SOLSKJAER IN!
SOLSKJAER IN!
Such a difference immediately. What the fuck was Mourinho doing to them?
I know it’s Cardiff, I know it’s not even one game yet, but fuck me they look incredible.
It’s Cardiff.
But first time in the premier league scoring 5 goals since SAF. Crazy stat that.
Wow.
He will be the new threat owners use against players. "Keep this shit up and I will appoint Mourinho!"Originally Posted by Simon
Lots of little improvements from Ole have made a massive difference today. The front three were interchangeable and given the freedom to roam. Martial for example started the move for his goal from the right hand side, you saw Lingard down the middle at times with Rashford down the left, then you had Rashford as the striker with Lingard on the right. Once Sanchez is back, we'll have another great option to add to the dynamic.
With the defence we had a much higher line and you can see how Lindelof was allowed the freedom to step out of his line and make interceptions, which is something Jose didnt trust his players to do. The defence is still shaky, and all the same worries are still there whenever the opposition get into our final third. But I think we did a much better job of preventing Cardiff from getting that far, with the defence playing higher up.
I wont get too carried away with the scoreline, as I think it was mostly down to the intensity and urgency the players played with. Which itself was probably due to the players being fired up to play for the new manager, since we've seen this under Jose in the past too if only in small bursts or periods of a game. So I wont get my hopes up until we get another couple of games where the team looks motivated for the full 90 minutes like today.
Something something Old Gunnar being a magician when he's substituted in. Some things never change.
You realise it’s probably much more cynical than that. The players you fans are pouring your heart and soul into, who earn 6 figure sums on a weekly basis, paid in part by the supporters simply decided that they didn’t want to play for the manager. They don’t care about the club or the supporters.
Do you realise that this applies to most football clubs on the planet, and that deep down no one gives a shit?
Why pour your heart out about the players then? They’re all mercenary cunts. Fuck football.
Fans are just as fickle. Fuck everyone.
Simon what you thinking about Liverpool's title challenge now?
Fucking hell spurs look good. Worrying
Ian Wright was getting abuse on twitter last night for praising them. As you would, I suppose.
They were good though yesterday, aye. Very good.
I thought it was a foregone conclusion that Poch would leave for Utd in the summer but, taking off my Arsenal hat, why would he leave now?
I don't see it happening, personally. That said, the worry is there.
What's changed to make you feel differently?
I think its going to come down to the challenge that this Spurs team will offer him. If Spurs finish say 3rd, Levy needs to back his manager with funds to push the team further the following year. As things stand, Poch has pushed this team to the limit, and with the way things are going, next year will look to be the same challenge he's had for the last few years. Poch now needs to be managing a team that can challenge for trophies. United right now might not be any better than Spurs but if the United board can convince him that they'll give him the resources to do better, at least he'd be at a club that's trying to make bigger things happen. Personally I dont think its going to take a lot to convince him to stay, but its a case of whether the board can take the necessary step to do so, that I'm not sure about.
From United's perspective, I think we're just trying to buy some time before we make a decision. Pochettino wont come cheap, so we might be looking at other possible options like Zidane.
The fact that Spurs are challenging for the title and playing brilliant football.
United are a basket case in all honesty, especially at board d level. Incoherent transfer policy, political games between key people and the fact that their star player thinks he is bigger than the club
He won't get the same level of control at United.
That's always been the case though. I wanted to know what changed since, that made you feel he should stay now.
Besides, is this title challenge any more serious than in previous years though? Spurs have been here before. They finished 2nd two years ago. If Poch can't take this team any further, is he going to be content with doing this over and over again? Its not the lure of United that might see him leave, but the fact that (so far) the Spurs board haven't shown that they're trying to progress. I don't have any knowledge on how their finances work, but I'd imagine the new stadium is going to set back their transfer spending even more for the time being, like what happened with Arsenal early on.
Things will be financially restricted with Spurs, sure. But he is in a similar situation to Wenger at Arsenal a decade ago - is it worth the gamble? He has a lot of control at Spurs which I doubt he would get at a bigger side.
And where would he go? Probably only Man Utd or Real Madrid and neither of those are attractive at the moment.
Same situation as Wenger? Sounds like he should leave then before everyone calls him a cunt and fucks him out of the club
It's different because Wenger won things
Not for 9 years he didn't.
Decent Christmas spell so far.
How secure is Sean Dyche? Burnley are in free fall.
Incredulous City have lost again.
Same for us
What's the stat about teams top at Christmas?Same for us
Right when I was going to get behind Spurs. Come on.
Wheres that Arsenal are fucking rubbish thread?
I know the stat of us winning every game in December. You nearly done it.
2 defeats for Spurs in December. Still, they’re in a good spot.
This Burnley kid McNeil looks class.
Proper game tonight. I'll go 3-1 to City.
I'm looking forward to this one, totally. 2-1 City for me.
Way too much hype usually means a boring game. 0-0.
That was the Anfield game, aye. But City need to go for this, really. They were both happy with a 0-0 last time.
Why would anyone be happy with a 0-0.
Game will be shite tonight.
Sure looked like they were if you watched that god awful game. Both too afraid to lose, it seemed.
That was good. Well done City
Pep loves targeting Alexander-Arnold
I thought Alexander-Arnold played really well yesterday. Thought the weak points were Lovren, Milner and Henderson. Probably would add Salah to that as well as he didn't get involved a lot.
City won that match in midfield imo.
Lovren is dog shit, I love seeing him continually fail after all his big talk.
Bernardo Silva is a superstar. Fernandinho too.
Dembele is going to China. What a fucking player he was on the eight days of the year he was fit.
R.I.P. in peace Mousa, u will live on forever. Cant believe it. I wanna run to u.
Warnock in Gammon shocker.
Don't judge a book by its cover my big fat arse.
That pass, that finish, fuck me.
We've looked great on the counter here.
Dave Saves
That De Gea guy is pretty good.
Next four league games are reasonably winnable, before the big one against Liverpool at Old Trafford. Top four is looking doable for once.
If only you'd sacked Mourinho earlier.
If only the players wanted to play for their fans, and the many millions of pounds they earn, instead of being mopey about their manager.
Its probably better that it happened when it did, as it allowed Ole to get 5 relatively easy games in to build some momentum. I'd imagine him taking the job when he still had City and Liverpool to play, wouldn't have turned out as well as it has so far.
If only you understood its not as straight forward as that.
If only you understood all footballers are cunts and don't give it their all unless they get exactly what they want like stroppy teenagers.
I do understand that though.
Oh, cool.
It’s just a job at the end of the day, or else the top players wouldn’t be demanding the crazy wages.
But let’s not pretend that it isn’t the managers responsibility to get his players to give a shit and make them play well enough to get the job done.
At what point does "Haha United are going to end up having to give Solskjaer the job" become "actually he might be the right man"?
United were maybe fortunate to get the win - as good as De Gea was, I wouldn't expect Alli and Kane to waste that many chances again - but that first half was about as clear-cut a tactical victory over us as I can remember seeing against us in the Pochettino era. Playing with wide attackers pushed right up, with Lingard dropping back beyond what you could even reasonably call a false nine position to hassle our midfield, meant we couldn't really get our rhythm and nullified our full backs to an extent, with Sissoko and someone (Eriksen) having to cover them constantly.
I've no idea if Solskjaer is actually a fantastic manager or is just riding a wave of positivity, but at the moment he looks the real deal. A lot of Spurs fans are making this point in a jokey, "hands off Poch" sort of way, and obviously I hope Solskjaer gets it instead of Pochettino, but I have been so impressed so far and increasingly he seems like a proper manager rather than a gesture.
That said, I'm not sure why there is so much discussion of whether he should get the job or not - everyone knows it's too early to judge, and there's no rush for United to make a decision, so it's a pointless thing to argue.
Last edited by Simon; January 15th, 2019 at 8:59 AM.
Cech retiring at the end of the season.
I think its just a topic of discussion. I doubt anyone really thinks a decision should be made right now. Its sort of tongue in cheek when people say he should get a contract right away.
I wouldn't say Ole's some kind of tactical genius, but that doesn't necessarily mean Jose (or even Van Gaal) would've got the same kind of performance out of this team. Its just that Ole's changes (while simple) have been a stark contrast from how the team played under the previous two managers.
Firstly, there's a lot less emphasis on shutting the opponent down and more focus on the team's own game plan, which is something Jose has been criticised for multiple times.
Secondly, Ole prefers players who're more mobile, so players like Fellaini have no chance under the new manager, who's gone as far as dropping Lukaku for Rashford (which is something Jose pretty much never did).
Thirdly, our use of substitutions have been more positive. Normally we'd go a goal up, and Jose would instantly signal to take an attacker off in favour of a holding midfielder or defender. Ole's been doing the exact opposite.
And finally, players actually want to play for Ole. Jose's man management on the other hand sucked. Some players were always been picked for no reason. Others were being dropped with no explanation. Around the time when he bought Sanchez and froze Martial out of the team for no reason, was when we really started to decline. And then theres all the shit he said during press conferences, which everyone got sick of.
Some people still go on about how the players gave up on Jose and how they should be ashamed of themselves or something. These things happen. Leicester won the league and then saw the same team just drop off the next season. Jose had this same issue during his last stint at Chelsea. And people quickly forget how Klopp lead Dortmund to a league title, a Champion's League final, and then saw his team the following season sitting at 17th in the league halfway into the campaign. Funnily enough, the moment he announced that he's leaving at the end of the season, the team's form improved and climbed back up to a 7th place finish. Its the manager's responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen. Smart managers like Guardiola have learnt to not overstay their welcome and people like Sir Alex knew if and when to make the tough decisions of removing (sometimes top quality) players that are no longer responding to his authority.
Jose lost the players, while Ole still has them on his side so far. That's probably the biggest difference.
A manager's game tactics are so much less important than their "man management". Controlling egos and getting consistent effort from multi-millionaires is the only thing that really matters in top level management/coaching these days. If Ole can handle those going forward as he has so far, he is the right man for the job.
But then things could change once he gets the job full time. He's galvanised the players recently, partly by the removal of the previous manager, but also because the players know Ole's not going to be the manager for long. If Ole got the job, once the players get used to Ole and comfortable around him, Ole then has to try and maintain that level of motivation. Its one thing getting pumped up to play for a manager when you know he's only there till the end of the season, but its different when you know the same man is now the permanent manager for the foreseeable future. The mood, the atmosphere, and the way the players respond to the manager changes.
Its like how Di Matteo became the caretaker manager, guided his team to a European Cup, got the job full time, only to get sacked months later (even if it was arguably harsh). Can Ole carry the team for many years? You can only find out the hard way, and personally I'd be reluctant to take the risk.
My personal opinion is to get a new manager in. Unless a miracle happens and we win either the league or the European Cup, we should let him go back to Molde (even if we win the FA Cup and finish in the top 4). Try and get another manager in like Poch or Zidane or whoever, and if they fail, you can always go back and get Ole. And I'd imagine you wouldn't have to offer much to convince him to join, with his ties to the club and its history.
If we keep Ole now and it doesnt work out, chances are that we wouldn't have anyone else to turn to as the ship would've sailed on Poch and probably Zidane.
Don't agree with that at all. You only need to look at Guardiola, IMO the best of the modern era. The depth of his tactics is insane. Obviously he needs to keep the egos in check to make sure they commit to his tactics (though credit needs to go to the scouts too for steering clear of troublemakers) but Guardiola is a perfect example of a tactical manager. He seems to enjoy a good relationship with most of his players but he's not exactly a Redlnapp type, nor is he a Mourinho type who inspires loyalty to his methods through cult of personality..players listen to him because they know the instructions are successful.
I think in this day and age, Jose should to be managing a team a little lower down the table. He needs to manage a team where he's the biggest star or personality in the locker room. I'd imagine he'd have a nightmare at PSG with people like Neymar, Dani Alves, Mbappe, etc. When you have top successful players who're confident in their own abilities, who know they could easily be playing for another team if they wanted to, they probably aren't going to want to hear someone like Jose telling them to do things different, especially when those instructions don't initially work.
Jose's approach would probably work better with a team of "misfits" that would be more receptive to his ideas. Not necessarily a weaker team, but one that doesnt have players who think they deserve better.
Stands to reason, he's always been a high-end version of the likes of Pulis and Allardyce who specialise in keeping teams up. Not even a dig at him, he's been incredibly successful but it was always about organisation and defending first.
I’d say it’s relatovelh straight forward. Pogba was shit, change managers and suddenly he’s great. He was choosing to not arse himself. Same as hazard was doing when he wanted rid of mourinho. They don’t care about man united, the club or the fans, not about silverware or the history. They care about their money, but they get that the same regardless of how well they do. Didn’t even care enough to play decent, was happy to be shit until he got his own way and got the manager of the club out. Ole had zero impact within one week, Pogba was just happy to have had his own way so decided to stop playing shit and start playing like one of the best players in the world and one that was far superior to most of the players on the pitch. Leicester did it to Ranieri after he won them the league, played shit because they weren’t happy with him and wanted him out, as soon as he went they beat Liverpool. Not all clubs do that, not all have the players who can choose to play shit and choose to turn it on. Yours do though. Does it not make you think less of them?
No, but I think less of you. How does that make you feel?
Why would I care at all what you think about me?
Cuz you care enough to try and bait me with that nonsense. I just thought you might actually care even a little about what I think of you and what you do. So how does it feel?
Nobody cares what you think about anything really.
Yet you asked me anyway.
I don’t actually care for your opinion on the matter, Id just like for you to stop being naive and realise that your manager has no real impact on how well your team are or are not doing, other than related to whether they want to get him the sack or not. It’s like still believing in Santa Claus at this point. I don’t know how much more evidence you’d need.
And I’d just like you to know that I don’t give a shit. Go and find someone else’s parade to piss on.
FUCK VAR RIGHT IN THE PUSSY.
I still laugh at the fact you paid 8mil for Waghorn an absolute donkey of a player.
This is not a great response.
It really wasnt supposed to be. I just didn't want to entertain his obvious troll attempt.
It’s not a troll attempt.
If he was actually looking to discuss it (which I wouldnt have a problem with), I'd gladly do so. But if you ask a provocative question like "does it not make you think less of them?", then clearly this isnt a football discussion any more and more of an attempt to undermine any enjoyment or enthusiasm I might be getting from our positive form right now. So yeah, I don't give a shit.
You’re taking it too personally. He made a valid point. Pogba has no right to give as little of a shit as he did under Mourinho. £290k per week? Are you kidding me?
But it’s one of the managers responsibilities to make the players give a shit.
Motivation is a facet of a managers job, But as mentioned if you are earning that kind of money full commitment is the bare minimum. Whether a managers tactics also hold players back is another issue.
He scored for us as well but he's absolutely fucking shocking, even you must see that.
Meh I have seen worse at Derby (Bob Malcolm comes to mind)
Bielsa is the man.
I've not seen the press conference myself, but it sounds amazing.
You didn't pay 8mil for Bob FTP Malcolm though.Meh I have seen worse at Derby (Bob Malcolm comes to mind)
I don't think we payed 8 million for Waghorn either tbh.
I don't quite understand how showing you have so much information about every team proves your spying was meaningless. Don't it show the exact opposite? Maybe his spying was the reason his video breakdown was able to be so elaborate?
Its human nature to try and get by doing the bare minimum. Players get paid as much as people are willing to pay them. There's no clause in anyone's contract telling them to give full commitment for the money they're given. And this is one of the reasons why a manager is employed, to try and make sure they can get the best out of their players.
But besides that, blaming the poor form on commitment alone is just lazy and oversimplifying the problem. How do you really differentiate between lazy players and tactically misused players? Rashford's a perfect example of someone who's performing a hell of a lot better now than before, and a lot of that is down to him playing as a striker and not as a winger where Jose made him play. Pogba plays with more attacking freedom and less defensive responsibilities, and its translated into more goals and assists. Was it fair to question Pogba's commitment at times? Maybe. But lets not pretend that it's the main reason why he's suddenly playing better. Then there's the thing about how the average goals conceded per game has basically halved since Ole took over. Does that mean our defenders have suddenly started to care more? Well no. Because its the change in our play style that has meant our defence isn't exposed as much as before. The defence is still shit, but we've started to mask the problem better now. There are a quite a few changes in the team that can be explained by something other than the level of commitment.
Mourinho IMO has himself to blame for the poor performance of his team. And even though the overall blame can be share by the players, the board, and the manager, things could've been better if Jose had handled it differently. When you look at all aspects of it, there's a lot that Jose got wrong during his tenure that could've fixed our issues.
To start with, he was a master at manipulating the fans and the media, deflecting any blame or responsibility from himself, and downplaying his failure. When he first got the job, he took shots at the previous two managers and talked about how United should never be fighting for a top 4 spot. Then after realising the job is tougher than it seemed, he talked up a 2nd place finish as one of his greatest achievements. Basically trying to lower expectations. Which he constantly referred back to as his downward spiral continued. Like "See? I told you finishing 2nd was tough. We cant even do that any more".
And what pissed off many fans was how he always tried to remove himself from the picture every time things went bad. If he lost, it was always the players letting him down and how they apparently lacked commitment (or how the other team wanted it more). I don't think I've ever heard him own up to the fact that he tactically got it wrong after a game. Ever. And whenever he defended himself after a loss, he'd always separate himself from the club. "We" became "I". For example, "I've won more league titles than all the other 19 managers combined" or "I too have knocked United out of the cup myself, these things should be expected". No one wants to hear that shit. No United fan wants to hear about his accomplishments outside of United or hear him tell us that we should expect to lose to Sevilla because that's "football heritage". And most importantly, you're our manager. We're in this together. Our loss should be your loss. With Jose it was as if he's trying to say "I didnt lose, it was United that lost"
Then there's the poor handling of his players and the relationships he had with them. Most managers would publicly not give names or single anyone out in interviews, before handling the matter privately. Jose on the other hand had a habit of publicly embarrassing and throwing players under the bus. Things such as giving Pogba the armband then striping him 2 months later saying he'll never be captain again, was out of order. Fining Martial with I think two weeks wages because he wanted to go home to his girlfriend giving birth, was ridiculous. It was starting to become apparent that he's a sore loser and a toxic presence amongst the changing room, and I don't think he ever had a good rapport with most of his players at United. So when you consider this along with the negative style of football, its hard for me to be mad at any player for not always giving 100% playing under this man. You might want to do good and give your all, but you can only keep that up for so long under the kind of atmosphere Jose had created. Plus there's also the thought that if you did work your ass off and succeeded, Jose would take all the credit as usual and you'd pretty much be saving his job (a job that he's underperforming at).
Do I think any less of the players? No. Jose had it coming. And all of this doesnt even start to take into account how Jose failed at the technical side of managing United, like the way his team played, the use of the players he had at his disposal, being poor in the transfer market, etc.
He complained about how his defenders were not good enough, but ignores the fact that these same players were defensively solid under Van Gaal's leadership. For a manager who's known to put so much emphasis on being strong and organised at the back, this was a weak showing from Jose. Its justifiable or at least understandable if you compromised your attack for your defence, or vice versa. But how do you explain being shit at both ends of the pitch?
Jose then moaned about how he needed the board to sanction some transfers, and not getting the defenders he wanted was a part of the problem. Its easy for fans to turn on the board but how does a board give Jose more cash to spend when he's not getting the most out of the signings he does make? He said he wanted defenders, yet he signed two centre backs during his time at United and benched both of them (Bailly and Lindelof). He failed to get the most out of Mkhitaryan, then swapped him for Sanchez and failed to get the most out of him as well. He then bought Fred for like £50m and almost never gave him a game. He had fallen out with the big marquee signing, Paul Pogba, and tried to flog him last summer (which was blocked by the board). And the other big signing, Lukaku, saw his goals (at least for United) starting to dry up.
Jose can point to how Liverpool spent big on Van Dijk or how much Guardiola spent on defenders, but how's he supposed to convince anyone to give him anything to spend with the way he misused his signings? Naturally any board that's looking at the bigger picture would be thinking its probably best to save any money for whoever the next manager may be in the summer, if Jose got given the sack (which is where he looked to be heading).
This whole "the players let Jose down" narrative is so short sighted.
Last edited by RuneEdge; January 17th, 2019 at 7:17 PM.
Summarise it in one line for us Rune
Here:
Great result and performance. Hope Hector's injury isn't too serious
I think Sarri might agree that the players are the problem at Chelsea. Kind of shocking he would say this out loud…
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/46935486
Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri said his players are "extremely difficult to motivate" as he heavily criticised their performance in defeat at Arsenal.
Well...that was a season-ender. When I saw the video of it I knew it wasn't good.
Cardiff's new record signing, Emiliano Sala, is believed to have been on a plane which went missing last night.
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