Would you sack or keep Ole? (Poll reopened)

[Fosu-Mens]

Because it might be necessary.

That isn't an outlandish concept. If the rot is bad enough, it takes time to fix it. We have a number of posters on here who - frankly - blindly cry "We are Manchester United and anything but excellence is unacceptable!" as if the insistence on excellence at all times is sufficient to achieve it. It is not. Taking a step back to take two forwards is a perfectly valid approach in itself. If you know what you're doing, that is. Does Ole? Does Woodward? Feck knows - as I have said many times, I'm not convinced at all. But the idea itself is - again - perfectly sound.

If you have a number of players that either wants a new big long term contract or wants to be sold/let go on a free, then yes I agree that one might be forced to take a short term step back for potential long term gain, instead of giving the players bad contracts. But when our team/squad was already as bad as it was, this does not necessarily make sense.

We took a step back from an already bad position this summer. We bought two expensive players not suited to play possession-based or technical football and giving them long contracts. We gave DDG a monster contract when there are signs that keepers not good at distribution with their feet do not fit with the type of football the best teams in the world plays. Our talisman player in PP wants to leave, and the only way for us to make him stay here is to give him a stupid contract or show clear signs that we can challenge for EPL/CL.

If the people in charge think that the best way for us to become competitive or relevant again long term is to become a specialized "park the bus and counter" football team, then I can understand the reasoning for buying the players we did. The tiny problem with this is that this kind of football will not take us far and only works if you are the underdog and in a short term perspective. So what we actually achieved this summer was to dig ourselves deeper into the grave of mediocrity.

 

[RedBanker]

Am curious about when and what juncture Ole will walk. I am very sure he has the best interests of the club in mind and a time will come when he will accept that this misadventure has come to an end. He will not surely drag it that far to see his entire legacy destroyed. So while we talk of sack or keep there might be a third possibility.

 

[Bobcat]

Klopp, Guardiola, Lampard etc are in control of teams all comfortable with keeping the ball and dominating the game. It is a difference between LVGs type of possession-based football and Klopps, but Liverpool still plays a form of possession-based. Being unable to play possession-based football makes your team less likely to compete over time. We are among the worst teams in the league when it comes to passing, receiving the ball and retaining the ball if trying to.

Counterattacking football is only effective if you are the underdog, score the first goal or against teams willing to keep possession. And there are fewer counter-attacking oppurtunities in football today compared to 10 years ago. I know that most of the goals scored in football today come from situations that can be called counter-attacks, but relying solely on counter attacks will not make us competitive at all.

Coaching: Player can improve over time. Not on a day to day basis, but over time. Even if you are 30 years, you can improve every aspect of your game to some degree. If you can't improve, what's the point of training when a 10km jog would do the same?

A player can be good in one system, but underwhelming in another while playing for the same club. Rashford and James are good counter-attacking players but struggles when not allowed to operate in space or when against a low sitting defence.

I am not opposed to us possession based football if the situation calls for it, but right now our strengths lies in attacking with pace so we should try and do that as often as we can. And counterattacking football is is not some underdog tactic. Jose built his career on it

Yes of course coaching matters to keep sharp and match fit. Every pro athlete needs to train daily to keep up to pace, but you will only get so far as your natural talent and athleticism takes you. Why did for example Klopp feel the need to completely change nearly the entire starting XI from when he took over? Because he knew the likes of Benteke would never cut it if he wanted to win stuff. And that bolded part is exactly why i think we should stick to counter attacking (for now) 2/3 of our main attackers are purely counter attacking players and would look like fish out of water if they were asked to play possession

It’s not two that was during his first spell at Molde, not after failing at Cardiff and a worse spell at Molde. No Premier League team would have employed Ole and I doubt more than a handful in Championship at best. Lampard was a gamble but he’s done really well and has changed how Chelsea played, if he did really badly there he’d be sacked.

Grant and Hodgson kept getting jobs in the PL so there is always someone. Anyways, this is all ifs and buts

So our first year of rebuilding means we play a style that we don’t want to play, funny because I thought results don’t matter and it’s all about rebuilding. But then we’re playing a style to get the best results which has made us worse than last season. Surely we should be implementing what we actually want to do, what’s going to be the excuse next season. Ole’s only has one preseason first one didn’t count he was having to be pragmatic?. If he does t want to continue this style of football why did he buy a fullback that can’t attack and a CB that is slow on the turn and lacks pace. Those two signings suggest he wants to play this type of football or he bought wrong players.

I dont really know what you mean here. Rebuilding is about getting the squad in order, removing players not good enough and getting in new ones. Why is style relevant? Ole is certainly less pragmatic than Jose, but not everyone is a die hard idealist either. AWB can surely improve his attacking output, but hes only 21 so i am pretty confident he will improve in time. Maguire was about getting a leader in the back since none of our other CB's is that and pace for a CB is not really the most important thing as long as you can read the game well and is comfortable on the ball

You’re too focused on players, like I said all we’ve done is buy and sell a few and keep our style of play. That’s not a revolution or a rebuild or a reset, we’re just worse than last season.

A reset wont hit results in comparison to this, that’s the best part. Ole has dropped the bar even lower than Jose when he was sacked.

It is up to the board to fix recruitment, but what they can’t fix is they have given the job to an inferior manager. That won’t change, get better players fine but you’ve still got an inferior manager and there’s no need for it. What is the downside to rebuilding but with a much better manager?.

And i think you are too focused on the manager. Fact is that squad wise we still have massive holes to plug and this reset/rebuild was always going to take more than one window and there was always going to be some growing pains. We can thank the lucky stars the new arrivals have settled so fast, because if they did not we would still see Young at RB, Mata at RW and Jones at CB

Feel free to disagree, but of our outfield players only AWB, Maguire, Pogba, Martial and Rashford are undeniable top 4 quality players. That's 5/10 players and two of them have been unavailable for much of the season . Then you have promising young players like James, McTomminay, Williams, Greenwood, Dalot, Tuanzebe, who in the past would be rotational players or squad players we played in cups and vs weaker teams, but now have to rely on as first team regulars. The rest are mediocre or just plain rubbish

The downside to doing a rebuild with "better" manager is that we already tried that twice and it cost us dearly in the end. If say Allegri was to come here and was guaranteed to stay for as long as it took to get us back into shape i would have taken him right now. Maybe i am pessimistic here, but if Allegri came and we continued to struggle and the pressure on him started to build i fear he would start making more of those short sighted transfers that Jose and LvG did and then jump ship when things did not go to plan. Poch i dont trust with this job. He never won a thing with a much better Spurs squad so i dont see why he would be the one

Just to be clear here. I can change my mind about Ole somewhere down the road and was very close to doing so during our rotten form in Sepember/October. If we dont look better at the end of the season he would have gotten a fair chance in my mind and i would want him gone just as you do. Generally i think switching managers mid season is an awful idea, because it puts the new manager in a really tricky situation

 

[Class of 63]

Now we all love Ole as a player he scored the goal that won us the CL. But his time at United says a lot about himself
1) SAF tried to sell him and he refused to leave.
2) Despite SAF signing striker after striker during Ole’s peak years and Ole eventually becoming a second choice right winger he still stayed. When he could have gone to another club and started more games.

A player with ambition wants to play every game. When they are not a regular they tend to leave, even if they are at peak Barcelona eg Pedro. So while Lukaku could have stayed, he was put in a position where any player with self respect and ambition would have left.
Ole as a player was unique, SAF accepted offers for him and he still stayed. SAF makes him 6 choice striker and 2nd choice right winger and he still stays... loyalty or just a guy who couldn’t take a hint

Oh right, and all these year I thought Martin Edwards, a top-line man if there ever was, agreed to sell Ole to Tottenham for circa £5.5m behind SAF's back.

SAF was made up when he stayed.

 

[Foxbatt]

It is a lot more than the formations or the players playing. These are all top elite players not matter what we think of them. Fred has been in Brasil's WC squad. All the other players are all Internationals, even Jesse Lingard. They above anyone else know that they are not playing well. They know that these games are matches they should have won. It is not that because of a fluke that we are not winning these games. We are not winning because we are playing badly. The players all know that.
As players they look at the manager to work out a winning formula. If the manager cannot get a winning formula then they lose faith in him and themselves. They know that Manchester United should not be in this position. Unless the manager can get a winning formula no matter what he says we will not be winning games. We are now having a losing mentality. Now matter how much Ole quotes SAF we are not going to get it unless he puts his hands up and accepts that right now he does not have that formula or system.
It is funny how the keep Ole brigade blame everyone except Ole. Get someone like Carlos Quiroz and this team will start winning matches that they are supposed to win. Yes we will not the PL but for sure we will play a lot better and there will be a system and a game plan and not this foolhardy business of pressing only or only counter attacking football.

 

[Majima]

If you have a number of players that either wants a new big long term contract or wants to be sold/let go on a free, then yes I agree that one might be forced to take a short term step back for potential long term gain, instead of giving the players bad contracts. But when our team/squad was already as bad as it was, this does not necessarily make sense.

We took a step back from an already bad position this summer. We bought two expensive players not suited to play possession-based or technical football and giving them long contracts. We gave DDG a monster contract when there are signs that keepers not good at distribution with their feet do not fit with the type of football the best teams in the world plays. Our talisman player in PP wants to leave, and the only way for us to make him stay here is to give him a stupid contract or show clear signs that we can challenge for EPL/CL.

If the people in charge think that the best way for us to become competitive or relevant again long term is to become a specialized "park the bus and counter" football team, then I can understand the reasoning for buying the players we did. The tiny problem with this is that this kind of football will not take us far and only works if you are the underdog and in a short term perspective. So what we actually achieved this summer was to dig ourselves deeper into the grave of mediocrity.

The thing that gets me is, taking our approach, what new mentality are we actually installing into the young players? The loser mentality?

I would like to see someone name a similar club of stature & financial strength to ours, where the owners could sell our "youth strategy" to their fans?

Imagine telling the fans of Real/Barca/Bayern to forget about competing at all for the next few years. You have to expect to lose for x number of years to win in the future. That's the way all rebuilds are done.

It just wouldn't happen, there would be riots.

Only at this docile club would the fans, so wholeheartedly accept the wool being pulled over their eyes.

 

[Roboc7]

I am not opposed to us possession based football if the situation calls for it, but right now our strengths lies in attacking with pace so we should try and do that as often as we can. And counterattacking football is is not some underdog tactic. Jose built his career on it

Yes of course coaching matters to keep sharp and match fit. Every pro athlete needs to train daily to keep up to pace, but you will only get so far as your natural talent and athleticism takes you. Why did for example Klopp feel the need to completely change nearly the entire starting XI from when he took over? Because he knew the likes of Benteke would never cut it if he wanted to win stuff. And that bolded part is exactly why i think we should stick to counter attacking (for now) 2/3 of our main attackers are purely counter attacking players and would look like fish out of water if they were asked to play possession



Grant and Hodgson kept getting jobs in the PL so there is always someone. Anyways, this is all ifs and buts


I dont really know what you mean here. Rebuilding is about getting the squad in order, removing players not good enough and getting in new ones. Why is style relevant? Ole is certainly less pragmatic than Jose, but not everyone is a die hard idealist either. AWB can surely improve his attacking output, but hes only 21 so i am pretty confident he will improve in time. Maguire was about getting a leader in the back since none of our other CB's is that and pace for a CB is not really the most important thing as long as you can read the game well and is comfortable on the ball



And i think you are too focused on the manager. Fact is that squad wise we still have massive holes to plug and this reset/rebuild was always going to take more than one window and there was always going to be some growing pains. We can thank the lucky stars the new arrivals have settled so fast, because if they did not we would still see Young at RB, Mata at RW and Jones at CB

Feel free to disagree, but of our outfield players only AWB, Maguire, Pogba, Martial and Rashford are undeniable top 4 quality players. That's 5/10 players and two of them have been unavailable for much of the season . Then you have promising young players like James, McTomminay, Williams, Greenwood, Dalot, Tuanzebe, who in the past would be rotational players or squad players we played in cups and vs weaker teams, but now have to rely on as first team regulars. The rest are mediocre or just plain rubbish

The downside to doing a rebuild with "better" manager is that we already tried that twice and it cost us dearly in the end. If say Allegri was to come here and was guaranteed to stay for as long as it took to get us back into shape i would have taken him right now. Maybe i am pessimistic here, but if Allegri came and we continued to struggle and the pressure on him started to build i fear he would start making more of those short sighted transfers that Jose and LvG did and then jump ship when things did not go to plan. Poch i dont trust with this job. He never won a thing with a much better Spurs squad so i dont see why he would be the one

Just to be clear here. I can change my mind about Ole somewhere down the road and was very close to doing so during our rotten form in Sepember/October. If we dont look better at the end of the season he would have gotten a fair chance in my mind and i would want him gone just as you do. Generally i think switching managers mid season is an awful idea, because it puts the new manager in a really tricky situation

I am not opposed to us possession based football if the situation calls for it, but right now our strengths lies in attacking with pace so we should try and do that as often as we can. And counterattacking football is is not some underdog tactic. Jose built his career on it

Yes of course coaching matters to keep sharp and match fit. Every pro athlete needs to train daily to keep up to pace, but you will only get so far as your natural talent and athleticism takes you. Why did for example Klopp feel the need to completely change nearly the entire starting XI from when he took over? Because he knew the likes of Benteke would never cut it if he wanted to win stuff. And that bolded part is exactly why i think we should stick to counter attacking (for now) 2/3 of our main attackers are purely counter attacking players and would look like fish out of water if they were asked to play possession



Grant and Hodgson kept getting jobs in the PL so there is always someone. Anyways, this is all ifs and buts


I dont really know what you mean here. Rebuilding is about getting the squad in order, removing players not good enough and getting in new ones. Why is style relevant? Ole is certainly less pragmatic than Jose, but not everyone is a die hard idealist either. AWB can surely improve his attacking output, but hes only 21 so i am pretty confident he will improve in time. Maguire was about getting a leader in the back since none of our other CB's is that and pace for a CB is not really the most important thing as long as you can read the game well and is comfortable on the ball



And i think you are too focused on the manager. Fact is that squad wise we still have massive holes to plug and this reset/rebuild was always going to take more than one window and there was always going to be some growing pains. We can thank the lucky stars the new arrivals have settled so fast, because if they did not we would still see Young at RB, Mata at RW and Jones at CB

Feel free to disagree, but of our outfield players only AWB, Maguire, Pogba, Martial and Rashford are undeniable top 4 quality players. That's 5/10 players and two of them have been unavailable for much of the season . Then you have promising young players like James, McTomminay, Williams, Greenwood, Dalot, Tuanzebe, who in the past would be rotational players or squad players we played in cups and vs weaker teams, but now have to rely on as first team regulars. The rest are mediocre or just plain rubbish

The downside to doing a rebuild with "better" manager is that we already tried that twice and it cost us dearly in the end. If say Allegri was to come here and was guaranteed to stay for as long as it took to get us back into shape i would have taken him right now. Maybe i am pessimistic here, but if Allegri came and we continued to struggle and the pressure on him started to build i fear he would start making more of those short sighted transfers that Jose and LvG did and then jump ship when things did not go to plan. Poch i dont trust with this job. He never won a thing with a much better Spurs squad so i dont see why he would be the one

Just to be clear here. I can change my mind about Ole somewhere down the road and was very close to doing so during our rotten form in Sepember/October. If we dont look better at the end of the season he would have gotten a fair chance in my mind and i would want him gone just as you do. Generally i think switching managers mid season is an awful idea, because it puts the new manager in a really tricky situation

To be honest I’m not convinced you can say those manages failed in comparison to Ole, and persisting with a worse manager because you don’t like what better ones did makes no sense. When Ole fails do you employ someone even worse then.

Are you seriously naive enough to think that buying and selling players is all that’s involved?. Is that all Klopp did?. The arguments just get worse and worse.

 

[momo83]

Oh right, and all these year I thought Martin Edwards, a top-line man if there ever was, agreed to sell Ole to Tottenham for circa £5.5m behind SAF's back.

SAF was made up when he stayed.

That’s called denial son. Doubt you thought it all these years. It’s something you’ve only made up recently to justify the “great player” bs

 

[Class of 63]

That’s called denial son. Doubt you thought it all these years. It’s something you’ve only thought recently to justify the “great player” bs

I must be the only 56¾ year old that's got a 36 year old Dad

And it's not something i've just thought about, I remember being gutted when the story broke at the time, as were most.

 

[Fosu-Mens]

I am not opposed to us possession based football if the situation calls for it, but right now our strengths lies in attacking with pace so we should try and do that as often as we can. And counterattacking football is is not some underdog tactic. Jose built his career on it

Yes of course coaching matters to keep sharp and match fit. Every pro athlete needs to train daily to keep up to pace, but you will only get so far as your natural talent and athleticism takes you. Why did for example Klopp feel the need to completely change nearly the entire starting XI from when he took over? Because he knew the likes of Benteke would never cut it if he wanted to win stuff. And that bolded part is exactly why i think we should stick to counter attacking (for now) 2/3 of our main attackers are purely counter attacking players and would look like fish out of water if they were asked to play possession

And how far are we going to get by playing purely counter attacking football? The amount of chances teams get to counter attack each game has declined and will continue to decline. Other teams are more technical and are able to pass without losing the ball. The best teams in the world have good defensive records because they dominate games and possession, not because they park the bus and counter. Over the last years, the attacking capabilities of the top teams are better than the capabilities of the best defensive teams, i.e scoring one more is a better approach than conceding one less goal.

Another reason Klopp decided to sell those players was that they did not suit the type of football he wanted to play. There is a limit to how much a player can improve with training over time, but unless your players are improving through training and active coaching over time, the only way for your club to improve is through transfers. And that is unsustainable even with our expenditure on transfers.

 

[Bobcat]

To be honest I’m not convinced you can say those manages failed in comparison to Ole, and persisting with a worse manager because you don’t like what better ones did makes no sense. When Ole fails do you employ someone even worse then.

Are you seriously naive enough to think that buying and selling players is all that’s involved?. Is that all Klopp did?. The arguments just get worse and worse.

So its just a case of "results bad = ole bad"?

Its not about "liking" what they did. Moyes, LvG and Jose, all of them made a lot of daft transfers and all of those chickens have come home to roost at one point or another. Between them they have spent over 600 million and what do we have to show for it today? Martial, Pogba and a Shaw?

But lets say you get what you want and Ole is sacked, how long would you be willing to give the new manager and what would your expectations be?

 

[Roboc7]

So its just a case of "results bad = ole bad"?

Its not about "liking" what they did. Moyes, LvG and Jose, all of them made a lot of daft transfers and all of those chickens have come home to roost at one point or another. Between them they have spent over 600 million and what do we have to show for it today? Martial, Pogba and a Shaw?

But lets say you get what you want and Ole is sacked, how long would you be willing to give the new manager and what would your expectations be?

I’ll make it very simple, put Ole in charge of Liverpool they are not where they are now. Putting it all down to buying and selling is just odd. Manager is integral and there is no need to have a bad one, we should have the best one we can. I don’t believe anyone can genuinely say that’s Ole.

 

[Enigma_87]

And what's the magic answer to escape the mediocrity? We had the manager whom world sees as the best in quick success, we had money for him to spend, we bent over backwards, ignored boring football that's against our very nature all to escape medicrity and it got us more medicrity with heavy financial burden to add to it. Finnally we have a manager who won't spend for the sake of saving his own a**se, he'll spend if he needs to, give chances to players who prove worthy and it will take time. But we will get back where we belong. Solskjaer is not in this job as just "another" job for him, he manages football clubs he wants, not to enrich his CV. If we sack him it's our loss, he'll go back to his peacfull life in Norway, waiting for us to get frustrated and call him up again. And if we do do that he'll come back, because he loves this club so much.

The answer is to sack the mediocre manager. Ole is our Solari - someone who has no place in the dugout.

We were never this mediocre since the PL era and that's largely also down to Ole.

If we sack him I can assure you no top club will come knocking for him.

 

[Untd55]

Solskjaer is getting the bare minimum out of this team. People carry on excusing him by saying every single opposition we play badly against has better players, which is simply not true.

Is it the greatest team? No, but it is far better than what we are seeing at the moment. People seem to be mistaken into thinking that you need the best players to play well, which is nonsense unless you want your team to play like a bunch of individuals. It is effective teamwork that is the most vital facet to forming the best teams in the world, which is the manager's job to implement.

Look at how Sheffield United played with a team full of Championship players; it actually fooled people into thinking that they have better players than us. No, they do not, but they do have a far better manager who has his team actually playing as a team. Solskjaer has completely failed in this regard, which some people do not seem to see or they ignore it.

A random person on the street could get the same level of performance out this team that Solskjaer is currently getting since nothing of note has been implemented. However, it comes as no surprise because what we have done is the equivalent of appointing a manager directly from League 2. Normally, the vast majority would not be supportive of such an appointment.

 

[el3mel]

So its just a case of "results bad = ole bad"?

Its not about "liking" what they did. Moyes, LvG and Jose, all of them made a lot of daft transfers and all of those chickens have come home to roost at one point or another. Between them they have spent over 600 million and what do we have to show for it today? Martial, Pogba and a Shaw?

But lets say you get what you want and Ole is sacked, how long would you be willing to give the new manager and what would your expectations be?

Many people are starting to turn on Maguire already for his underperformance in comparison to his ridiculous value and I won't be surprised if by next year we start getting irritated by AWB's complete lack of attacking output. Honestly, there's nothing preventing us from looking back at this window 3 years from now and thinking it was rubbish like those you're mentioning.

 

[Foxbatt]

Solskjaer is getting the bare minimum out of this team. People carry on excusing him by saying every single opposition we play badly against has better players, which is simply not true.

Is it the greatest team? No, but it is far better than what we are seeing at the moment. People seem to be mistaken into thinking that you need the best players to play well, which is nonsense unless you want your team to play like a bunch of individuals. It is effective teamwork that is the most vital facet to forming the best teams in the world, which is the manager's job to implement.

Look at how Sheffield United played with a team full of Championship players; it actually fooled people into thinking that they have better players than us. No, they do not, but they do have a far better manager who has his team actually playing as a team. Solskjaer has completely failed in this regard, which some people do not seem to see or they ignore it.

A random person on the street could get the same level of performance out this team that Solskjaer is currently getting since nothing of note has been implemented. However, it comes as no surprise because what we have done is the equivalent of appointing a manager directly from League 2. Normally, the vast majority would not be supportive of such an appointment.

Spot on. I really wonder now even if we get some more players would it make much of a difference? yes brilliant individual players can dribble though or create something out of nothing but with players playing for themselves( not passing unless there is no other choice) I do not think it will make much of a difference now. Get a good coach and he will get this bunch also playing a lot better.

 

[USREDEVIL]

Spot on. I really wonder now even if we get some more players would it make much of a difference? yes brilliant individual players can dribble though or create something out of nothing but with players playing for themselves( not passing unless there is no other choice) I do not think it will make much of a difference now. Get a good coach and he will get this bunch also playing a lot better.

I remember you from the old forum. Who do you like to come in and take the reigns at United?

 

[Bobcat]

I’ll make it very simple, put Ole in charge of Liverpool they are not where they are now. Putting it all down to buying and selling is just odd. Manager is integral and there is no need to have a bad one, we should have the best one we can. I don’t believe anyone can genuinely say that’s Ole.

I hate saying it but Klopp would have been the perfect manager for us. Fecking Woody and has "Disneyland" sales pitch

And i did not mean that buying and selling was all there is to being a manager, that is daft, but right now its the first order of business. Coaching is all well and good, but there is no point in coaching a bunch of players that never are going to be part of a league winning team (which is our target)

I think its too early to write him of as a bad manager just, yet but you are as entitled to your opinion as i am

 

[Bobcat]

Many people are starting to turn on Maguire already for his underperformance in comparison to his ridiculous value and I won't be surprised if by next year we start getting irritated by AWB's complete lack of attacking output. Honestly, there's nothing preventing us from looking back at this window 3 years from now and thinking it was rubbish like those you're mentioning.

I suspect that might have something to do with them being Ole signings, but lets not dive into conspiracies. Maguire is comfortably better than Lindelof in pretty much everything that matters for a defender. 63 vs 33% tackle success, 3 vs 0 blocked shots, 20 vs 9 interceptions, 51 vs 44 clearances, 53 vs 31 aerial battles won, 67 vs 44 duels won. I think its safe to say we paid too much for him, but considering Leichester knew we wanted him last year they could push the price up as much they wanted.

AWB needs to improve his attacking output for sure, but hes getting forward and is involved, but hes rarely the second last on the ball

 

[el3mel]

I suspect that might have something to do with them being Ole signings, but lets not dive into conspiracies. Maguire is comfortably better than Lindelof in pretty much everything that matters for a defender. 63 vs 33% tackle success, 3 vs 0 blocked shots, 20 vs 9 interceptions, 51 vs 44 clearances, 53 vs 31 aerial battles won, 67 vs 44 duels won. I think its safe to say we paid too much for him, but considering Leichester knew we wanted him last year they could push the price up as much they wanted.

AWB needs to improve his attacking output for sure, but hes getting forward and is involved, but hes rarely the second last on the ball

No, it has nothing to do with it.

And it's weird to compare a 80m defender to a 30m one. In fact, I actually don't get the point of this comparison at all. Feels like a forced point out of nowhere because you wanted to make the replay longer with numbers?

For 80m his performance hasn't been up to the standards and if he keeps on with this rate people will count him as a big waste of money few years from now. You don't pay that sum for just an upgrade on another player.

 

[Bobcat]

No, it has nothing to do with it.

And it's weird to compare a 80m defender to a 30m one. In fact, I actually don't get the point of this comparison at all. Feels like a forced point out of nowhere because you wanted to make the replay longer with numbers?

For 80m his performance hasn't been up to the standards and if he keeps on with this rate people will count him as a big waste of money few years from now. You don't pay that sum for just an upgrade on another player.

The numbers was just to point out that hes better than Lindelof at pretty much every metric that matters for a CB. 80 million is bloody expensive, but i would much rather spend that on one good player than 3x30 on a bunch of mediocre ones who are barely better than the lads from the academy. We have done a lot of gambles on CB's the last years and pretty much all of them have failed to make an impact.

The players themselves are not responsible for their transfer fee so its not really something you can hold against them. Of course if we went out and did another Vidic type of singing that would have been great, but right now i feel a safe bet (although pricey) was a more sensible choice than another spin at the wheel and risk ending up with more bench warmers

 

[el3mel]

The numbers was just to point out that hes better than Lindelof at pretty much every metric that matters for a CB. 80 million is bloody expensive, but i would much rather spend that on one good player than 3x30 on a bunch of mediocre ones who are barely better than the lads from the academy. We have done a lot of gambles on CB's the last years and pretty much all of them have failed to make an impact.

The players themselves are not responsible for their transfer fee so its not really something you can hold against them. Of course if we went out and did another Vidic type of singing that would have been great, but right now i feel a safe bet (although pricey) was a more sensible choice than another spin at the wheel and risk ending up with more bench warmers

Yeah so, what even brought Lindelof in such discussion from the start? We are talking about a defender whom we paid a big chunk of money. Saying he's better than a defender we didn't pay anything more than 30m for him is a weird point. Being better than Lindelof or Jones is hardly a thing to be credited for.

The player isn't responsible for what is paid for him, the club is, and the manager as well for persisting with this player, however, if the player isn't as good as 80m suggested why did you spend that much on him while there are other positions crying for reinforcemenet. You want to pay 80m, you expect a revolutionary effect, not a mere upgrade on what you have, otherwise spend this money somewhere else.

I honestly can't get how can anyone talk very highly about our last summer while watching Maguire playing and with the state of our our midfield. For me it looked good on paper at this time and I liked the prospect of the players but as the season goes on it keeps getting worse and worse when you review it. BTW this what happened for our previous signings as well in the last few years.

 

[Eric's Seagull]

He's a garbage source for transfer rumours unless it's a player Jose is interested in.
We've seen Jose using him time and time again to attack anyone he has an issue with. A couple of weeks ago Castles had a go at Gary Neville, over the summer there were endless thinly veiled attacks at Pogba and Woodward.
Just last week Rashford spoke to the media saying Ole absolutely is the best man to take Utd forward. I don't ever recall Rashford saying the same thing about Jose when Jose was in charge.
If Rashford says Ole is the man, then I'd obviously go with that as opposed to garbage from Castles about how the squad laugh at Ole's methods.

He's a garbage source for transfer rumours unless it's a player Jose is interested in.
We've seen Jose using him time and time again to attack anyone he has an issue with. A couple of weeks ago Castles had a go at Gary Neville, over the summer there were endless thinly veiled attacks at Pogba and Woodward.
Just last week Rashford spoke to the media saying Ole absolutely is the best man to take Utd forward. I don't ever recall Rashford saying the same thing about Jose when Jose was in charge.
If Rashford says Ole is the man, then I'd obviously go with that as opposed to garbage from Castles about how the squad laugh at Ole's methods.

But....(once more)
Utd finished 2nd in the table in May 2017. Wasn't good enough with that squad of players, people said. Team fell apart last year, and Ole came to put that great team of players all back together.
So now, after one summer of transfers in and out, we have a "thin squad" and we can't be expected to finish in the top 4. Who came up with that transfer window plan? I assume it was Ole and that was obviously a really bad job.

I think it is on Woodward as Ole said that he wanted Lukaku replaced and I would also put not getting another midfielder down to Woodward as I think Ole would have been able to foresee how bad we were going to be in midfield if we had a few injuries.

 

[Eric's Seagull]

He's a garbage source for transfer rumours unless it's a player Jose is interested in.
We've seen Jose using him time and time again to attack anyone he has an issue with. A couple of weeks ago Castles had a go at Gary Neville, over the summer there were endless thinly veiled attacks at Pogba and Woodward.
Just last week Rashford spoke to the media saying Ole absolutely is the best man to take Utd forward. I don't ever recall Rashford saying the same thing about Jose when Jose was in charge.
If Rashford says Ole is the man, then I'd obviously go with that as opposed to garbage from Castles about how the squad laugh at Ole's methods.

Thank for letting me know about his credibility. Like I said I don't know a lot about him. But from what you've said he sounds like a sort of mouth piece for Jose. Why does he feel the need to to have go at Gary Neville, Pogba and Woodward? Is he doing it to get himself in the spotlight a bit more or do you think he is doing on behalf of Mourinho? Seems strange he comes out with this crap when Rashford said that. Like you I'd go with what Rashford said. Does he have a problem with our club since we got rid of Mourinho?

 

[KekiZeki]

The answer is to sack the mediocre manager. Ole is our Solari - someone who has no place in the dugout.

We were never this mediocre since the PL era and that's largely also down to Ole.

If we sack him I can assure you no top club will come knocking for him.

It's not down to Ole at all! All the rot was there waiting for someone to clean up the mess and he took it because he really is not a career manager, he's career United man through and through, he won't let us down!
He needs time to clean it up first and only then we can judge. Even after Ferguson left there was some rebuilding to be done as the generation he left was passing it's prime and he knew very well his health won't allow him to do another major project it needed to be done so he stepped down at the right time for someone with new energy to come in and do it. It wasn't Moyes, even if he did pick him, and since it rolled on, massive buys and sweeping problems under the carpet with flashy signings and some record selling shirt numbers but Solskjaer won't try to do that. With him the problems will come out first, yes, but he will be sorting them out one by one as he already started doing by getting rid some bad players for us.

 

[Enigma_87]

It's not down to Ole at all! All the rot was there waiting for someone to clean up the mess and he took it because he really is not a career manager, he's career United man through and through, he won't let us down!
He needs time to clean it up first and only then we can judge. Even after Ferguson left there was some rebuilding to be done as the generation he left was passing it's prime and he knew very well his health won't allow him to do another major project it needed to be done so he stepped down at the right time for someone with new energy to come in and do it. It wasn't Moyes, even if he did pick him, and since it rolled on, massive buys and sweeping problems under the carpet with flashy signings and some record selling shirt numbers but Solskjaer won't try to do that. With him the problems will come out first, yes, but he will be sorting them out one by one as he already started doing by getting rid some bad players for us.

You can come up with all sorts of excuses. Moyes needed time to rebuild, LvG needed time to sort out the mess Moyes left. Jose needed time to sort the mess LvG left, we can go on and on..

Truth is Ole is a crap to average manager. Yes he means good but that is not enough for a club of United magnitude. The manager is a job, not ambassador role. 9th after 13 games is not enough, especially considering the form we are on since 6 months. No top club would tolerate results like that.

And the mess the squad is in is largely down to him and his team deciding to go into a season like that.

Ole has been in management for 10 years, it's not like he's just starting. He won't turn good after time, things doesn't work like that.

 

[Bobcat]

Yeah so, what even brought Lindelof in such discussion from the start? We are talking about a defender whom we paid a big chunk of money. Saying he's better than a defender we didn't pay anything more than 30m for him is a weird point. Being better than Lindelof or Jones is hardly a thing to be credited for.

The player isn't responsible for what is paid for him, the club is, and the manager as well for persisting with this player, however, if the player isn't as good as 80m suggested why did you spend that much on him while there are other positions crying for reinforcemenet. You want to pay 80m, you expect a revolutionary effect, not a mere upgrade on what you have, otherwise spend this money somewhere else.

I honestly can't get how can anyone talk very highly about our last summer while watching Maguire playing and with the state of our our midfield. For me it looked good on paper at this time and I liked the prospect of the players but as the season goes on it keeps getting worse and worse when you review it. BTW this what happened for our previous signings as well in the last few years.

Well considering hes the second best we have at the club right now its for comparison. We can argue back and forth for days whether or not we should have prioritized another position, but the fact is we needed a quality CB and since we could not afford to do another gamble and risk ending up with another Rojo/Baily type of player. People often talk about "PL proven" players and Maguie is exactly that, considering hes also young for a CB and English that would undeniably increase his price significantly

Of course right now a CM would have been better considering all the injuries in midfield, but considering both Pogba and McTomminay have had excellent injury records in the past i dont think anyone could imagine it would be this bad.

I agree though, right now midfield is in an utterly catastrophic state and we can only pray we get some players in there in the January window.

 

[el3mel]

Well considering hes the second best we have at the club right now its for comparison. We can argue back and forth for days whether or not we should have prioritized another position, but the fact is we needed a quality CB and since we could not afford to do another gamble and risk ending up with another Rojo/Baily type of player. People often talk about "PL proven" players and Maguie is exactly that, considering hes also young for a CB and English that would undeniably increase his price significantly

Of course right now a CM would have been better considering all the injuries in midfield, but considering both Pogba and McTomminay have had excellent injury records in the past i dont think anyone could imagine it would be this bad.

I agree though, right now midfield is in an utterly catastrophic state and we can only pray we get some players in there in the January window.

Paying loads for a player because he's just an upgrade on what we have is what I disagree on. You don't blow the majority of your budget on a player because of that single reason. You do that if such player is going to have an unprecedented and exceptional effect on your time that it's totally worth it. So far Maguire has not. He has been average at best tbh, a marginal upgrade on Smalling, which is disappointing for me. Overpaying for "good" players while ignoring other positions for such reasons is why we are where we are and it hasn't changed last summer. These good players never reach the level expected from them based on the price tag and at the same time you don't have enough money after that to buy more players thus the situation ends up being underwhelming. That has been our problem and is still present till now.

I wanted Maguire previously as I said but I have been extremely disappointed by his overall performance and the fact we paid even more than what we would have paid in 2018 for him by about 10-20m makes it even worse for me. 60m would have looked decent for him and we would have got some more money to spend on other players. Is this hindsight? Yes, a big portion of it is, but I expect the club scouts and negotiators to know better than transfers than fans on a football forum, including me.

 

[Bobcat]

Paying loads for a player because he's just an upgrade on what we have is what I disagree on. You don't blow the majority of your budget on a player because of that single reason. You do that if such player is going to have an unprecedented and exceptional effect on your time that it's totally worth it. So far Maguire has not. He has been average at best tbh, a marginal upgrade on Smalling, which is disappointing for me. Overpaying for "good" players while ignoring other positions for such reasons is why we are where we are and it hasn't changed last summer. These good players never reach the level expected from them based on the price tag and at the same time you don't have enough money after that to buy more players thus the situation ends up being underwhelming. That has been our problem and is still present till now.

I wanted Maguire previously as I said but I have been extremely disappointed by his overall performance and the fact we paid even more than what we would have paid in 2018 for him by about 10-20m makes it even worse for me. 60m would have looked decent for him and we would have got some more money to spend on other players. Is this hindsight? Yes, a big portion of it is, but I expect the club scouts and negotiators to know better than transfers than fans on a football forum, including me.

Right, but if Pogba never got injured and we could field a midfield of him and McTomminay instead of Fred and Pereira things would look a lot different. Imo hes a big upgrade on Smalling. The latter has been here almost 10 years now, under 5 different managers and under none of them did he establish himself as a first team regular. Just because hes in the form of his life right now does not mean hes not a mediocre player. Maybe the Italian league suits him better?

I looked back at the "Smalling 18/19 performances thread" under that infamous Everton defeat and the second comment was from you in fact: "Just as many of this United's terrible squad, massively overrated defender but then people get surprised why we're so shite. It's thanks to overrating these fecking players."Link. Just to be clear, i came over this by chance and did not go digging though your comment history

And i am not having a dig at you here, i dont think hes very good either. Hes an alright defender on his good days, but his handling of the ball is just comically bad and in this age of high press that because a massive problem since playing from the back becomes nearly impossible when your CB's constantly panics and hoofs it. Smalling is 30 now (4 years older than Maguire) and Roma are reportedly interested in getting him permanently. Considering he probably only got 2-3 years left on a top level, that would be brilliant

And i dont quite get why you are so disappointed by Maguire. From what i can remember he has hardly put a foot wrong, and with a midfield in complete meltdown its not like our back line is getting much cover either.

 

[el3mel]

Right, but if Pogba never got injured and we could field a midfield of him and McTomminay instead of Fred and Pereira things would look a lot different. Imo hes a big upgrade on Smalling. The latter has been here almost 10 years now, under 5 different managers and under none of them did he establish himself as a first team regular. Just because hes in the form of his life right now does not mean hes not a mediocre player. Maybe the Italian league suits him better?

I looked back at the "Smalling 18/19 performances thread" under that infamous Everton defeat and the second comment was from you in fact: "Just as many of this United's terrible squad, massively overrated defender but then people get surprised why we're so shite. It's thanks to overrating these fecking players."Link. Just to be clear, i came over this by chance and did not go digging though your comment history

And i am not having a dig at you here, i dont think hes very good either. Hes an alright defender on his good days, but his handling of the ball is just comically bad and in this age of high press that because a massive problem since playing from the back becomes nearly impossible when your CB's constantly panics and hoofs it. Smalling is 30 now (4 years older than Maguire) and Roma are reportedly interested in getting him permanently. Considering he probably only got 2-3 years left on a top level, that would be brilliant

And i dont quite get why you are so disappointed by Maguire. From what i can remember he has hardly put a foot wrong, and with a midfield in complete meltdown its not like our back line is getting much cover either.

I have not backtracked my opinion on Smalling though. I never thought of him as a main starting player long term. A squad option at best (though tbf I was having a meltdown on that day, I pretty much insulted every single player if you check the performance thread of each one ). That's the problem for me, that Maguire so far hasn't been a major upgrade on him which was what I was expecting. Maguire so far has been decent, good or average but never worth the value we paid for him and definitely didn't transform our defense which was what I was expecting. I didn't expect another good defender, or a mere upgrade especially for that price, that I'm sure came at the cost of other transfers.

Re the injuries, it was inevitable that our best midfielders would get injury at one point. I mean there's no team that plays an entire season with no injuries to key players. These always happen and will keep happening. The fact that we had only 2 valuable midfielders entering the season was an alarm sign to what would happen.

 

[Bobcat]

I have not backtracked my opinion on Smalling though. I never thought of him as a main starting player long term. A squad option at best (though tbf I was having a meltdown on that day, I pretty much insulted every single player if you check the performance thread of each one ). That's the problem for me, that Maguire so far hasn't been a major upgrade on him which was what I was expecting. Maguire so far has been decent, good or average but never worth the value we paid for him and definitely didn't transform our defense which was what I was expecting. I didn't expect another good defender, or a mere upgrade especially for that price, that I'm sure came at the cost of other transfers.

Re the injuries, it was inevitable that our best midfielders would get injury at one point. I mean there's no team that plays an entire season with no injuries to key players. These always happen and will keep happening. The fact that we had only 2 valuable midfielders entering the season was an alarm sign to what would happen.

Fair enough, but i dont think one single CB can transform a defense, not right away anyways. Good defenses need time to gel and for our back 4, most of them have only played together for 4 months now. AWB and Maguire i think will suffice for that right side, but the left is still a big question. As i said, i dont rate Lindelof very highly and Williams, as good as he has been is still just a kid and will undoubtedly blow hot and cold. If we can find a cheap, quality CB with some pace to partner Maguire i think that would be ideal and if Williams continues his positve development and these guys play together long enough to build a proper understanding, i think we might actually end up with a very competent back 4

 

[Axkiko]

I suggest Ole would be very good as DOF. If Poch come, I really hope Ole stays and handle the transfer activity with Poch. It would be much safer to Woodward.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

We bought two expensive players not suited to play possession-based or technical football and giving them long contracts.

Pep was interested in Maguire, allegedly. But not at that price. Anyway, I wouldn't class him as a player not suited for possession based football.

Anyway, what matters is - obviously - what Ole's "vision" for United amounts to. His ideal brand of football has been described as a hybrid of sorts: he admires both Pep and Klopp - but also embraces a more "pragmatic" approach when it's called for. Which means - yes, what? It means feck all until it translates to something on the pitch, for Manchester United. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't make much sense to judge players according to any fixed idea about what sort of football works and not: nothing is set in stone in that regard. Football evolves all the time and what seems outdated here and now could very well be embraced again by "progressive" managers tomorrow.

 

[Enigma_87]

Fair enough, but i dont think one single CB can transform a defense, not right away anyways. Good defenses need time to gel and for our back 4, most of them have only played together for 4 months now. AWB and Maguire i think will suffice for that right side, but the left is still a big question. As i said, i dont rate Lindelof very highly and Williams, as good as he has been is still just a kid and will undoubtedly blow hot and cold. If we can find a cheap, quality CB with some pace to partner Maguire i think that would be ideal and if Williams continues his positve development and these guys play together long enough to build a proper understanding, i think we might actually end up with a very competent back 4

To me if we brought in 80m pound striker or 80m pound midfielder we would've been in a better state than going for Maguire and leaving the center and attack wide open.

I don't rate Smalling that high either and we did need a quality CB in the summer as well, just not the biggest priority considering we also lost Lukaku and Herrera.

If it was question of economics, then the CB was probably #3 or #4 position we needed strengthening.

 

[Fosu-Mens]

Pep was interested in Maguire, allegedly. But not at that price. Anyway, I wouldn't class him as a player not suited for possession based football.

Anyway, what matters is - obviously - what Ole's "vision" for United amounts to. His ideal brand of football has been described as a hybrid of sorts: he admires both Pep and Klopp - but also embraces a more "pragmatic" approach when it's called for. Which means - yes, what? It means feck all until it translates to something on the pitch, for Manchester United. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't make much sense to judge players according to any fixed idea about what sort of football works and not: nothing is set in stone in that regard. Football evolves all the time and what seems outdated here and now could very well be embraced again by "progressive" managers tomorrow.

He could perform, but the team he played in would need to be as good as Barca in anticipating through balls.

How he wants to play means feck all if he is unable to coach the players into playing that way. Based on the players he bought this summer it seems like he would like us to play park the bus and counter for the foreseeable future.

I don't think we will regress back to styles not based on a minimum of technical ability or possession. Teams will certainly apply some level of pragmatism when playing against superior teams, but technical ability and ball retention is here to stay.

 

[FreakyJim]

I can't see a "style" of play. We try to press, often very chaotic and uncoordinated. And when it doesn't come off we quickly drop deep 9 men behind the ball sitting and watching. Our attacking is simple and predictable. The most obvious one-twos, the most obvious ball is played, often wide. Then a cross into nothing. That's true whether it's the u21s or first team so I assume it's how Ole wants us to play.
I had some illusions he wants us to be more exciting and attacking, more like a modern football team.
That's not happening, is it.

 

[Fosu-Mens]

I can't see a "style" of play. We try to press, often very chaotic and uncoordinated. And when it doesn't come off we quickly drop deep 9 men behind the ball sitting and watching. Our attacking is simple and predictable. The most obvious one-twos, the most obvious ball is played, often wide. Then a cross into nothing. That's true whether it's the u21s or first team so I assume it's how Ole wants us to play.
I had some illusions he wants us to be more exciting and attacking, more like a modern football team.
That's not happening, is it.

It is not. Either the players are so bad that they are unable to play the style the manager wants to play or the manager/coaches are incompetent and unable to coach them into playing anything other than park the bus and counter.

Most likely it is a combination of both. Just for the sake of it lets just say that it follows the Pareto principle and say that 80% is on OGS and coaches being incompetent and the rest is on the players being sh*te.

 

[Will Singh]

I can't believe it's that close a vote, I want him gone because I can't see what else he can do apart from spend money in the transfer window which personally I think January not much will happen, summer is when the proper buying goes on but that will mean another season or so of Ole hence why I want him gone now!

 

[RooneyLegend]

Its nothing short of madness that he's still our manager. Allegri is unemployed while other top coaches are at smaller clubs than us yet we think keeping him is a good idea.

 

[hobbers]

I suggest Ole would be very good as DOF. If Poch come, I really hope Ole stays and handle the transfer activity with Poch. It would be much safer to Woodward.

For the ten billionth time. NO.

Giving him the manager job was stupid enough given how under qualified he is. Why do so many people think giving him a job he's even less qualified for would somehow be a step in the right direction?

Absolutely baffling how often this idea comes up. People rant and rave about wanting a DOF but then come up with absolutely horrendous suggestions, Fletcher or Rio or Ole etc, to fill the role. Ex-footballers who have no experience at all of anything involved in the role and would be learning from absolute scratch. Utter madness.