What was the plan in the summer?

[downunder red]

Simple and bloody obvious! To make more money!

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

The plan was to do what Mourinho was asking us to do, but don't let Jose do it

We signed Maguire, which he wanted. Pogba doesn't play, as mourinho would have preferred. Mctominay a regular when fit, suited mourinho.

So it makes you think what was the point in the board falling out with mourinho just because he wanted to spend a few more quid because of some failed transfers? I know, we had a toxic atmosphere and the football was very bad. We probably did make the right decision

The point im trying to make is that do we really know what we're doing?

You are questioning what was the point, but at the same time in the next sentence you already know the answer without even realising it.

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

Imagine getting in 5 expected first-team players (not gonna count Lee Grant) over 3 transfer windows and selling or putting on loan 9 first-team players and expecting to end up with a better squad as a result.

So they've looked at the team that finished 2nd in 17/18 in the league and taken out:

- The top scoring forward in the squad and top scorer by 14 goals in his previous season (Lukaku)
- Club legend and playmaker who had played 464 games (Carrick)
- One of the best midfielders post-Ferguson and someone with real passion for the club (Herrera)
- One of the most unusual but effective midfielders in the league (Fellaini)
- A player terrible for United but a former top 20 in the world player (Sanchez)
- One of the best defenders post-Ferguson and a good club man (Smalling)
- One of the most astute ball-playing defenders in the world (Blind)

And they thought this was enough to replace them with:

- A player who was improving but still with obvious limitations (Fred)
- A 20-year-old seemingly injury-prone full-back who had only played 28 senior games in his career (Dalot)
- A 22-year-old winger from the Championship who had only played 39 senior club games (James)
- A 21-year-old promising full-back who was very good in the PL the previous season (Wan-Bissaka)
- A 26-year-old England international centre back (Maguire)

Deciding that these players were enough to promote to fill the gaps:

- A player who was never really deemed good enough for United before, now back at 23 (Pereira)
- A 17-year-old striker who had played only one senior game (Greenwood)
- A 19-year-old who had never played a senior game (Williams)

And really expect winning football from that? To compete in the Europa League with extra fixtures, and play full teams in the cups as well? Managed by a man without the credentials to manage a club of this stature? It's delusional and incompetent. There should have been 3-4 extra replacements there, it's basic stuff.

The most basic stuff is that it’s not easy to keep almost every players who want to leave and also not possible in one summer window replacing them if there are that many, at the same time we need to upgrade players as well.

 

[Sky1981]

Everyone has a plan, until they got punched in the mouth

Bet Ole's plan looks United, posh and grand, buy x, sell y, wait for A,B,C to flourish, dominate for X years after 3 years

Holyfield won. Despite the massive 15/2 odds against him. He won. However had he blindly followed his plan when things had changed he may not have. The question is how you adapt your plan when you get punched in the mouth. There are two key things here

1. Most of the plan should survive despite everyone being focused on the bit that is broken. So, keep the old plan in mind when working out the new plan. You may have a puffed up eye and half an ear but your arms and legs are still working so don’t stop moving, defending and throwing punches.
2. The new plan needs to deal with right now reality. There’s no point thinking about training and strategy while you’re being punched in the face. Your ear hurts and your eyes are swelling so you need to think and make a decisive decision. In this case the fighter can either to go for a knockout now or stay away for a while, his choice will have knock on effects for the rest of the fight but the fighter needs to make a decision or get punched in the face again.

To bring this back to the workplace. If you’ve created a detailed work plan for your team that fully utilizes your people and equipment and key people call in sick or a machine breaks down. What do you do?

1. Most of the plan should survive, priority jobs should still happen and most of the team should be able to carry on doing what they were planned to be doing. So, adapt the current plan to cope with the change, don’t throw it all out and start again.
2. The new plan needs to deal with right now reality. In most cases planners won’t be around to help so your supervisor needs to be able to solve the problem himself, this means they must both understand the plan (the why behind the what) and believe that they have the authority to change it. Someone didn’t come in, I can borrow someone or do a different job from tomorrow’s plan. Machine is broken, can I do contingency work, fix it or borrow another machine. The last thing you want is for people to stand around doing nothing.

Seems to me Ole's plan (if he had one) all goes to bit after the first defeat, this man has no believe in his own plan, the changes formations like he changes underwear. Most older and battle proven manager (Lvg, Jose, Pep, Klopp) believed in something, they know what it is, they know how to recreate that something, they've witnessed their formation work.

Ole doesn't have all that, he might have a plan or two, but when 2 months going into the season results aren't going well he ditch his plan, and goes to ground zero again.

Hell he can't even decide if he wants to counter or pressing (which is 2 different phylosophy), you can't counter if you press them high (technically you can, but it like 2 different paradigm hampering your team). If you want to play counter, defend deep, hard, and make your opponent make mistakes. If you want to press then make sure you're good at keeping possession.

Our team, doesn't press that good, doesn't pass that good, and when we go counter it's because the other team are so damn good we have no choice, it's not counter, it's being beaten to a pulp and hoping to get a few sucker punch back.

 

[Denis' cuff]

But the cat was too busy napping in its bed while the intruders were ransacking the place, when it could at least have been hissing at them from the doorway...

Brilliant

unfortunately, as in reality, the cat was pretty powerless. They hiss, they get sacked. Ask Jose.

people like you, defending them, enable the Owners.

aren’t Exeter City still in business?

 

[Denis' cuff]

The most basic stuff is that it’s not easy to keep almost every players who want to leave and also not possible in one summer window replacing them if there are that many, at the same time we need to upgrade players as well.

jesus.

So they find it easy giving Manchester United players away but can’t replace them with adequate replacements from clubs, usually not as attractive as United, who are still one of the wealthiest clubs in the world.

The most basic stuff is not extending a contract to a useless defender, who has averaged 17 pl games per season in nearly a decade, due to his injury record. And the times he rarely plays usually ends up cocking up and resulting in a goal for the oppo, when he isn’t busy injuring his own team mates.

the most basic stuff is not paying the keeper 1.5 p/m to feck up every week when we have perfectly good replacements bench warming or on loan. Neither are perfect, but neither is Dave. Far from it.

The most basic stuff is not renewing the contract of a player who hasn’t assisted, never mind scored for a year.

The most basic stuff is not renewing the contract..... don’t even start me on Humpty Dumpty.

...and that’s the tip of the iceberg.

 

[Kostov]

There was no plan. No manager and CEO in their right mind having any ambition to have a good season would have gone into the season without signing midfielders. I mean we were screaming about the sheer stupidity of and we are Ona fecking forum knowing feck all supposedly.

 

[nameischarles]

No *real* plan but sell Pogba and use some of that money to invest back into the squad. The usual 3 signings; one big summer headline signing, one for the future and a cheap/free stop gap signing.

Probably also offload one of Rojo, Bailly or Jones and Matic. Survive until the next summer.

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

jesus.

So they find it easy giving Manchester United players away but can’t replace them with adequate replacements from clubs, usually not as attractive as United, who are still one of the wealthiest clubs in the world.

The most basic stuff is not extending a contract to a useless defender, who has averaged 17 pl games per season in nearly a decade, due to his injury record. And the times he rarely plays usually ends up cocking up and resulting in a goal for the oppo, when he isn’t busy injuring his own team mates.

the most basic stuff is not paying the keeper 1.5 p/m to feck up every week when we have perfectly good replacements bench warming or on loan. Neither are perfect, but neither is Dave. Far from it.

The most basic stuff is not renewing the contract of a player who hasn’t assisted, never mind scored for a year.

The most basic stuff is not renewing the contract..... don’t even start me on Humpty Dumpty.

...and that’s the tip of the iceberg.

Fellaini, Herrera, Lukaku, Sanchez wanted to leave, that is 4 players to replace. What do you want to do with the situation? Begging for them to stay?

And we need to upgrade centre back, winger, and right back minimum. That’s also 3 players to sign.

In total 7 players to sign in one feckin summer window. Are you feckin telling me it’s realistic to sign minimum 7 good players in 1 summer window??

 

[OLLY ORANGE]

To bleed the club of more money. To avoid meaningful signings, to announce signings at moments of bad press attacking board.To blag a league campaign. To keep the heat off the board untill another transfer window.
Blue print of running the club

 

[Roboc7]

Allow a CEO and recruitment team who’ve all failed repeatedly without any accountability and a manager who would struggle to get a job in the Championship to implement a shit plan. Unsurprisingly it isn’t going very well.

 

[UpWithRivers]

The plan was and is Brexit FC.
1) Hire Ole for cheer and giggles and links with the past. - DONE
2) Sell all the disruptive players and anyone that didnt want to play for Ole or the club - 24 more players to go
3) Be loyal to all players that tow the line even if they are incredibly sht. Mata, Lingard etc. Give new contracts and give sht load of game time. - DONE
4) Buy British - DONE
5) Play with kids. - Sort of but Ole said the kids are ready. They are not.
6) Wait 3/4 years and see what happens
Ex players Keane, Neville etc and the whole Ole fan club are still spouting it.

 

[Irwin99]

I keep seeing people saying there was no plan but there clearly was a set of ideas laid out by Ole that was championed by him from virtually day one;

Faith in young players
Fast, counter attacking football ("no tippy tappy football")
A British core (not 100% but mostly British players....Rice and Longstaff links)
A much bigger shift towards getting the players fitter
Positivity, positivity and more positivity after Jose's relentless misery (realism?)


The stupidity of it was that it relied on most of the squad being injury free, that the young players would suddenly play like the class of 92 because we 'believe in them', that our three centre forwards would remain consistent and injury free all season, that Pogba would play a deeper midfield role (a player that clearly doesn't want to be here). I loathe Woodward but in fairness he did veto the idea of paying 70 million for Maguire the season before. It seems as if this was the priority signing that Ole wanted and if he was working to a tight budget then it was a bad decision considering we haven't had a right winger or a good number 10 for many years now.

I'm just not convinced that Ole had the right plan for this season at all but he did have one. I just couldn't get into what he was trying to sell to us from the very beginning. It just seemed a mixture of nostalgia, ultra positive/unrealistic thinking based on the best case scenario, and an emphasis on 'hunger and desire' over technical quality.