was in charge with an identical record you’d be happy to forgive their deficiencies too would you? I don’t think you would.
I'm sick to death of this “agenda” bollocks. I’m quite good at Tennis, but can categorically state that I’ll never be good enough to become a professional. Do I have I have an agenda against myself or am I just accepting reality based on experience?
Solskjaer has shown absolutely nothing in the last 2.5 years to indicate that he’s the man to get us winning titles and Champions Leagues.
He’s come in, steadied the ship and taken us as far as he can. Now it’s time for an elite manager to take us to the next level. In the words of Michael Corleone, it’s not personal, it’s strictly business.
I'm not sure why you keep mentioning Hodgson in this. I really dont see relevance or point. The evaluation has to be about what Ole has done and where we are compared to where we were, not about who he is. Ole was never my favourite player. There's no reason at all why his history here should have any bearing on anything.
You say he has shown absolutely nothing. I think that's unfair and frankly a little ridiculous.
It's not a successful season and that's it.
It's a season with positives and negatives.
We are a bit more consistent but we aren't seemingly closer to winning silverware.
One more year to do it for Ole I reckon.
And since we are committed to that we need to give him a brilliant transfer window.
It needs to be a better window than Chelsea City and Liverpool.
It's a season with positives and negatives.
We are a bit more consistent but we aren't seemingly closer to winning silverware.
One more year to do it for Ole I reckon.
And since we are committed to that we need to give him a brilliant transfer window.
It needs to be a better window than Chelsea City and Liverpool.
I’m mentioning Hodgson as a manager of similar ability level to Solskjaer for comparison.
People would be far less forgiving of the manager had he not played for the club.