I'm always amazed that people manage to take the most positive reading of all possible events. So points mean nothing especially in this season, but according to Golden Blunder I should look at goals scored as a sign of improvement. As if the point of scoring goals is not to win games and points and so, I suppose, it can't be possible to become a worse team overall while scoring (marginally) more goals.
The fact Arsenal and Tottenham are 8th and 7th shows a ridiculously competitive league and it doesn't show an obvious decline for those clubs. If you remember Wenger's Arsenal how could you possibly say that them finishing behind West Ham and Leicester is testament to the competitiveness of the league and not their own sad state? And if the league is so competitive how come the teams that won it the last two seasons had ~100 points and were 30 points off the rest? How do you interpret competitive, competitive against what?
On your 3 points I agree that Ole has mostly a decent core (minus DM and CF, Cavani is only temporary) and I also agree that the recruitment strategy has been mostly reassuring in that it's focusing on younger players and not expensive short-term solutions. It's a bit hit and miss but he got the big ones right. Of the players that we signed for a fee (forget Ighalo and Cavani) Maguire, Bruno and AWB from his first year became part of the core but James, VDB and Telles have not contributed as much as expected. The team is lacking quality in depth as you say yet it's better than it was on Mourinho's last year for sure.
However whatever gains he has made on improving and revitalizing the squad have been undone by his poor tactics and squad management. Not discernible attacking style beyond give it to Bruno/Pogba and hope, terrible set-piece defending, not enough rotation and hardly any subs, inability to affect the game form the bench etc. This is a team that isn't performing any better than Mourinho's team in the first to years by any stretch of the imagination. At least there's no toxic atmosphere.
In other words, Ole has done a decent job for a technical director but not for a head coach/manager to me. I don't see better signings bridging that gap created by lack of playing identity and good coaching while he's here. He's not going to be a par for Pep or Klopp he'll just be fighting for top 4. If that's the level of our ambition with double the budget of the teams below us that what can I say.
Comparing points across seasons is not completely pointless (sorry) but there should be a sizable margin of error there. No doubt Spurs and Arsenal have delined a bit, but if you have one of the best strikers this generation and still end up 7th, then it tells you something about the quality of the competition as well. City and Pool were abnormal in 18/19 and 19/20
In any case we improved our points tally from last season and would probably have improved it even more had it not been for the fact we were nowhere match fit at the start and the fact that we had nothing to play for the last 4 games or so. Regaring goals scored there is also a lot of margin of error, but one positive to pick from here except that we score more, is that we have a lot of goal scorers, but still dont have a profilic top class CF
Tactically i think hes mostly fine. Some blunders here and there, but for the most part our set up and team selections are fine. Besides an obvious blind spot for Rashford i dont think hes shown any glaring issues,
I said it earlier, Ole does very little of the actual coaching, but hes still responsible for picking his coaches and i fully agree there are room for improvements in that regard. Not going to speculate about the credentials and skills of Phelan et al, but there is no doubt some obvious problems here that needs adressing. Set pieces is the obvious one.
Regarding parked buses though i think the problem runs a bit deeper than just (lack of) coaching. Unless Pogba plays in the pivot, we have no one with any serious passing ability centrally and hes a bit of a liability defensively. Since everyone is aware of Bruno now, hes usually closely watched and that leads to us struggling to thread the ball through the middle. The whole "give it to Bruno and let him sort it out" joke has some truth to it, but i dont think thats by design and its more down to Fred and McTomminay lacking the technical and/or passing ability to beat press and make progressive passes regularaly. Put Scholes in that MF and a lot of our woes would be solved.
Our inability to pass through the center means we very often attack through the wings and herein lies problem #2: We dont really have any natural wide players. Pogba, Rashford and Greenwood are fine there, but i would not call any of them wingers. Greenwood i think shows a lot of promise at RW, but is still just a teenager and is bound to be inconsitent. Pogba and Rashford can be brilliant at LW if they are in form, but both of them are completely useless there when not in form. In any case all three of them are more comfortable drifting inside which means much of the creative burden in the final third ends up on the fullbacks. Shaw has no doubt been terrific this season, but AWB, even though i think hes imporving, is hardly a great attacking fullback and has lots to learn regarding positioning and movement in attack
If we had a more press resitant DM/CM with the ability to pick a pass i am confident we would become much better at attacking centrally. If we had a proper winger who could consistently beat his man and whip in good crosses im sure Cavani would have had twice as many goals as he had. Not saying our coaching cant be better, because it can but i am pretty sure that adding a Sanco + a CM with some passing ability and we become much harder to deal with
