We smashed Brighton
Would you sack or keep Ole? (Poll reopened)
- Thread starter MrSingh2002
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
- Status
Um, I did give him proper support. I said straight after the game it was an excellent win. Both he and the players did well. I've given him praise whenever he's deserved it and I've criticised him whenever he's deserved it. The problem is a lot of posters on either side either do one or the other and have no middle ground at all. Those who are desperate for him to stay will praise Ole to the detriment of the players and those who are desperate for him to go will praise the players to the detriment of Ole.
Personally I don't agree with you and I don't think we've seen nearly enough to suggest he can possibly be the right man to take us forward, but if last night proves to not be a false dawn (again) and we actually go on and improve enough from here I'll happily throw my hand up and admit I was very, very wrong, and I'd be happy to do so because there's nothing more I'd love than for him to succeed, but I'm 99% sure he won't which is why I'd prefer we did sack him and get someone better in because for me, it's what's best for the club.
Mate we've won five games all season and you're really asking that question?
I'll say what I've said before - our problem is consistency not quality. A downside to having a young squad with no apparent leaders.
Our front 4 (including Lingard despite the hate he gets) have proven that they have the ability to hurt any team in the world. Unfortunately they are woefully inconsistent. The same goes for our best outfield player (Pogba) and a large portion of our defence.
Lets be honest, McTom isn't a great player, but currently he's the most consistent player we have and it gives us something to build a base from. This isn't a trait that you can coach, it needs to be addressed by astute transfer and bringing in the right personalities.
Our front 4 (including Lingard despite the hate he gets) have proven that they have the ability to hurt any team in the world. Unfortunately they are woefully inconsistent. The same goes for our best outfield player (Pogba) and a large portion of our defence.
Lets be honest, McTom isn't a great player, but currently he's the most consistent player we have and it gives us something to build a base from. This isn't a trait that you can coach, it needs to be addressed by astute transfer and bringing in the right personalities.
The evidence shows he isn't doing a good job. Thats literally what the factual evidence is.
Do you think a restructuring of an organisation is an overnight process? Its hockey curve.
Just an example of the type of team we struggle against, change it to Sheffield United or Crystal Palace if it makes you feel better.
No offense but that reads like a load of old gibberish to me. Your posts are always lengthy, well written but with little substance. Where's the cold hard logic that we should actually keep him? Hell, a few days ago you said we should keep him even though he's probably not the right man for us because.. what was it again, getting in another manager right now would put too much pressure on them, or something?
Now you're rambling about Mancini and I'm sure Mourinho's failures here will come into it and other comparisons to other failures to try and make it look like Ole isn't as bad as he is, and of course the usual blaming of the squad over and over despite this squad showing plenty of signs that it's capable of much more than Ole has gotten out of it so far.
I don't see the point in discussing with someone so lacking in rationale because they're so utterly desperate for Ole to succeed here, really.
What the feck are we going to refactor with Woodward in charge exactly?
Nobody is disagreeing a big rebuild is in order but that doesn't mean we should stick with mediocrity if someone better equipped to do that rebuild is available.
If you hire an employee, and that employee turns out to be crap, and a better employee is available to hire instead of them, but you decide that because the company has been run badly for years and because it's in need of a rebuild, that.. you.. inexplicably stick with your current employee, you're a fecking idiot.
Amen. He did well last night and got his tactics right. But when you dare say: "Look, we can actually play fluid attacking football without Martial, after all. Wish it hadn't taken him six months to figure it out", you're spoilt and entitled. And this is coming from the same people who are claiming that we can not expect to look pleasing to the eye upfront without our best forward.
There should really be no debate - no one should be considering sacking him. I don't think it will be on the mind of anyone at the club who understands the scale of what is required.
We are still in the early stages of a complete rebuild and Ole is doing a great job. No other manager post Fergie was brave or smart enough to attempt a rebuild. They tried quick fixes a la Di Maria, Falcao, Sanchez, Matic et al.
He looks to be a great man manager. Daniel James has stepped up from the Championship and is performing far better at this stage than expected under Oles guidance. Rashford, McTominay and Fred all look better players under Ole than they did before.
I'm excited to see how this rebuild progresses. When Ole gets the chance to add midfielders and forwards (and he will, because he is going nowhere anytime soon) we will be challenging again.
We are still in the early stages of a complete rebuild and Ole is doing a great job. No other manager post Fergie was brave or smart enough to attempt a rebuild. They tried quick fixes a la Di Maria, Falcao, Sanchez, Matic et al.
He looks to be a great man manager. Daniel James has stepped up from the Championship and is performing far better at this stage than expected under Oles guidance. Rashford, McTominay and Fred all look better players under Ole than they did before.
I'm excited to see how this rebuild progresses. When Ole gets the chance to add midfielders and forwards (and he will, because he is going nowhere anytime soon) we will be challenging again.
I think Ole is safe for a little while now, for him to be sacked before Christmas I think we'd have to lose to both City & AZ Alkmaar, then fail to beat Everton and probably Watford at that. I don't expect anything from the City game and we should be able to scrape a draw against Alkmaar to win the group even if we're bad. It'll be Everton & Watford that are the most telling, we simply can't afford to not win games against teams in the relegation zone almost half-way through the season. I want Ole to be given plenty of time and to get it to work, but if such results happen then it's incredibly hard for anyone to fight his corner. I think decisions would have to be made if we can put in a performance against Spurs and maybe City, but then consistently cock it in the easier games even longer than we have been. If Ole gets to January then I am convinced he has to see out the season because he'll have to be supported in buying/selling the players he wants.
Any decent rebuild will be supplemented with signing a certain amount of experienced players. This revisionist nature of some fans is ludicrous. We witnessed multiple rebuilds under Fergie and he never just threw youngsters in and claimed we should be patient with them.
What Solskjaer is doing is potentially detrimental to their long term development. It's all well and good talking up your youth but making statements in pre season that players like Greenwood will fill the goalscoring load of two experienced PL forwards is not setting realistic expectations on a 17 year old.
This talk of a rebuild reeks of PR spin from both the manager and the board. You do not rebuild a squad by mashing a load of inexperienced and often not to the required standard youth players in the squad and begging for patience.
You're ignoring that Fergie was usually rebuilding a squad that was already quality so could afford do so slowly over a few years letting one or two experienced players go after giving some minutes to new players. We're not in that position now. For Rashford to come in to full fledged top forward mode, he has to have bad games where we might not win because there's no one else to take the burden off him, for example. Whereas under Fergie Ronaldo's bad games were still wins cos Van Nistelrooy/Rooney/Ole might chip in.
The way we're going we're more likely to beat City and then lose to Everton honestly.
Yes but they should already be in the team - the youth should be brought in alongside experienced winners. That's not happening as we don't have them in the squad. That's not Ole's fault that cannot be created now. So he has no other option. Adding new experienced players to the squad doesn't have the same effect as supplementing ones that are already here.
The squad should be a constant on-going natural evolution. A rebuild should never be required. But it is and that's not Ole's doing. It is because the squad has been ridiculously neglected in the years prior to Ole. And that dates back to the final years of Fergie.
So trying to put established world class players into your team is now a bad thing? Right.
No offence mate, but sounds like your watching just a bit too much MUTV.
Our squad was not as bad as many are making out on here.
It's worse now because of Solksjaer's decision to sell a lot of players and not replace them.
Our squad is much worse than it was 12 months a go. The much maligned Fellaini would have been a useful optional over the last few weeks.
Ole has actively made the squad and team worse than it was when he took over. He has a romantic idea of creating a new era of dominance using our academy and a British spine but he has skipped massive parts of what is required of doing such a rebuild.
Even if the players he sold didn't fit into his vision long term they certainly would offer more than the inexperienced players or simply not good enough players we've had to field this season.
The older players need to be there to help shoulder a lot of the burden and pressure on the youngsters and act as leaders. We have no leaders on the pitch and that is a huge reason why our performances are so poor in the majority of games.
As I said, it's just PR spin to claim Ole is brave enough to take on such a monumental rebuild. Whether people want to accept it or not, LvG started a rebuild in his tenure and was doing it in the correct way, using youth to supplement the squad and give them minutes when suitable.
Not the first time around, it clearly wasn't. This is why the comparisons with Fergie's early years are a bit bizarre. From the starting xi that won Fergie's first PL title 9/11 where bought and they didn't come cheap. Schmeichel, Bruce, Pallister, Ince, Kanchelskis, Hughes, Irwin, Parker and Cantona, they were all signed and there was one experienced player in Robson and a top-class talent in Giggs. And we had also made offers for Beardsley and Gazza too.
So, the other poster's argument has merit. Ferguson didn't wait for any youngsters to flourish while he was restructuring the whole club and he didn't hide behind any process or philosophy while he was implementing the right culture.
He understood the needs of the present and he was trying to address our problems at the time. In the end, he succeeded. Let's hope this will be the case with Solskjaer too, for all our sakes.
Now that's daft. What manager in the world doesn't want to buy new players? You think Ole's that thick that he thinks he can get away with just the youth team? You seem to forget that he was actually in the two generations of successful teams that Fergie re-built. I think he knows what a winning formula is better than the armchair/keyboard pundits here.
The question, assuming that Ole's isnt that thick (considering that Fergie thought very highly of his football intelligence), is why didnt he get more experienced players in?
The answer: He has to work within given parameters and make his priorities and choices based on those parameters. There were financial constraints and I suspect the BOM isnt willing to release or take risks in relasing additional funds as they dont trust Ole yet. (They had been burnt before by the superstar coaches in the past with their blind faith and lost a lot of dosh.)
So they are also taking the more cautious approach with Ole.
Well our record of doing that hasn't been great has it? When was the last time we added an experienced World Class player and it worked out? Van Persie?
The problem is a lot of the time World Class players are already established at World Class teams. If they aren't on the decline or with some kind of baggage they are going nowhere. Schweinsteiger - finished. Falcao - done. Sanchez - shadow of the player he was. Di Maria - didn't want to be here.
It's not that ridiculous to suggest that I'd rather sign hungry younger up and coming players is it?
Well maybe if you actually engaged in the discussion instead of being snide and making up strawmen, maybe it would help? What is your rationale for sacking him? Results bad = Ole bad?
Yeah i do believe he should stay on until the end of the season, mostly because i fancy neither Poch nor Allegri and we cant keep burning through managers, because that will come back and bite us in the arse.
Of all the players you mentioned Di Maria was the only player who wasn't completely shot. Because one top class player with a questionable mentality didn't work out doesn't mean we should stop pursuing that profile of player. We need a balance of young hungry players with experienced top class players.
It doesn't need to be anymore than that. This is a results based business and managers are judged on them. But you and many others a rewriting the rule book for Solksjaer.
Fergie signed plenty of high profile players that didn't work out, he didn't just stop trying to sign them because Veron didn't quite work out as he planned.
Based on what your suggesting we just have to hope we roll another pair of sixes from the academy and dominate with another core of academy graduates. Even Fergie didn't manage to recreate that so why would an inferior manager?
Let's not ignore how many horrible performances we've had under Solskjaer's leadership. It's not just about the terrible results.
Explain how I'm making up strawmen? You're the one talking about Mancini
My rationale for sacking him
- Results are part of it, yes, you simply can't excuse them, we have five wins all season, we've been beaten regularly by some of the poorest team's in the league. This isn't a new thing either, this has been going on for around ten months, so you can't say it's due to a bedding in process
- Our football has largely been dire. Now I know there have been injuries to key players but I'm still not seeing any semblence of an identity or style of play, nothing. He seems to approach every game defensively and we are completely disjointed in attack. We have been awful to watch. You don't need a great squad to show you can't play a certain style of football, or even good football, and we haven't seen that from him at all
- His transfers were really underwhelming. Maguire was ridiculous at £80m and spending £150m whilst somehow weakening our overall squad is inexcusable. We've also spent £130m of that on two defenders and our defense hasn't really been any better than it was last season because it's still costing us a lot of points. I don't want to give more transfer windows to a manager whose solution to our midfield problems was Sean Longstaff
- His history as a manager suggests he's simply not cut out for this level
I mean I could go on, there is so much evidence out there to support him not being good enough. Your evidence is basically blaming everyone but him and naming hypotheticals. The squad's shit, he wasn't backed in the window, he will come good if given time.
Go on, give me concrete proof that Ole is the man for us. Give me examples of why he's shown he's the man to rebuild this team, to turn his results around, something no PL manager has even done from this sort of state?
Yes he did - quite often in fact. The only young player we've used this season that has looked out of his depth is Chong. Greenwood is scoring goals, Williams doesn't look out of place. He is showing some restraint with Garner - especially as it must have been tempting to use him with McTominays recent absence. Same with Tuanzebe.
Dan James is probably getting more minutes than are good for him so soon but we really don't have any alternative to that.
A world record fee for Maguire who's not even one of the worlds best CB's and 55 mil for Wan Bissaka is not shrewd.
He really didn't. The Co92 were integrated slowly alongside an experienced spine.
Also Greenwood's contribution hasn't been all that. Has a lot of potential but is no where near the standard we should be aspiring to be right now. He needs a loan or two. I also don't the William's has been that great. Looks lost at times and rash. But I guess we have different standards of what is expected of first team players and squad.
I know. Its funny, man.
Two good signings. Maguire has disappointed me, I was looking forward to that one. AWB is fine, his lack of attacking wouldn't be an issue if we had a top RW. Two good signings but please don't make a mockery of the situation by calling £135m 'shrewd'. Fecks sake. It's that type of hyperbole that is uncalled for, you can praise Ole without going over the top about it.
Maybe I went too far. It was a lot of money, after all.
But they are definitely good players, United players. The kind of players we need to rebuild. I like how they deal with the current situation. Perform consistently. It is not easy for new players in this still messy situation. They have that patience and maturity. Much better than other signings for last few years.
I will never blame Ole for getting rid of Fellaini, Lukaku and Sanchez. I'd take a season with us finishing 10th with Greenwood and McTominay than to play them bit part and lag over 4th. Some of us can think beyond one season.
I agree.
I think if we even go to top4 the percentage of keeping ole would not go beyond 60 % because some people would argue that why we could not win the title!
Such a condescending post.
Looking beyond one season is what a rebuild requires. You can't just offload players and not replace them and hope people ignore the effect its clearly having on results.
If he wants to be here for more than one season he fecked up for himself selling all the experience.
I don't think Ole has proven himself to be deserving of the chance to be the man to return us to being champions. But because of the injuries, the good signings he has made, and even his vision of our future which our players believe in he deserves a chance to prove himself this season.
Many of us have complained about how average our team is compared to top teams and how we lack depth. Then suddenly our best players injure and when we lose we criticize the manager. Even with all our best players fit our team is questionable and our bench is laughable.
This team feels like an incomplete puzzle. Watch any game and you will see what is missing. LB, RW, ST, CM, AM, CB. So right now we're six pieces away from being a solved puzzle. And yet we wonder why we're inconsistent. We need two new starting creative midfielders out of the three that we have but some people still wonder why we can't control games and create chances. We need another Striker to score those scrappy goals that every other team scores except us. We need a Right winger because we simply don't have one. We need a left back and a center back because the ones we have are either unproven or unreliable.
We complain about not beating small teams but we all know that these small teams park the bus and we can't do shit when that happens. I mean do you expect Lingard to play in a killer through ball or cross, do we expect Martial to be pacing around the box waiting for the slightest opportunity to grab a goal. Or do we expect a midfield of Fred and Mcctominay/Pereira to dominate any team. The only reason these players perform well against big teams is because it plays to their strength which is counter attack.Most of the players we have now if not all are not capable of playing possession football which is what we need to beat these small teams. And when all these players fail to do anything against these small teams who do we bring in to make an impact; Young? Garner? Greenwood? Pereira? Williams? Like I said. This is an incomplete team.
The fact is any manager will struggle with this team because it's very incomplete. Now add injuries to this and we have a very broken squad. The only way Pochettino or Rose or Nagelsman or whichever manager of your choice can work with this team is if they get players to fit into their philosophy and that needs time and money which Ole should be given and then we can truly judge him.
Many of us have complained about how average our team is compared to top teams and how we lack depth. Then suddenly our best players injure and when we lose we criticize the manager. Even with all our best players fit our team is questionable and our bench is laughable.
This team feels like an incomplete puzzle. Watch any game and you will see what is missing. LB, RW, ST, CM, AM, CB. So right now we're six pieces away from being a solved puzzle. And yet we wonder why we're inconsistent. We need two new starting creative midfielders out of the three that we have but some people still wonder why we can't control games and create chances. We need another Striker to score those scrappy goals that every other team scores except us. We need a Right winger because we simply don't have one. We need a left back and a center back because the ones we have are either unproven or unreliable.
We complain about not beating small teams but we all know that these small teams park the bus and we can't do shit when that happens. I mean do you expect Lingard to play in a killer through ball or cross, do we expect Martial to be pacing around the box waiting for the slightest opportunity to grab a goal. Or do we expect a midfield of Fred and Mcctominay/Pereira to dominate any team. The only reason these players perform well against big teams is because it plays to their strength which is counter attack.Most of the players we have now if not all are not capable of playing possession football which is what we need to beat these small teams. And when all these players fail to do anything against these small teams who do we bring in to make an impact; Young? Garner? Greenwood? Pereira? Williams? Like I said. This is an incomplete team.
The fact is any manager will struggle with this team because it's very incomplete. Now add injuries to this and we have a very broken squad. The only way Pochettino or Rose or Nagelsman or whichever manager of your choice can work with this team is if they get players to fit into their philosophy and that needs time and money which Ole should be given and then we can truly judge him.
Go back the the first post, me and devilish were discussing why our record vs the big teams are decent where as its shite vs the small teams. He argued it was mostly down to tactics, which i disagreed with. Mostly because it seems pretty loopsided that Ole gets outsmarted by mid table managers, yet manage to get results vs good manager. I then argued i thought it was more to it than just tactics and you somehow read that as praising Ole for wins and shitting on the players for lossesExplain how I'm making up strawmen? You're the one talking about Mancini
My rationale for sacking him
- Results are part of it, yes, you simply can't excuse them, we have five wins all season, we've been beaten regularly by some of the poorest team's in the league. This isn't a new thing either, this has been going on for around ten months, so you can't say it's due to a bedding in process
- Our football has largely been dire. Now I know there have been injuries to key players but I'm still not seeing any semblence of an identity or style of play, nothing. He seems to approach every game defensively and we are completely disjointed in attack. We have been awful to watch. You don't need a great squad to show you can't play a certain style of football, or even good football, and we haven't seen that from him at all
- His transfers were really underwhelming. Maguire was ridiculous at £80m and spending £150m whilst somehow weakening our overall squad is inexcusable. We've also spent £130m of that on two defenders and our defense hasn't really been any better than it was last season because it's still costing us a lot of points. I don't want to give more transfer windows to a manager whose solution to our midfield problems was Sean Longstaff
- His history as a manager suggests he's simply not cut out for this level
I mean I could go on, there is so much evidence out there to support him not being good enough. Your evidence is basically blaming everyone but him and naming hypotheticals. The squad's shit, he wasn't backed in the window, he will come good if given time.
Go on, give me concrete proof that Ole is the man for us. Give me examples of why he's shown he's the man to rebuild this team, to turn his results around, something no PL manager has even done from this sort of state?
Pretty much all of our preferred attackers shine in a counter attacking system as opposed to a possession system, thats not shitting on them, thats just an observation. And the Mancini thing? How can that be a strawman? A strawman would be me saying you "hate Ole" or something ridiculous of that sort. I used it as an example of a worse manager beating a much better manager to the league because the former had a better squad. Is that so outlandish?
And yeah, results have been shite and we have played some dire football, but there are also glimpses of good football like yesterday. The Sheffield match was mostly diabolical, but that comeback was great so its not all bad.
Everyone agrees Maguire was way overpriced, but Leichester must have known we were desperate so they took us to the cleaners on that one and then some. Price aside i think hes a great addition to the squad and comfortably our best CB and hes only 26. Barring serious injury he can lead the back line for 5-6 more years. AWB needs to work on his offense, but hes among the best defensive fullbacks in the world (based on his stats) and hes only 21 so he has plenty of time to improve. James has made the RW his own for 15 million thats a good transfer imo. We have conceded too many goals i agree, but that has as much to do with lack of protection from midfield as it has to do the back four. And even then, we are still a good CB and LB short of a proper "top 4" defense imo.
Its not about assigning blame, its about sticking our finger in the dirt and realizing we fecked up pretty badly the last couple of years on a lot of areas and we have a long way to go still, regardless of who is in charge. We tried the instant success route with Jose and LvG and it backfired badly. Ole on the other hand seems to plan for the long term, which i think is the right path. In any discussion about a teams performance the state of the squad has to be part of the discussion. Managers pick teams and coach them, but ultimately its the players on the pitch who decide the outcome
I cant give concrete proof of Ole being the right man. No one can, about any manager, unless of course you could divine the future. Honestly, unless Fergie himself stepped out of retirement there aren't many managers in the world who has the pedigree of rebuilding fallen giants. Klopp perhaps?
I dont know if Ole is the right man. I lost faith in him after the Villa game and was pretty sure Jose would school us badly yesterday, but then we responded with a great performance.
And that's your whole problem because it's easy to give examples as to why he's the wrong man based on what we've seen so far. You asked, I gave, and I don't see you disputing them to any real degree.
I'm not even sure what you're arguing anymore, you said you lost faith, but that we shouldn't get rid, and your only tangible reason for not getting rid was putting too much expectation on a new manager now (a ridiculous notion), yet you're still defending him to the hilt, still making excuses, still writing loads of hypothetical scenarios as to why he should stay, still blaming our players despite them beating big teams.
I think the main difference is that I really don't give a shit if Ole has some long term plan, whoopity feckin' doo, what manager (Mourinho aside) doesn't? Just because he has that "plan", whatever it's supposed to be, because I've seen feck all sign of it so far other than to sign young(ish) British players, doesn't mean we should keep him despite him being largely inept at the actual job. I want us to get in a different, better manager than him who also has a plan.
- Status