The club should be bigger than the manager and any players, that should always be the number one point.
I think Ole has done a brilliant job to culturally reset the club, he has drummed the values and belief back after Jose destroyed a lot of the feel good factor.
Footballing wise, he has been backed and spent 450m. Of the players he has accumulated, i would say DVB, Pallestri and Amad were signings he did not want, and maybe he was not backed with a midfielder he wanted but WH were asking for 100m for Rice and Camavingha clearly wanted to move to Madrid. The defence is now his, AWB in his third year, Harry in his second and Varane, an established world class CB arrived in the summer. Bruno has been a revelation at this club and I believe has saved his job over many occasions in the 18 plus months he has been here. He got the right winger he wanted in Sancho and there are not many managers that would say no to Ronnie, infact Ronaldo is the striker profile he wanted from the start, a hungry instinctive goalscorer. Pogba was already here, Shaw's talent has matured, De Gea is still class and we have Henderson as a back up.
On paper, we have probably the best attacking line up in the world after maybe PSG. My first negativity on Ole is I do not believe he knows how to handle a squad of players. He has his favourites he trusts whilst the others get isolated and do not get much match time. The second issue is his style of play, from what I see, we try to get the ball to the forward 3 plus Bruno as quick as possible and then just hope one of them will produce something. I think he has failed with Pogba, to find his right position. I also believe there is a player in Fred and squad player in Mctominay but they are playing in roles that are not naturally suited to them. It has been three years since he has been here, that is a long time in modern football, but we are still on the wavelength of seasonal ups and downs. I think 20 years ago, this would be okay, but City, Liverpool and more recently Chelsea have changed expectations in this league. Getting to 90 points or more used to be a rare thing, and usually one team would do this. In recent years, Liverpool and City raised this bar but have also raised the expectation of goals scored and goal diff. From the evidence I have seen, Ole does not have the ability to do the same, we need an exceptional manager that demands more and more from the team. What the question should be to Ole, is how does he bridge this game and when.
When he first joined, he said we should be challenging for the title in his third year. Well here we are, his target year has arrived but so far this season, we look lost. We had the easiest run of fixtures out of the top 6 over the first block of games and we have not capitalised. Ole really needs to be putting teams away but I find myself as nervous before a Villa game as I would against a Man City. Yes this is the best league in the world and every team has improved, but we have spent 450m on spme great players and our return on this has not been acceptable.
I qould be happy for Ole to go tomorrow but equally, i go into every game hoping he wins and that is his turning point but unfortunately you can only live on hope for so long before you need to show results.
I think the final issue is less on Ole but a massive issue at this club. We breed propaganda, that is why Ole is manager. Look at Lampard, was the perfect story but he didn't cut it, he couldn't deliver and Roman wants to win., Tuchal was turned Chelsea around. The club want a heros story so the feed us with positivity through every media channel. Maybe Ole can do it eventually, but 3 years since a title, 4 years since any trophey and i feel the gap is widening with chelsea coming into the mix, city are always there and Liverpool clearly overtaken us and one day soon will have the most english titles.
Football is a results business, 3 years is a long time to transition especially when the investment in players has been there. I now believe Ole will look for excuses, which he has so far, and blame it on a transition and new players coming in. Every year, every team has new players coming in, they dont regress with them, they look to integrate. Sancho has been a bit part player so far, Varane has been good and Ronaldo does not need a introduction.
