Solskjaer's contract

[Adisa]

Questions have to be asked why we would entertain the idea to extend his contract right now. We were top of the league a month ago and are now 15 points behind the leaders.

Depressing when it is put so bluntly.

 

[roonster09]

He has one more year after this season, no hurry to extend. We can see how it goes before making any decision. We made a mistake extending Jose's contract when things looked good and then we became very poor.

 

[Jonno]

Questions have to be asked why we would entertain the idea to extend his contract right now. We were top of the league a month ago and are now 15 points behind the leaders.

So you expected Ole to keep pace with this unbelievable City team and win 21 games on the bounce?

I think our league position represents exactly where we are (2 years into a complete squad overhaul, change of culture, style of play etc) and its a decent improvement on last year, and the year before. This City team is 5-6 years and over £1 billion pounds in the making.

Too much impatience on this forum.

 

[Green_Red]

He’ll surely sign an extension as soon as CL football is secured. Seems to be the way we work.

Has to be this because we'll need to demonstrate some level of stability to any players we go after in the summer. I'm of the opinion that's he's earned a new contract now.

 

[RashyForPM]

I presume you mean Harry??

I genuinely cannot believe that anybody would suggest Graham Potter as a replacement for Ole. After all the grief that Ole gets for not being good/qualified enough.

Graham Potter plays better football with worse players. Going by XG stats, Brighton have outperformed their opponents in over 70% of their games this season. Watch their games recently, it’s an absolute joke how they’re not in the top 8 at the very least going by how they play. If Potter had a better finisher up top, they’d be cruising to EL football. The phrase ‘false position’ was invented for this Brighton team. No matter who they play, they go for it full throttle, as evidenced by their recent dominating wins over Spurs and Pool. We do not do that.

Also, I’m not Ole out at this moment as you can tell from my previous post, but when you talk about qualifications, Ole had only ever been successful at Molde before he came to us. Even so, that is nothing compared to Potter’s achievements at Ostersunds. He took them from amateur football in the Swedish 4th division right to the Allsvenskan and got EL football, where they beat Arsenal at the Emirates. Remarkable stuff you don’t see unless you play Football Manager. He essentially built a club from the ground up, improving the playing squad, expanding the club, infrastructure etc.

At Cardiff, Ole relegated them despite them being 14th when he took over. The season after, Ole was sacked when he took Cardiff to an inauspicious start in the Championship. Potter, in the same situation, stabilised Swansea and got them to 10th and an FA Cup quarter final where the whole world can agree they deserved to beat City. All this after losing 15 first team players. By comparison, Ole lost 8.

Finally, there is the simple fact that while we can debate Potter vs Ole all day, if you asked any of the other 18 PL clubs’ chairman and fans who they’d rather have at the helm, it would be a unanimous vote for Potter. I don’t think anyone can deny that, no matter how much you like Ole.

On the basis of all this, the qualifications of Potter and Ole cannot even be compared. I’d keep Ole until the summer and see what he does simply because Nagelsmann and Potter are currently unattainable.

 

[Xaviesta]

If he gets top 4 and a trophy, it's a no brainer. A one year extension (taking him to 2023) would probably be right. Assuming he gets a contract extension, there should be clauses in there around title challenges (the United hiearchy need to come to the party too), as well as making the knockout stages of the Champions Legaue.

Woodward and co would be wise to remember that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and his coaching staff need United more than United need them. So nothing silly in terms of what sort of contract extension OGS and co potentially get.

 

[Amir]

So you expected Ole to keep pace with this unbelievable City team and win 21 games on the bounce?

I think our league position represents exactly where we are (2 years into a complete squad overhaul, change of culture, style of play etc) and its a decent improvement on last year, and the year before. This City team is 5-6 years and over £1 billion pounds in the making.

Too much impatience on this forum.

City's head start isn't going to just disappear, so does it mean it's OK for us to always be trailing them?

As for Solskjaer, I'm sure no one expected us to match City this season, even though the way we let them disappear into the sunset was disappointing, looking at some of the matches we dropped points in. However, the target - matching City, even if not this season - remains, and the main question should be: Does his work show the signs of a manager who can do that?

 

[Siorac]

As others have said, there's no point in giving him a contract extension this summer, as he's not going to jump ship to a better club anyway. The ideal scenario would be to wait until December-January, evaluate his performance and make a decision then.

Now, our club isn't usually run in a remotely sensible way so I fully expect he'll get a contract extension if we secure top 4. I pray that it will be only a 1-year extension. Anything more than that would be an obvious mistake.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

City's head start isn't going to just disappear, so does it mean it's OK for us to always be trailing them?

As for Solskjaer, I'm sure no one expected us to match City this season, even though the way we let them disappear into the sunset was disappointing, looking at some of the matches we dropped points in. However, the target - matching City, even if not this season - remains, and the main question should be: Does his work show the signs of a manager who can do that?

Exactly. We are all those points behind through our own fault, not because City are that good. We should be waiting to see what happens, even let his contract run down if need be. It isn't how this club works though. Another failure in the F.A. Cup and EL they have to look at the root reasons as to why this is happening. He has a squad but does not appear to trust half of them, so who says if he is given another load of players he won't decide that actually he doesn't fancy them either. I know it is a team rebuild, but by the time he finishes it we will be at the stage of another team rebuild with nothing to show for it. Ole has to show he has a winning mentality, if he does that he will deserve a new contract. Top 4 is money it is not a trophy.

 

[lysglimt]

At Cardiff, Ole relegated them despite them being 14th when he took over. The season after, Ole was sacked when he took Cardiff to an inauspicious start in the Championship. Potter, in the same situation, stabilised Swansea and got them to 10th and an FA Cup quarter final where the whole world can agree they deserved to beat City. All this after losing 15 first team players. By comparison, Ole lost 8.

Sorry but this is simply not correct. Cardiff were not in 14th place when he took over - they were in 17th place - 1 point above relegation. They picked up 8 points from their first 6 matches, after that they picked up 10 points from 14 matches. So don't try to make it sound like Cardiff were in a good position and he drove them into the ground. They were crap before he took over, and he didn't improve them at all - granted.

 

[padzilla]

So you expected Ole to keep pace with this unbelievable City team and win 21 games on the bounce?

I think our league position represents exactly where we are (2 years into a complete squad overhaul, change of culture, style of play etc) and its a decent improvement on last year, and the year before. This City team is 5-6 years and over £1 billion pounds in the making.

Too much impatience on this forum.

City's run has nothing to do with us bottling it and losing at home to Sheffield United and Arsenal and not being able to beat West Brom or conceding a soft equaliser deep into injury time against Everton, dropping two more points. Our reaction to talk of challenging for the title was to completely implode against lesser opposition at the first sign of expectation. I get we are largely a work in progress but the fact Ole will pick Maguire and De Gea regardless of how bad their performances are over sustained periods makes me wonder about the sense of giving him a new long-term deal. As an elite club we should have an elite coach. At this moment in time I couldn't say with any certainty that another premier league club would even hire him as manager and that is damning. Part of me thinks he is going to be our Roy Evans who largely stabilises the club and hands over to better qualified managers who take us onto trophies. I just don't see it being him that leads us onto the next league title, naturally I would be over the moon if he proved me wrong but if if I were a betting man that's not where my money would go.

 

[lysglimt]

City's head start isn't going to just disappear, so does it mean it's OK for us to always be trailing them?

As for Solskjaer, I'm sure no one expected us to match City this season, even though the way we let them disappear into the sunset was disappointing, looking at some of the matches we dropped points in. However, the target - matching City, even if not this season - remains, and the main question should be: Does his work show the signs of a manager who can do that?

No one is happy that we dropped points against WBA and Sheffield United, but the fact is - he still got United more points than all other teams than City. But we are moving in the right direction, and I would put it as simple as thit - if one of our strikers had a really good season - we would have had top-4 in the bag already.

If we had a quality striker and a quality defender - we would easily have had 6-7-8 points more - maybe even 10. So it's not like we miles away from City, but we are clearly behind them. But if we are backed to get a goalscorer and a quality defender, that should solve a lot of the problems

 

[DomesticTadpole]

City's run has nothing to do with us bottling it and losing at home to Sheffield United and Arsenal and not being able to beat West Brom or conceding a soft equaliser deep into injury time against Everton, dropping two more points. Our reaction to talk of challenging for the title was to completely implode against lesser opposition at the first sign of expectation. I get we are largely a work in progress but the fact Ole will pick Maguire and De Gea regardless of how bad their performances are over sustained periods makes me wonder about the sense of giving him a new long-term deal. As an elite club we should have an elite coach. At this moment in time I couldn't say with any certainty that another premier league club would even hire him as manager and that is damning. Part of me thinks he is going to be our Roy Evans who largely stabilises the club and hands over to better qualified managers who take us onto trophies. I just don't see it being him that leads us onto the next league title, naturally I would be over the moon if he proved me wrong but if if I were a betting man that's not where my money would go.

You could be right, ideally it will be Ole that wins trophies for us. Manchester United as a club is geared towards winning trophies, but also playing attacking, entertaining football. Manchester United is not here to just exist as a football club and for it's fans to be leaping about if they get CL football. What is the point of CL football if we just drop down to the EL anyway.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

No one is happy that we dropped points against WBA and Sheffield United, but the fact is - he still got United more points than all other teams than City. But we are moving in the right direction, and I would put it as simple as thit - if one of our strikers had a really good season - we would have had top-4 in the bag already.

If we had a quality striker and a quality defender - we would easily have had 6-7-8 points more - maybe even 10. So it's not like we miles away from City, but we are clearly behind them. But if we are backed to get a goalscorer and a quality defender, that should solve a lot of the problems

Agree if the club back Ole with a CB, RW and a striker then we might actually get somewhere. Think most fans worry that they won't and are satisfied where we are. You should never be satisfied as a football club, you should always want better.

 

[RashyForPM]

Sorry but this is simply not correct. Cardiff were not in 14th place when he took over - they were in 17th place - 1 point above relegation. They picked up 8 points from their first 6 matches, after that they picked up 10 points from 14 matches. So don't try to make it sound like Cardiff were in a good position and he drove them into the ground. They were crap before he took over, and he didn't improve them at all - granted.

A mistake - I thought Mackay was sacked and Ole appointed after GW16 of that season when they were in 14th. Either way, they can’t have been far off when Ole was actually appointed, and he did take them right down to the bottom. He earned 12 points while Mackay earned 18 that season.

Anyway, it sounds like I am hating on Ole, which I’m genuinely not. I’m just expressing my opinion that Potter is a better manager.

 

[svn]

Graham fecking Potter. The mind boggles.

 

[saivet]

No one is happy that we dropped points against WBA and Sheffield United, but the fact is - he still got United more points than all other teams than City. But we are moving in the right direction, and I would put it as simple as thit - if one of our strikers had a really good season - we would have had top-4 in the bag already.

If we had a quality striker and a quality defender - we would easily have had 6-7-8 points more - maybe even 10. So it's not like we miles away from City, but we are clearly behind them. But if we are backed to get a goalscorer and a quality defender, that should solve a lot of the problems

Which is all well and good. Assuming we win tonight, we are 12 points behind City. To put this into context we are 13 points ahead of Arsenal who are in 10th place. You could use the same argument for a lot of teams, if Auba played well, if Liverpool didn't have injuries, if Chelsea had a good striker.

I think we are moving in the right direction but I don't think we should be clouded by the fact we are marginally in second place.

 

[Paul_Scholes18]

Please just fire him and bring in a manager that can make us score goals and win big games.
Another season with Ole will be true torture.

 

[Denis' cuff]

Contract will be renewed in due course. Ole is doing ok. Really... but even more so, now that he is telling us all how we need to be told there will be little or nothing spent this coming summer.

 

[Tom Cato]

Questions have to be asked why we would entertain the idea to extend his contract right now. We were top of the league a month ago and are now 15 points behind the leaders.

Well we are 12 points ahead of last seasons pace, so we've improved significantly in that regard.

I mean, I wish we were a bit closer to City of course, but are you suggesting that we should question the manager for not setting a Premier League winning streak?

We are already unbeaten away in the league for 20 games, let's be realistic here. Saying "We should always be winning" doesn't magically make it so.

Let's for once commit to a project that's progressing? finishing 2nd with a significantly higher point tally than 19/20 is obviously an improvement.

 

[Wednesday at Stoke]

Ole is not coaching on the last year of his contract, they'll give him a two year extension soon.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

Ole is not coaching on the last year of his contract, they'll give him a two year extension soon.

Think that will be how they do it. If it goes well then fine, if it doesn't then they won't want a massive payout. Hopefully the long contracts are gone.

 

[L1nk]

People are expecting a challenge if we improve the squad, but people are forgetting that years from now when both managers have retired, Solskjaer will not enter into the same breath as Guardiola as a top manager, which we will also need if we want to challenge in any meaningful way

 

[Wednesday at Stoke]

Think that will be how they do it. If it goes well then fine, if it doesn't then they won't want a massive payout. Hopefully the long contracts are gone.

I think Ed learned his lesson with Moyes and his 6 year deal. He's only offered 3 year deals and 2 year extensions since then.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

People are expecting a challenge if we improve the squad, but people are forgetting that years from now when both managers have retired, Solskjaer will not enter into the same breath as Guardiola as a top manager, which we will also need if we want to challenge in any meaningful way

We will find out soon enough. If Ole gets what he wants and there are still problems, then he has no excuses. Next season will show if he is a good manager. Hopefully.

If we get a striker, RW and CB and we still set up not to lose then that is a mental block with the manager.

 

[K Stand Knut]

Graham Potter plays better football with worse players. Going by XG stats, Brighton have outperformed their opponents in over 70% of their games this season. Watch their games recently, it’s an absolute joke how they’re not in the top 8 at the very least going by how they play. If Potter had a better finisher up top, they’d be cruising to EL football. The phrase ‘false position’ was invented for this Brighton team. No matter who they play, they go for it full throttle, as evidenced by their recent dominating wins over Spurs and Pool. We do not do that.

Also, I’m not Ole out at this moment as you can tell from my previous post, but when you talk about qualifications, Ole had only ever been successful at Molde before he came to us. Even so, that is nothing compared to Potter’s achievements at Ostersunds. He took them from amateur football in the Swedish 4th division right to the Allsvenskan and got EL football, where they beat Arsenal at the Emirates. Remarkable stuff you don’t see unless you play Football Manager. He essentially built a club from the ground up, improving the playing squad, expanding the club, infrastructure etc.

At Cardiff, Ole relegated them despite them being 14th when he took over. The season after, Ole was sacked when he took Cardiff to an inauspicious start in the Championship. Potter, in the same situation, stabilised Swansea and got them to 10th and an FA Cup quarter final where the whole world can agree they deserved to beat City. All this after losing 15 first team players. By comparison, Ole lost 8.

Finally, there is the simple fact that while we can debate Potter vs Ole all day, if you asked any of the other 18 PL clubs’ chairman and fans who they’d rather have at the helm, it would be a unanimous vote for Potter. I don’t think anyone can deny that, no matter how much you like Ole.

On the basis of all this, the qualifications of Potter and Ole cannot even be compared. I’d keep Ole until the summer and see what he does simply because Nagelsmann and Potter are currently unattainable.

Blimey you almost convinced me and then
Ruined it all by saying Potter is ‘unattainable’.

Good try mate but to say that either of those two managers are ‘unattainable’ is laughable.

Imagine thinking that Manchester United couldn’t attain Potter or Nagelsmann from Brighton or Leipzig.

 

[The Corinthian]

24 month extension is low risk, and should be offered based on what we've seen so far from him.

Putting trophies to one side, he's been our best manager since Fergie. Yes, Louis and Mourinho won trophies, but they've also had damaging effects on the team as a whole, and arguable left us in a worse place than when they took over.

Ole, on the other hand, we can see a marked improvement during his time here. From half a season in 18/19 finishing 6th to 3rd in 19/20 with a strong showing in the cups. We're now strong favourites for second, and have a great chance in the cups again. I'd love for him to win a trophy, no matter if it is secondary. He's managed to do all of this despite not being fully backed in the transfer market by the board.

I think he's overseen 5 transfer windows and signed 6 first team squad players. Mourinho on the other hand signed 11 first team squad players in 5 windows. Louis I think signed 13 players in 4 windows, all for the first team squad.

If we was fully backed with a DM, RW, and a CB in the summer 2021 window, I think we'd have an excellent chance at the title next season. If we don't make it there, then with only a 24 month extension, it's relatively low risk to bring someone new in.

 

[Shark]

We will find out soon enough. If Ole gets what he wants and there are still problems, then he has no excuses. Next season will show if he is a good manager. Hopefully.

If we get a striker, RW and CB and we still set up not to lose then that is a mental block with the manager.

This idea that we as fans need to wait until Ole has spent another 100m+ on transfers before we can find if he's a good manager seems like a bonkers statement. Is that not a prime indicator that he's just not very good?

 

[DomesticTadpole]

This idea that we as fans need to wait until Ole has spent another 100m+ on transfers before we can find if he's a good manager or not must among the biggest load of nonsense I've read on here. Is that not a prime indicator that he's just not very good?

I don't think he is a good manager now, but if he gets what he wants this summer then he has absolutely no excuses. I hate the way we go into a lot of games with the underdog attitude, even against not very good teams. Problem we have is if they short change him this summer, which under the circumstances could happen, then it will just be another excuse why we are not winning an even lesser trophy. He needs another CB, a RW ( so he stops putting square pegs in round holes) and I would prefer another striker, but can understand if people want a DM. Not getting one of them will make it the season after to finish a rebuild. It just seems never ending and it has been this way for years. We won a trophy under LVG but they had already decided to ditch him. Then won two and a second place under Jose, unfortunately it was Jose, so you knew it was going to go t*ts up.

They should do a reality show, where Ole and Pep swap teams and see what happens. If it is just the quality of the squad with Ole and if Pep can only succeed with the best players and set up.

 

[Schmeichel's Cartwheel]

Why would we extend his contract now? We were top of the league a month ago now we’re 15 points behind. That’s a bottle & a half, regardless of City’s form.

Evaluate this at the end of the season.

 

[Giggsy13]

He’s on pace for consecutive top 4 finishes, doesn’t make a fuss about transfers, as evidenced by his latest statements about transfer activity this summer, and has praised the glazers in the past. He’s a dream manager for our owners.

 

[Giggsy13]

Why would we extend his contract now? We were top of the league a month ago now we’re 15 points behind. That’s a bottle & a half, regardless of City’s form.

Evaluate this at the end of the season.

Common sense not very common with Ed and the Glazers.

 

[red4ever 79]

Why would we extend his contract now? We were top of the league a month ago now we’re 15 points behind. That’s a bottle & a half, regardless of City’s form.

Evaluate this at the end of the season.

Agree, personally I would leave the decision until next January also.

 

[Amir]

Well we are 12 points ahead of last seasons pace, so we've improved significantly in that regard.

We improved compared with our terrible form up until the end of January 2020. Did we improve compared with our better form after that?

 

[Zen86]

We improved compared with our terrible form up until the end of January 2020. Did we improve compared with our better form after that?

Does progress and form only count when you cherry pick the dates?

 

[Shark]

They should do a reality show, where Ole and Pep swap teams and see what happens. If it is just the quality of the squad with Ole and if Pep can only succeed with the best players and set up.

Give Pep our squad and he'll not ask, he'll demand a ST and RW and he'll surround himself with world class coaches that will tactically enhance the way we approach games big and small. Players like James, De Gea and Maguire would not feature/not have been signed because he's a manager that knows exactly how he wants his team to play and had zero tolerance for liabilities.

 

[Bwuk]

Review at the end of the season.

 

[UnofficialDevil]

If you think Ole is getting a new contract with no trophy and no top 4, you’re deluded.

We sacked LVG with a trophy because he didn’t get top 4.

The board are hardly going to announce to the media/world that Ole isn’t here for the long-term, are they?? That would be the same level of delusion as you.

If Ole doesn’t get top 4, he’ll be sacked. There is no doubt about that, IMO. Whether he gets a new contract for achieving top 4 is debatable

You should calm down mate. Thats twice you called me deluded in the same post. You’ve got an opinion, so have I.

 

[2 man midfield]

"Attacked", sure.

Saying that Ole survived not getting a CL spot in his first season is, like I said, technically true, but that’s all it is. Pointing that out is not an attack. Assuming you might have been implying a different standard for Ole than others seems to be a fair inference. No need to clutch your pearls if I’m wrong, I’m fine in accepting I may have read too much into it.

I’m not clutching anything, you’re the one who overreacted and assumed things from my post that literally weren’t even there.

 

[RashyForPM]

Blimey you almost convinced me and then
Ruined it all by saying Potter is ‘unattainable’.

Good try mate but to say that either of those two managers are ‘unattainable’ is laughable.

Imagine thinking that Manchester United couldn’t attain Potter or Nagelsmann from Brighton or Leipzig.

Mid-season, yes they are unattainable. Honestly, when was the last high profile manager transfer? If you can name me at least two recent ones, fair enough. It’s absolute alternate reality if you think we can just snipe a manager mid-season.