You seem to think I view LVG at the time as world class, there is a happy medium to be found here. He was still a top coach, quite clearly a very effective coach. His record spoke for itself. What he achieved was very much worthy of being given the United job.
Absolutely. And I didn't want to take something away from him. Of course his career earned him the position and in no way he shouldn't be considered as a very good coach. Nevertheless, he was fading a bit as I pointed out. And it is no coincidence he ended his career after the United job. Being great doesn't last forever after all. My criticism was more directed to your praise than at the qualities of LVG.
Well like I said, I've given reasons as to why it falters at times. Fatigue no doubt is primary and then lack of squad depth. Ole is getting every single last drop out of his best senior players. Maguire has played more mins of football than any other player in the league. Bruno, AWB and Shaw aren't that far behind either.
You are right. But this is also connected with managerial decisions. Of course a manager tries to always field his best players. But he has to manage it if he doesn't want to risk to burn them. We have witnessed how that looks like last year.
We lose a Pogba and we lose his ability to pick out a pass long and short, we lose his ability to carry the ball, we lose his power to drive past players.. and then we inherit Fred who for all his efforts is a poor passer and lacks vision, can't pick out players at any real distance, can't carry a ball past opposition either... color me shocked then we perform worse. This isn't to say either Fred is the be all and end all of our issues, of course it isn't.
Well there was a lot of talk back then that the introduction of Bruno showed we don't have to rely on Pogba anymore. And I have some difficulties buying into a system that has such big issues if two individuals are not available. Of course this affects all teams and all systems but at some point you have to start to evaluate. First it was, Bruno has to play or we have nothing. Now you say we have to play Bruno AND Pogba. This is the point in here: we are relying to much on individuals to turn up.
You can't seriously believe that Ole is happy with players not moving, poor passing, creating space etc etc. Do you really believe Ole and his coaches don't attempt to train the players to move / pass in patterns. One of the coaches (Carrick) is arguably one of the most under rated passing centre mids of the last 15-20 years in the game and we've folks trying to suggest they don't know how to train some players on passing and movement and are quite happy to have players walking around and half as*ing it? Really?
I do believe it. Just him screaming at Martial is no evidence of some sort of coaching. In fact, if Martial doesn't do what the manager asks of him than he should be subbed out immediately. Your reference to Carrick is problematic in my eyes - he is one of the best passers in the world, and I hope he teaches his technique to all our players but what has this to do with pass and move, using the space of the pitch, moving the opposition players to create space. We can't just simplify it like that. That would be the equivalent of saying you only need to know how to handle a hammer and you are ready to build a house.
The reality is, Ole like all managers has but 2 chances per year to offload players, in between those periods he can
A) coach them and play them and do his upmost to motivate them to perform better - clearly he is trying to do this as Tony was arguably one of our best player last year along side Rashford and Bruno. Tony though is doing his usual of cooling off every other year.
B) Drop them - and in this instance (Martial) he has time and time again in favor of Cavani, Greenwood and James. Is there some other world class player you know of, none of the rest of us do?
Look the facts are we've quite a few top professionals quite happy to work / play for Ole like Shaw, Bruno, Rashford, Cavani and hell even Lukaku who was sold on and still praised Ole very much.
So he coached Martial last year to make him very good but this year Martial just has forgotten everything? That is not very convincing - at least if there is a possible explanation that Martial just thrived last year because the introduction of Bruno granted him and the other strikers more opportunities to operate in space. This year space is congested most of the time so naturally, the attackers look more clueless. I don't see Oles influence in that at all to be honest (no positive, no negative).
If he was as sh*t, clueless and incapable of coaching as you and other caftards are trying to suggest we'd know about it, just like when some of the other players spoke up about how toxic and awful it was to work for LVG and Jose.
Please, stop fighting imaginary people. I have never said he is some of the things you mentioned. Stop getting emotional.
I marked some bolded parts in my posts and you still accuse me of such stuff. Maybe you question yourself if this conflict became personal at some point for you.
See screen shot and logical reasoning above.. countless players praising his managerial skills thus far.
This thread is about coaching. And how our performances look like and what the potential connections with the coaching team might be. You want to creme yourself about his skills. There are quite a few threads to do it. OGS earned a lot of praise.
But Ole can and has out smarted some of the best coaches in world football.
Are we seriously to believe he is as bad as you or some make out?
If he is as tactically naïve, poor at coaching how exactly has he managed wins against Pep (beaten him more than Pep has bested Ole), Rodgers, Jose, Klopp, Nagelsmann, Tuchel, Lampard, Ancelloti...
Getting a good result isn't necessarily outsmarting and a few of these opposition managers might have underrated us or overrated themselves. Keeping a compact shape, go for quick transitions, engage a midfield battle. That are pretty basic things that worked very well. So yeah, his tactical abilities aren't a zero. Of course not, at least they look like just fine.
I don't think its as easy to say that any decent manager could do the same job. Lots of factors are involved.
Absolutely. I didn't say any other manager would have done the same. Because of some of Oles traits. But, in my view and in the view of a few others, coaching or leading a coaching team doesn't seem to be one of his stronger traits.
I'll keep saying it, there is no magical quick and easy fix. There are so many factors at play, timing is a huge thing here as well. Jose possibly could of been a great United manager at a certain time, but we didn't get him then.
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If Pep got the job at United in December 2018 I'm absolutely certain we would still not be Premier league champions today. We'd play better football, easier on the eye but that doesn't guarantee success.
You are absolutely right: there is no quick fix. But that doesn't mean you have to stuck with something just for the sake of it ignoring some aspects of a managers performance. As I said Ole as a manager is an entity with a skillset, some of them are considered very strong, some not so much. The question is how much can a strength balance a weakness.
I agree on the Pep part, nobody knows what would have happened. But seeing that Ole was able to imprint some things into the club, it wouldn't be particularly smart to insist, that Pep couldn't have had a similar positive effect. I imagine how players like Rashford or Shaw could be considered today, seeing what Pep got from Sterling and Delph.
All in all: I can understand your stance. But I think, with the level of praise you are overboard. Especially in this thread that is about the performances.
Our players aren't playing against some Sunday league chumps. They are being pressed and closed down by the best on the planet, simply expecting them to be able to figure out how to pass simply because they're talented is clutching. LVG showed (with these players and worse), that with a system, players could position themselves and pass the ball well. The football was dreadful to watch, but the coaching was evident to see. This is made even more problematic when you consider how little movement there is off the ball - passing and movement are hugely reliant on synergy and coaching. It's a lot harder to break teams down with passes and to pass your way out of trouble when the team has very little, or predictable, movement.
You only need to have a look at our joke of an excuse for a 'press' at times, to see. Another example would be teams like Leicester, Leipzig etc. who have inferior players to us, but have no difficulty passing the ball.
I think that this is a very important point to be made. The critique we have about the passing isn't just about the technical abilities but mostly at the use of passing as a tool to move the ball to promising positions. And the speed will go up if some moves are instilled in the players so they can execute them without having to look up and think it through.
