The one thing I think should keep us in check OR we should just be upset as them all, is Arsenal, chelsea and City fans are quite widely against their managers.
Would you sack or keep Ole? (Poll reopened)
- Thread starter MrSingh2002
- Start date
- Status
A part from at Arsenal, I don't think this is true
Look at their subreddits and their forums.
Reddit, lowest tier for information
I'm on the forum's, have been for years
They are just expressing their anger at the results, as we do.
There is zero credible source to suggest City & Chelsea want rid of their managers. Chelsea fans where hailing Lampard a god two games back with a 17 unbeaten run. City look like a different side but could you imagine a banner being flown over the Emptyhad, embarrassing. I think both men are safe for now.
Arteta on the other hand, trouble at the mill. Major questions will be asked if they lose a fifth straight home game against Southampton.
Reddit has about 200,000 members each so its a good sample size.
Re their biggest and most comparable forums to here: The shed end has as many people now as we do here expressing strong views in an anti-Frank manner, Blue moon the same. I'm speaking from the same position as you, seeing as neither of us can canvas the match going fans.
Obviously all we have to go on is online sentiment and my point holds, one thing we have to see is that people similar to us (online forum users) across all four clubs are expressing quite a strong sentiment. Is it in the majority? No, it isn't, if you scrolled up here you'd see it also wasn't. But its widely across a supporter base, it isn't a small nor silent minority.
I mean, that is exactly how I feel yes.
They have been fielding largely second string teams in Europa League so not quite.
It's just not true. I've spent 2 hours this morning reading through them and don't see the call for their heads. Rightly so too!
It's laughable to think Lampard should be sacked because of back to back defeats and pep because City have dropped below their incredibly high standards!
It's not the size of Reddit it's the quality. Terrible place
Well OGS should be sacked for being better than both apparently
Depends how we quantify better I suppose.
Chelsea are coming off the back of seventeen unbeaten (before the back to back losses) and progress in the CL
Pep surely has credit in the bank for everything he's done at City
Ole can claim neither of the above.
We are accumulating points nicely so why does it feel we are on the edge of a cliff waiting to fall?
If we could just get some kind of consistent control of games, we'd look much more convincing.
Take the Sheffield United game. A game we should mark as a standard 3 pointer, how many of us are 100% confident that's what will happen? I'm not talking about 'anyone can beat anyone though' or 'look at the strange results this season' scenario, I'm purely asking, no matter the result, heading into the game against a team that has one point, we still can't be confident of a win.
The talk surrounding Ole leaving is too big to go away. I feel he is doomed and only a Premier league trophy (won't happen) would save him from the chop... He's a dead man walking
There are no '' I'll collect my 3 points, thank you'' games anymore in PL. I'm pretty sure Liverpool weren't over confident against fulham nor City were against West Brom but look at the results. Each and every game is a struggle in this league and it's about taking the chances. If we get a early goal then i can see us running with the game else it could be a struggle as game goes on. Every top team is struggling with injuries/covid /Europe ect.. and we are no exception.
I addressed this point!
To think we can't be confident going to Bramel Lane isn't a reflection on the seasons difficultly but on our own ability to control these types of games.
I'm sure if we lose tomorrow people won't be saying 'it's okay, there's no easy game this year' ect.. Ect..
I love the idea of "expressing yourself" and all that free-flowing jazz, but I wonder if they need to be sent out with a Ferguson rocket up their arse sometimes. It's like they feel their way into a game, but often it's after they've looked at themselves behind at half-time they actually want to take the game.
Tomorrow night the message should be "we can be in this at Christmas, but to do that you have to get out there and destroy these cnuts from the kick-off."
Tomorrow night the message should be "we can be in this at Christmas, but to do that you have to get out there and destroy these cnuts from the kick-off."
Yeah thats true - I don't know why I still expect us to win by 3-4 goals though
I'm still sat on the fence with Ole but we won't be sacking him with our current league position and potential challenge for the title - I don't think Utd should have a manager learning on the job but I would prefer him above the previous 3 - just !
The absolute minimum will be top 4 and maintaining a decent challenge through the rest of the season BUT I feel he must win a trophy as well otherwise he might still be sacked with a top 4 position and inconsistent performances.
I feel another test for Ole will be whether he can attract Haaland to the club and use whatever influence he had from Molde - we will have the capacity to pay a top market salary with Pogba and possibly Martial moving on. The key criteria for any top manager is the ability and experience to attract top talent - despite the Raiola connection.
We can all see the squad can be improved in the next summer window with CF, DM and CB the obvious priority and let's see how Diallo handles the RW position.
The absolute minimum will be top 4 and maintaining a decent challenge through the rest of the season BUT I feel he must win a trophy as well otherwise he might still be sacked with a top 4 position and inconsistent performances.
I feel another test for Ole will be whether he can attract Haaland to the club and use whatever influence he had from Molde - we will have the capacity to pay a top market salary with Pogba and possibly Martial moving on. The key criteria for any top manager is the ability and experience to attract top talent - despite the Raiola connection.
We can all see the squad can be improved in the next summer window with CF, DM and CB the obvious priority and let's see how Diallo handles the RW position.
Confident that we can get a result? Yes . We will be having majority of the ball and we have enough firepower to put goals past them.
Confident we will definitively get 3 points? Not sure. Depends on if we could convert our chances.
Even if we win I'm sticking to the same thing. There are no easy easy game in the premier league especially this season. We are witnessing this fact all around us among top teams this season.
That's a very conflicting post
Its true, the double standards are really bad.
Like you say, they'll claim that we should challenge but when questioned about his signings they'll say they are crap apart from Bruno. Well then how is this a title winning team? It wasn't under LVG or Jose, and according to some the signings are crap, so how does it make sense?
When Pep lines up 2 DM's people say he has learnt from the Spurs result not to get counter attacked, well Ole got done against Leipzig which I was critical about but the line up against city was right, we still had enough forwards to win the game.
This observation succinctly sums up the whole issue. It's not about results, it's about feelings.
I'm not going to say that means it's all bullshit, because up to a point I think it's relevant. For example, getting rid of Mourinho was for a lot of people not just, or even primarily, a question of the results he was delivering, but also about getting results in the wrong way. We didn't want a club playing the kind of football he represented. For me at least, it was also about the lack of a sustainable long-term plan - with little to no emphasis on the academy and player development, and too much reliance on a manager who hasn't lasted more than 3 seasons at any top club he's been, despite winning titles.
Expectations for Ole wasn't just getting back to winning. It was also about getting back to brash, confident attacking football, a certain set of values, an emphasis on the academy and on developing young players. Not just winning, but winning in a way we could recognise as the United way. Not unreasonably, he is now being judged on the basis of those expectations.
The thing though is that once your expectations are that infused with emotion, it's hard to bring them under the control of reasonable and realistic expectations. They are hard to even pin down. What we're really yearning for is that feeling of confident certainty we had for so long: The safe knowledge that when a United team goes out to play, there are certain things you can expect to see and certain things you can expect not to see, and generally speaking things will go well. Other teams would adapt to us, not we to them, and we'd still usually beat them. Remember what that felt like? For a long time there's been little hope of that, but now we've seen it in glimpses, and then it gets taken away from us again. And there were are, left back out in the soaking rain of uncertainty like so many wet kittens.
If we manage to take a step back and view it all in perspective though, it seems pretty clear to me that what this suggests is that we're going where we want to be, but we're not there yet. The kind of expectations people have now, they would not have had 12 or 18 months ago, certainly not on any reasonable basis. The anger about how bad we were in the first half against West Ham comes substantially from how good we were in the second. Lots of people are disappointed that we didn't respond to City's cautious approach at OT by revving up and attack them to pieces, as if this was 2003. And they forget that just 6 months ago, everyone took it for granted that when City visited OT, it would be a question of defending desperately and hoping you'd get a goal or two on the counter. As much as we want to be the good old United, we're not. Not yet. Not in consistency of delivery, not in established style of play, not in mental strength. But we are something much more closely resembling that than we've been in a very long time. So, patience.
But all of this also means Ole is really playing with fire by switching between formations and choosing options designed to protect the back four rather than stimulate the front four. There is a noticeable movement in the direction of an emphasis on control rather than attack. You can understand why, given the unstability of the season and the occasional issues with the back four, but that will be seen by many (and rightly so, in my opinion) as a direct threat to the direction of travel. And if there's one thing he can't afford, even less than bad results, it's losing credibility on the direction of travel. For my part I'm prepared to reluctantly accept it as an unfortunate short term necessity up to a point, but I won't deny that every time I see them go out on the pitch with some tinkered-with formation and a lineup designed more for safety than dynamism, my faith in the project lessens a little. Because ultimately, what's going to make this team dominant isn't OGS (or anybody else) cleverly adapting to the specific circumstances of each game, but the creation of a team good enough to impose themselves on any opposition. And I would rather see them try that and sometimes fail, than not try and fail less often.
Last edited:
This. At the start of the season it was clear that we (and a couple of others) were nowhere near match fit. The best teams have the advantage of more depth, but also the disadvantage of having to play more games. The festive season is tough on all teams under normal circumstances, but will be even worse this year. I bet that the sides that play high octane, pressing football is going to see a lot of muscular injuries in the coming month
I think the ones who will benefit the most from this, are the decent midtable sides who dont have to play in Europe, but still have some decent options on the bench they can use to rotate.
Great post!
There's a sense of deja vu about this season.
Not really in a good way.
Not really in a good way.
Great post. Sums up my feeling as well
Very well written post
Quickly becoming one of my favourites posters.
Top post.
It's about the direction we are heading in. I also think we are a few signings away from a team that can impose themselves more effectively, I don't think we will until we have a decent DM and RW as the minimum.
Absolutely. A better central defender of the sort who can offset Maguire's limitations too, not to mention someone who can credibly deputise for Bruno as no 10.
And for now, it's also partly about not having the right balance and sufficient depth of quality in the squad to be able to sustain a 4231 through frequent rotations and inevitable injuries. We've got good depth at the striker position, but in the attacking line of 3 behind that, we lack good options for any of the positions. Whenever that's not Rashford-Fernandes-Greenwood, we are a much less potent team if we play 4231. There is serious transfer work remaining before we are where we want to be.
We shouldn't sack Ole, but instead get a far more competent set of coaches like how CQ helped SAF.
We need a couple of coaches who will:
1. improve individual player skills
2. cohesion and tactics
We need a couple of coaches who will:
1. improve individual player skills
2. cohesion and tactics
Definitely. I was eluding to the starting 11 but agree still a lot of work to be done for squad depth as well to get back to where we want to be.
I think the next step is to fill the holes in the current starting 11 in order to challenge and then some savvy business required to improve our rotation options. Our points gained tend to drop off a cliff whenever we need to rotate.
Since when? Liverpool and City just set insane records over the past few seasons. The likes of Sheffield United, Fulham, WBA and Burnely are really struggling - they're the easiest three points in the league.
Pure quality
Good post but only United can make people believe a 6-12 month task takes 24 months of baby steps. There’s plenty of examples of teams doing this such thing in a more progressive way so don’t be surprised by the frustration and high expectations. It doesn’t take this long to bake a cake and if it does it’s probably due to lack of experience. Which is what this all comes down too. Not enough experience amongst the project and it’s showing.
You think it should have taken Ole as little as 6 months to turn us around into title challengers from the absolute mess Jose left us in?
Nobody on gods earth would have done that. If that's the standard your holding Ole to then you won't be happy whoever the manager is.
Progression is progression, the direction we are headed is the key component here, until such time that we are no longer heading in a positive direction, at which point I'm sure everybody will agree to change Ole.
We finished third last season, progress (I don't care how you dice that up and serve it, 3rd place was progress). We've played 11 games this season, the first 4-5 games we were totally unfit, so it's absolutely all to play for.
If we finish lower than a strong top 4 finish this year I will happily sit here and agree we've gone backwards.
The guy has way over 1000 posts in this thread alone. He's completely unreasonable when it comes to Ole.
At this stage I wouldn't be surprised if he thinks our players are on the same level as Bayern's and Liverpool's and that it's 100% Ole's fault that we're not winning major trophies.
Agreed.
Sheffield United are absolute minnows (ie their whole squad combined barely earns more than De Gea)
For a team such as Utd, not only should this be 3 points ‘thankyou very much’, but also a good opportunity to rest a few players. There can be no excuses.
Who are the examples? Who took an underachieving club heading in completely the wrong direction, changed the philosophy, playing style, recruitment, half the squad and got them.back to the top in 6-12 months?
Honestly there is absolutely no logic in thinking it could be transformed in that time.
So Liverpool draw with Fulham with an injury hit squad and City draw with WBA (a team we scrapped by) so all of a sudden if we drop points it's to be expected? Come on.
People should stop looking at other teams performances and concentrate on our own. Other than City the league positions are more or less right. Liverpool haven't been firing for obvious reasons and Pep has burnt out his squad losing the likes of Kompany, Silva and Aguero for large chunks of the season. Even Pep has said himself that he only stays at a team for so long because he takes so much out of his team until they can't give anymore and that's what's happening.
Arsenal are where they are because not only don't they have very good players they also an inexperienced manager. Chelsea are where they are because they have a good squad but an inexperienced manager. Tottenham who played us after playing 4 or 5 games in a very short period have a good squad and a good manager which is why they're where they are. Same as Leicester. Southampton have an average squad but a good manager.
So other than City everything is more or less the same. When I hear we'll be lucky to beat SU who have 1 point it just makes me think that excuses are already being led out before hand just in case we don't get a result. If Ole is afraid of burnout then he has a decent enough squad to fully rotate the team. If he chooses not to do so then that's on him.
People should stop looking at other teams performances and concentrate on our own. Other than City the league positions are more or less right. Liverpool haven't been firing for obvious reasons and Pep has burnt out his squad losing the likes of Kompany, Silva and Aguero for large chunks of the season. Even Pep has said himself that he only stays at a team for so long because he takes so much out of his team until they can't give anymore and that's what's happening.
Arsenal are where they are because not only don't they have very good players they also an inexperienced manager. Chelsea are where they are because they have a good squad but an inexperienced manager. Tottenham who played us after playing 4 or 5 games in a very short period have a good squad and a good manager which is why they're where they are. Same as Leicester. Southampton have an average squad but a good manager.
So other than City everything is more or less the same. When I hear we'll be lucky to beat SU who have 1 point it just makes me think that excuses are already being led out before hand just in case we don't get a result. If Ole is afraid of burnout then he has a decent enough squad to fully rotate the team. If he chooses not to do so then that's on him.
We failed to achieve top 4 in his first season, we failed in three semifinals last season and finished with 15 points gap to second place and 12 points from 10th and now we bottled an opportunity to advance to the round of 16 in CL.
After CL group stage elimination this season, anything other than title challenging in EPL would mean lack of progression.
We can't be content with top 4 now, league is wide open and no CL football means Ole can give much needed rest to crucial players during important stages of the season.
After CL group stage elimination this season, anything other than title challenging in EPL would mean lack of progression.
We can't be content with top 4 now, league is wide open and no CL football means Ole can give much needed rest to crucial players during important stages of the season.
Since September. 25 points is the least any team leading the league has ever had after 12 games through the history of the PL. Also, the distance from 1st to 10th is the least it has ever been in PL history after 12 rounds. Tottenham and Liverpool currently project at 79 points, which would be the lowest number of points anyone has ever won the PL with, 2 less than Leicester in 2016 and 20 less than Liverpool had last year. So far, this is a uniquely even season.
Fulham just took points off Liverpool, WBA have drawn against Chelsea and City and lost narrowly to both Tottenham and us and Burnley just beat Arsenal. SHU haven't been pushovers either, even when they've lost.
- Status