Last night was a very sombre experience for United fans. We got battered and bruised by a team who are quite simply on another level to us. The fact is though we are on the way back and it was fecking great to just to get to this part of the competition. I notice that the posters around here are starting to turn on Ole and it is absolutely madness in my eyes. I thought I'd make a sane thread to cancel out all the nonsense.
1) The Young situation - There was no better choice than starting Ashley Young last night.
It's as simple as it says. Now that doesn't mean that Ashley Young played well or that Ashley Young didn't make a mistake, it just simply means that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer made the logical choice. He couldn't play Eric Bailly at right back. We have seen how that turns out. Luke Shaw was gone. Valencia is on his way out. Darmian has played six times total this year and hasn't been seen for months. Rojo just got torn to shreds against West Ham. The only viable alternative is Dalot and realistically he has shown less defensively than Young. Ole could do nothing about this situation.
2) Our recent contract extensions - Jones/Young will feature next year.
I see a lot of posts complaining about these two having their contracts extended. Well the simple fact is, while they are no longer good enough for United, they are better than their alternatives. Behind them in the pecking order are: Darmian, Rojo, Bailly and Valencia. At least three of them will leave next summer. Realistically our defensive options without these two contract extensions could be: Lindelof, Smalling, Shaw and Dalot. We NEED more squad players than that, especially with our injury problems. Due to our deficiencies else where it would be madness to sign 3/4 defenders. So Young/Jones getting a contract makes sense.
3.) If we are going to play like this we should have kept Mourinho
I am seeing more and more of these types of posts. Mourinho was done. He had just got battered by Liverpool and had fallen out with the squad. The key here is though is that Pogba and Rashford weren't performing for Mourinho. They were our best players and Pogba had been dropped. It is evident that Mourinho had a toxic relationship with the players and we can't just get rid of the whole squad (some of you may wish this was possible)
4.) Ed Woodwood hasn't backed us in the transfer market
When Mourinho took over at United, we had been spending just over 210 million on the wages of our players. We've just announced we have wages of 296 million without Sanchez being here for a full year) Mourinho spent over 400 million. He recouped around 100 million. So on average every year he was here had had a 100 million net spend while increasing the wage bill by about 30 million a year. For those figures we have Fred, Dalot, Sanchez, Lukaku, Lindelof, Bailly and Pogba to show for it. Are those players worth the money? No. Now we hear rumours (nothing confirmed) that Mourinho wanted Maguire, Perisic et al. Would these have improved us? Woodwood was in the unenviable position of making more signings that wouldn't have improved us or dismissing a manager who had just finished second. Either one might have put us in a worst position than we are now.
5.) We will spend a feckton this summer.
Not really a decision but important to say. Just as important as net spend is the wage bill. We are looking at reducing this massively. Players who aren't contributing enough are going, Mata, Herrera, Valencia are pretty certain to leave. Rojo, Darmian, Periera will likely follow them out the door. We've already recouped money for Fellaini. We are for the first time in ages have a proper clear out. You might think you hear this every year, but this time we know that contracts are expiring. This should clear out our wage bill massively. Furthermore with our relative lack of spend this past summer and the clear deficiencies in our squad it is obvious where we need to buy. I expect a 200+ million pound summer. The Glazers have been shown to back new managers when they need it.
6.) Giving Ole the job.
This is a no brainer. When he was hired no-one expected us to be challenging for the top four or get past PSG. He accomplished both and the players and fans loved him. There was no other option. Some people keep talking about waiting till summer.. what would this have accomplished? There will be no big name managers leaving their post this summer and Ole might rightly have told us to feck off if we waited. So what benefit would that have done? Since he took the job he has us pretty much top of the premier league. Our recent form isn't great but we've player Barcelona twice, Wolves twice and Arsenal away. They are all games that ANY manager would struggle with.
We have to be positive. We are in a much better position now than we have been for the last four/five years as far as I can see. We have a manager who has already done a great job. We have money available and we have space in our squad. Even though watching City/Liverpool push on is galling, this is not Ole's fault and we just need to put everything into preparing for next year now.
