The Overlap - Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

[Zen86]

And this contradicts the later part of your post. Current gen would love having a manager like SAF. A legend who has seen it all. Who can be their father figure, someone highly respected and can guide them. Unlike most managers nowadays who arent very proven themselves.

They would like it for about 5 mins. Fergie ran a tight ship.

 

[Big Andy]

They would like it for about 5 mins. Fergie ran a tight ship.

He’d have youngsters cleaning boots and shit and they would fecking hate it

 

[tenpoless]

They would like it for about 5 mins. Fergie ran a tight ship.

Good thats how you get rid of wrong players. But the ones genuinely want to improve would listen to him than someone like Hag or any other PL manager.

 

[poleglass red]

He seems like a very genuine fella, you can see the admiration the likes of Nev and Keane have for him, the fact Keane drove 8 hours or so to come and visit him speaks volumes.

 

[Lash]

One of the best episodes. Ole comes across as a really great guy, humble, but with passion for the game. I hope he finds an opportunity that works for him.

 

[Slevs]

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Signing Ronaldo was the right decision but then says it was a wrong decision?

He's saying at the time he thought it was the right decision but in hindsight he admits it was the wrong decision.

 

[jem]

The Ronaldo signing + pressure to play proactive football were his downfall. I'm still convinced if Ole / McKenna / Carrick had a better structure behind them and prioritized the right signings, they could play some decent football. He's also a fairly old school 90s / 00s type manager. If he gave up on the idea that he needed to play pro-active football and press and all that he probably would've finished better than 4th that season.

I love him but I don't think he was cut out for it. Even in this interview with how he praises the likes of Maguire and Fred, you get the sense that he wasn't ruthless enough.

 

[sugar_kane]

This episode pretty much confirmed my theory that him selling Daniel James and replacing him Ronaldo was the moment he sold out on everything he had been trying to build and screwed himself over.

He doesn’t outright say it but he seemed to have a plan and just gave up on it and then started doing mad shit like trying to go toe to toe with a far superior Liverpool side just for the crack seemingly.

 

[tomaldinho1]

I love him but I don't think he was cut out for it. Even in this interview with how he praises the likes of Maguire and Fred, you get the sense that he wasn't ruthless enough.

He was making a point about the players who would always give their 100% so it's fair for him to mention Fred. However, the Maguire point was a bit weird, he was decent when he arrived without setting the world alight but the way Ole spoke about him seemed like he was seeing a different player to what we all saw.

 

[jem]

He was making a point about the players who would always give their 100% so it's fair for him to mention Fred. However, the Maguire point was a bit weird, he was decent when he arrived without setting the world alight but the way Ole spoke about him seemed like he was seeing a different player to what we all saw.

And to be fair, I kind of miss Fred this season

 

[tomaldinho1]

And to be fair, I kind of miss Fred this season

Fred - Case is a tried and test pairing, I guess it's just not what ETH wanted. I get it though, we needed to sell and his value was declining but I will always miss the Pastor.

 

[fe33er]

Would Roy Keane succeed as a United manager? He has the personality and is demanding. He did well at Sunderland in the championship obviously not so well after but what if he was given the resources and the players? The obvious concern is that he'd be too fiery for the big baby's of mordern football but he seems to have mellowed quite abit.

Nope, it would bring the puppy dog side out of him, when he’s on TV calling Rashford, “Rashy” the hardman act days would well and truly be over.

 

[Mike Smalling]

This episode pretty much confirmed my theory that him selling Daniel James and replacing him Ronaldo was the moment he sold out on everything he had been trying to build and screwed himself over.

He doesn’t outright say it but he seemed to have a plan and just gave up on it and then started doing mad shit like trying to go toe to toe with a far superior Liverpool side just for the crack seemingly.

If what he was trying to build was reliant on Daniel James, we were going nowhere anyway, to be fair.

 

[Wednesday at Stoke]

He was making a point about the players who would always give their 100% so it's fair for him to mention Fred. However, the Maguire point was a bit weird, he was decent when he arrived without setting the world alight but the way Ole spoke about him seemed like he was seeing a different player to what we all saw.

He stayed fit, which was a rarity for us between Smalling, Jones, Bailly, Rojo until then and we had the third best defensive record, up from 10th in his debut season. I don’t understand the revisionist history here saying he was always shit. He was solidly consistent until he decided to go to Mykonos.

 

[Ibrahimorich]

I love him but I don't think he was cut out for it. Even in this interview with how he praises the likes of Maguire and Fred, you get the sense that he wasn't ruthless enough.

He praises their character most of all. Which I think is a fair assessment.

 

[Lentwood]

Interesting when he said we have "too much Data / too many reports" on players sometimes.

Sure older fans will remember we (supposedly) turned down Torres from Atletico for some spurious reason about how quickly he turned with the ball and Henderson from Sunderland because of his gait.

We famously heard about us scouting thousands of RBs before selecting AWB, who, despite the fact I actually quite like him, is about as poor a fit for the brand of football we seem to want to play as is possible to find.

That's the crux of it really. You can have all the Data and all the reports in the World but if you fundamentally don't know what you're looking for or what qualities you desire then it's all completely pointless and actually harmful. For example, if I backed a horse for the Grand National because of its speed over 1F or a horse for the 5F Prix de l'Abbaye because it was a good jumper then I'd be in serious trouble!

Its also interesting that Ole highlighted our reluctance to take a risk on a player. Again, we had Martinelli on trial four times. We could have signed Haaland for a bit of pocket change.

Why are we seemingly willing to throw money away on clapped out old "names" or chuck crazy money into salaries whilst at the same time being reluctant to spend £200,000 on a player we thought it was worth taking on trial four times? How then does that same club spend (potentially) £37m on Amad Diallo? A good player, no doubt, but certainly not one you'd have obvious singled out to spend that kind of money on at that age.

We won't sign Haaland on a recommendation from Ole, but we did sign Pellistri, supposedly on recommendation from Diego Forlan, and Dan James, supposedly on recommendation from Ryan Giggs. The only conclusion you can draw is that our recruitment "process" is not a process at all. Its chaos. They don't know what players' they are looking for, what attributes they want, what they should pay and who they should trust.

 

[horsechoker]

Interesting when he said we have "too much Data / too many reports" on players sometimes.

Sure older fans will remember we (supposedly) turned down Torres from Atletico for some spurious reason about how quickly he turned with the ball and Henderson from Sunderland because of his gait.

We famously heard about us scouting thousands of RBs before selecting AWB, who, despite the fact I actually quite like him, is about as poor a fit for the brand of football we seem to want to play as is possible to find.

That's the crux of it really. You can have all the Data and all the reports in the World but if you fundamentally don't know what you're looking for or what qualities you desire then it's all completely pointless and actually harmful. For example, if I backed a horse for the Grand National because of its speed over 1F or a horse for the 5F Prix de l'Abbaye because it was a good jumper then I'd be in serious trouble!

Its also interesting that Ole highlighted our reluctance to take a risk on a player. Again, we had Martinelli on trial four times. We could have signed Haaland for a bit of pocket change.

Why are we seemingly willing to throw money away on clapped out old "names" or chuck crazy money into salaries whilst at the same time being reluctant to spend £200,000 on a player we thought it was worth taking on trial four times? How then does that same club spend (potentially) £37m on Amad Diallo? A good player, no doubt, but certainly not one you'd have obvious singled out to spend that kind of money on at that age.

We won't sign Haaland on a recommendation from Ole, but we did sign Pellistri, supposedly on recommendation from Diego Forlan, and Dan James, supposedly on recommendation from Ryan Giggs. The only conclusion you can draw is that our recruitment "process" is not a process at all. Its chaos. They don't know what players' they are looking for, what attributes they want, what they should pay and who they should trust.

Maybe we just flip a coin on whether we should sign a player or not

 

[Lentwood]

I love him but I don't think he was cut out for it. Even in this interview with how he praises the likes of Maguire and Fred, you get the sense that he wasn't ruthless enough.

Fred and Maguire have 94 caps for Brazil and England respectively. Those players aren't "the problem", the problem is when those players are your best players, or key players.

We should have focused on building steadily, keeping those good solid professionals as the foundations and slowly replacing them with better players who become the new first team regulars. You could win a title with Maguire and Fred (at peak) starting 5-10 games. It's when they're starting 35+ you might struggle.

Instead of building properly, what we constantly do is chuck money at quick fixes, who then need to be replaced themselves (Casemiro, AdM, Lukaku, Varane, Sanchez, Ronaldo, Zlatan, Cavani, Schweinsteiger), or back the wrong horses out of poor judgement/romantacism and end up lumbered with dubious characters on huge salaries that we cant move on and have to hope come good.(Rashford, Martial, Sancho)

 

[Lentwood]

Maybe we just flip a coin on whether we should sign a player or not

I genuinely think an interesting social experiment would have been to draw names from a hat for a decade and see if we ended up with a better squad than Woodward oversaw

 

[tomaldinho1]

He stayed fit, which was a rarity for us between Smalling, Jones, Bailly, Rojo until then and we had the third best defensive record, up from 10th in his debut season. I don’t understand the revisionist history here saying he was always shit. He was solidly consistent until he decided to go to Mykonos.

Not sure which part of ' he was decent when he arrived without setting the world alight' you've translated to 'shit' but seems a strange response?

 

[JediSith]

This is how I read it as well , somethings seem right at he time but just don't work out. Does make sense.

You can't say that the ultimate goal was to gradually move away from counter-attacking tactics in favour of a more possession-based style and, then, suggest that you thought it was a good idea to have a team with a 37 yo Ronaldo, Rashford, Bruno in the starting line-up. Something's off there, it just doesn't add up. Kudos to him for assuming responsibility, though, instead of blaming everyone and anyone under the sun. You rarely see it nowadays (and not just in football).

At the time I thought it was the wrong signing simply because of his age and style.

But: From Ole point of view It could have been right signing even if he wanted to change the style. if Ole thought we were 1 top goal scorer away from winning the league. You never know, maybe he wanted Ronaldo to be like SAF’s RVP signing, we did have on paper a very good summer that year. Most teams that finish 2nd/3rd and add Varane, Sancho, and Ronaldo would see that as the transfers to win the league.

 

[Wednesday at Stoke]

Not sure which part of ' he was decent when he arrived without setting the world alight' you've translated to 'shit' but seems a strange response?

He was more than decent though and given our luck with central defenders, he was almost worth the money he cost considering how much stability his arrival, along, with Wan Bissaka, added to the team.

 

[tomaldinho1]

He was more than decent though and given our luck with central defenders, he was almost worth the money he cost considering how much stability his arrival, along, with Wan Bissaka, added to the team.

Injury record he's a tank but he's not been worth near the fee. Had Jose stayed on he'd maybe be viewed in a different light, after all that team who finished 2nd had a ropey CB pool of Smalling/jones/lindelof/bailly and only conceded 28 goals all season. For all his faults Mou knew how to setup a defence with slower, aerially strong CBs.

 

[Bastian]

Fred and Maguire have 94 caps for Brazil and England respectively. Those players aren't "the problem", the problem is when those players are your best players, or key players.

We should have focused on building steadily, keeping those good solid professionals as the foundations and slowly replacing them with better players who become the new first team regulars. You could win a title with Maguire and Fred (at peak) starting 5-10 games. It's when they're starting 35+ you might struggle.

Instead of building properly, what we constantly do is chuck money at quick fixes, who then need to be replaced themselves (Casemiro, AdM, Lukaku, Varane, Sanchez, Ronaldo, Zlatan, Cavani, Schweinsteiger), or back the wrong horses out of poor judgement/romantacism and end up lumbered with dubious characters on huge salaries that we cant move on and have to hope come good.(Rashford, Martial, Sancho)

You're not wrong, but those players' fees were tantamount to what you'd expect to pay for your very best players. Maguire is still the most expensive centre back in the world and Fred cost 50m-ish in 2018 (not sure what that would be in today's market, but Mahrez went for 60m that summer, Richarlison for 35m for comparison).

I think it speaks to one issue that we have which is the manager has to be somewhat responsible for the budget too, which brings to mind Antony as well.

 

[MadDogg]

He stayed fit, which was a rarity for us between Smalling, Jones, Bailly, Rojo until then and we had the third best defensive record, up from 10th in his debut season. I don’t understand the revisionist history here saying he was always shit. He was solidly consistent until he decided to go to Mykonos.

The issue in Greece was at the end of his first season, a season where he was already up and down quite a bit so I'd hardly say he was solidly consistent. While he did struggle a bit for the first month or two a in his second season, after that he stepped up and it was easily his best season with us. In the second half of that season he was, along with Dias, the best defender in the league. So his best form actually came in the season directly after Mykonos.

It was only in his third season where his performances went to shit.

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

At the time I thought it was the wrong signing simply because of his age and style.

But: From Ole point of view It could have been right signing even if he wanted to change the style. if Ole thought we were 1 top goal scorer away from winning the league. You never know, maybe he wanted Ronaldo to be like SAF’s RVP signing, we did have on paper a very good summer that year. Most teams that finish 2nd/3rd and add Varane, Sancho, and Ronaldo would see that as the transfers to win the league.

That's the thing, though, isn't it? As manager, your job isn't to simply think, your job is to assess and plan ahead.

The team structure is what creates the chances, and the forwards are paid the big bucks to convert them. The underlying statistics at the end of 20/21 suggested that we were massively over-performing in the final third. We didn't lack finishers, we lacked nuances in our game plan. So, if the idea behind signing Ronaldo was to add a "cheat code" that would allow Solskjaer to bypass the necessary process managers are paid to oversee and propel us into a title charge, it was a bad idea. It also (kind of) justifies all the people who were claiming at the time that Solsjkaer - despite his good intentions - was never the right man for the job.

There's a misconception about RvP's transfer. Sir Alex didn't sign him to "solve" any structural issues, but to spearhead an already potent team. He wanted him to replace a declining Rooney as the focal point of our attack. But the team already knew how to get those goals. In fact, the season before (11/12), we scored more goals (89) than with RvP (86).

 

[Rojofiam]

Madness that Fergie apparently gave Ole shit for dropping Ronaldo, even though he claimed they had an agreement that he would only play 3 out of 4 games

Hope it wasn't a regular occurence and he's just referring to that one incident where SAF said "you should always pick your best players", but even that was a ridiculous thing to say at the time IMO

 

[Laurencio]

He was making a point about the players who would always give their 100% so it's fair for him to mention Fred. However, the Maguire point was a bit weird, he was decent when he arrived without setting the world alight but the way Ole spoke about him seemed like he was seeing a different player to what we all saw.

I think it's more a case of people forgetting just how good Maguire looked in his first season. At the time, the major talking point was that he needed a better centreback partner, not that he wasn't good enough. Mykonos was definitely a turning point.

 

[Sir Erik ten Hag]

Turns out Pogba was the only player to actually come visit Ole after he was sacked. Quite telling, if true.

 

[Gavinb33]

I think it's more a case of people forgetting just how good Maguire looked in his first season. At the time, the major talking point was that he needed a better centreback partner, not that he wasn't good enough. Mykonos was definitely a turning point.

He did need a better partner, I'm convinced Lindelof's deficiencies worsened Maguire's performance because he had to cover for him more, if Maguire cost Lindelof's fee and Lindelof cost Maguire's fee everyone would be against Lindelof more than Maguire, the crutch to beat Maguire is/was the fee and none of that was down to him, his partners until we signed Varane were mostly shit

 

[tomaldinho1]

I think it's more a case of people forgetting just how good Maguire looked in his first season. At the time, the major talking point was that he needed a better centreback partner, not that he wasn't good enough. Mykonos was definitely a turning point.

I think more the attempt from Ole to move to 433 really exposed him. Plus he was infront of DDG who could not have been worse suited. Maguire's looked ok again i think this season to be honest.

 

[MadDogg]

I think it's more a case of people forgetting just how good Maguire looked in his first season. At the time, the major talking point was that he needed a better centreback partner, not that he wasn't good enough. Mykonos was definitely a turning point.

He was better the season after Mykonos.

 

[MadDogg]

He did need a better partner, I'm convinced Lindelof's deficiencies worsened Maguire's performance because he had to cover for him more, if Maguire cost Lindelof's fee and Lindelof cost Maguire's fee everyone would be against Lindelof more than Maguire, the crutch to beat Maguire is/was the fee and none of that was down to him, his partners until we signed Varane were mostly shit

They've never been good partners for each other, and it hurts both of them. Instead of helping cover each others weaknesses, they both have many of the same weaknesses.

Maguire's top level has certainly been better while he's been here, but his bottom level has also been worse. Overall I'd say it's been fairly close between them.

19/20 - About the same level
20/21 - Maguire was better
21/22 - Lindelof was better
22/23 - Lindelof was better
23/24 - Maguire has been better

 

[horsechoker]

Turns out Pogba was the only player to actually come visit Ole after he was sacked. Quite telling, if true.

Probably looking for his "gear" jk

 

[clarkydaz]

Madness that Fergie apparently gave Ole shit for dropping Ronaldo, even though he claimed they had an agreement that he would only play 3 out of 4 games

Hope it wasn't a regular occurence and he's just referring to that one incident where SAF said "you should always pick your best players", but even that was a ridiculous thing to say at the time IMO

eh? is there more to this than the clip where fergie was in private conversation?

 

[Longshanks]

They've never been good partners for each other, and it hurts both of them. Instead of helping cover each others weaknesses, they both have many of the same weaknesses.

Maguire's top level has certainly been better while he's been here, but his bottom level has also been worse. Overall I'd say it's been fairly close between them.

19/20 - About the same level
20/21 - Maguire was better
21/22 - Lindelof was better
22/23 - Lindelof was better
23/24 - Maguire has been better

Maguire and lindelof as a partnership isn't to bad, it's also not that great, but they do work together ok. The thing lacking is Pace could be covered by an active sweeper keeper and was for a short period with Henderson in nets. But with De Gea the space behind was always a weakness.

To allow Maguire to play at his best you have to cover his obvious weakness somehow. Either with a pacy partner or keeper who sweeps proactively.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

L

And this contradicts the later part of your post. Current gen would love having a manager like SAF. A legend who has seen it all. Who can be their father figure, someone highly respected and can guide them. Unlike most managers nowadays who arent very proven themselves.

He would break them and replace nearly all of them over a couple of years.

 

[saivet]

Wouldn't give the club much flak for turning down Haaland are you actually kidding me

No, the club hierarchy and decision makers deserve to be shat on.

It's a hindsight thing for me. Of course it was a bad decision but I imagine a lot of former players (perhaps Ole himself) have called the club up recommending use to sign the supposed next big thing. It obviously puts into question the decision making but his next move was to Salzburg which indicates that other big clubs didn't recognise the talent and if they did maybe Haaland had a clear career plan.

 

[saivet]

eh? is there more to this than the clip where fergie was in private conversation?

I don't think so - the clip itself did apply pressure from the media/fans but in the grand scheme of things SAF didn't do much wrong apart from being caught on camera.

 

[FrantikChicken]

I wish they pressed him more on the Sancho signing.

He said both him and the club really wanted Sancho, but also admits that Jadon prefers playing on the left, like Rashford.

We were crying out for a right winger that summer, and they spent 80m on someone who would essentially compete with Rashford…why?