I am firmly Ole in now after going to the Ole out side twice in October after the 1-6 loss and December after getting knocked out of the CL by Leipzig. I would be though, as I doubt any United fan at this moment is Ole out. No one could ever ask for a manager who is top of the league to be sacked. Must say though, no manager has ever conflicted me as much as Ole in terms of whether I wanted him to remain in charge or not before us going too made it a no-brainer. Even when we were 6th and playing awfully, I still sort of wanted him in because he’s a legend.
Tbf to him though, leaving sentiment aside, he has done so many good things since becoming manager here. Firstly and most importantly, he’s brought back the crucial value of Manchester United in the sense that he largely plays attacking, exciting football to entertain the hardworking United fans. Helps that he is clearly less arrogant than LvG and Mourinho despite achieving an equal or higher amount of accolades in football. Both managers wanted to stick to their pragmatic philosophies at all costs, while Ole is clearly adaptive and goes out to win every game. At Manchester United where 80% of the league sit back against you, the solution to that is to attack hard.
Also, there has been a visible culture change at the club since he was hired. First, his man-management is excellent and he is liked by the players, which is extremely important as it gives the club a friendlier feel. With happier players, results and performances will improve. Things like the Pogba-Jose public stare-off in the training ground in October 2018 are not happening anymore, and is it a coincidence that Pogba is playing much better now. I dislike Pogba’s constant flirting with other clubs, but Ole has extracted far more out of him on the pitch than Mourinho ever could. He also clearly uses the Fergie tactic of hammering indoors after poor performances but either defending the players to the hilt in the media or criticising the team as a whole rather than individuals. In that respect, Mourinho’s treatment of Shaw especially was a disgrace. Ole has also farmed out players we could all see we’re a toxic influence in the dressing room in Lukaku, Sanchez and Young, decent to average players who all thought they were world class. No coincidence the dressing room looks more United now. I’ve criticised him a lot in the past as we all have, but there is no slandering his off-the-pitch management.
Finally, his recruitment. Unlike our previous managers after Fergie, Ole has had far more hits than misses. It’s fair to discount James considering his low price, and aside from him, the likes of Maguire, Bruno, Cavani etc have all been excellent signings who have improved the team. I suppose only AWB hasn’t really panned out as well as we’d hoped. Our lineups before Bruno came made for painful reading, but now, it’s lovely to see how we can put a strong side out in any game while having at least 5 top players on the bench who all have the capacity to come on and change the game single-handedly. For example, Cavani, Greenwood, VdB, Telles/Shaw etc.
There is also no doubting his tendency to sell correctly. I can’t think of a single player he got rid of who we’ve missed. Maybe Herrera as I think he’s better than McT, but he was demanding wages we should not be paying to rotational players. You don’t hear this phrase often, but Lukaku, Sanchez, Young, Fellaini, Smalling and Pereira etc were all inspired sales. Now we’re in the process of finally getting deadwood like Rojo, Jones and Lingard out too, and will we miss them on the pitch? Unfortunately, not at all. If Ole’s excellent performance in the market continues, we’ll have a world class team in 2 years.
I suppose a weak spot of his is his in game management, but that is something which directly correlates to on-pitch performances and results. Therefore, while I slated him for making substitutions far too late last season, I cannot this season as clearly going by the simple fact that we’re top of the league at this moment in time (hope it continues), his game management is clearly rapidly improving with experience and going very well.
