I dunno what Ole's longterm legacy will be. However, looking at where we are today I am impressed by how he managed the squad.
Ole's clearly cleverer than a lot of people give him credit for. He saw how the dressing room had done for Mourinho. So he decided to be their friend instead of fight them.
Ole is no fool. He always knew if it came down to him or the superstar shirt sellers the club would get rid of him. So, until the very last moment, he never forced the issue.
Is that the only way to deal with this dressing room? To stroke the egos instead of control them? Maybe. I don't think any incoming coach is going to be given the power to make or break Man Utd careers. Which means that the players will always have the confidence to outlast any incoming coach. Especially as we're so keen to protect value with random new deals.
Ole's legacy will be that, by what he did, he showed the world that the only way to get a tune out of our squad is to play nice with it. If that's the case then he'll have perfectly illustrated why the whole thing needs ripping up.
you are going to get roasted here as this isn't in line with the current narrative
the cycle is :
- new manager comes in, take any positive from first match, even if manager only had 45 mins training with the squad, and say this is what real coaching does to a team
- when things go south, pin it on the prior manager for as long as possible, far past the point of credibility
- when its clear new manager is having very similar struggles to prior manager, begin to shift to blaming the players, who are the last managers responsibility. back a 'clear out' and a shift in style.
- eventually turn on the manager and come up with new narrative as to why he was always going to fail (rangnick has managed once in ten years, never managed any big personalities, biggest achievement as a manager is a semi final 15 years ago)
- chose new messiah 'x' who 'cant be worse than y'. if last manager was dictator style, then say new manager will bring good feeling back. if last manager had good feeling, say new manager will bring discipline. here you can suggest roy keane could take a backroom role.