At the start of the season

comment by Sat Nav (U18243)
posted 23 minutes ago
comment by Vidicschin (U3584)
posted 46 minutes ago
Who’s pretending it wasn’t?

.....

There are quite a lot of people on here who give off the opinion that this is an Ole thing.

Yesterday’s match thread during the first half was full of such cretins. It made hilarious reading.
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Exactly. Plenty on here make it seem that it’s been exclusive to Ole. As if we were the second coming of 2009 Barcelona under LVG or Mourinho.

Whether it’s poor coaching or not it’s not exclusive to Ole and I have to say that I don’t think we have the players capable of playing amazing football quite yet. We can show flashes but that’s it. We have McFred in our midfield for a start and Martial, Rashy & Greenwood up top.

Let’s compare that to most of our title winning teams, it’s should come as no surprise that we don’t play swashbuckling champagne football.
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We were pretty dull in the last years of Fergie's reign as well. People tend to forget that we used to grind results out without looking particularly good.

comment by The Post Nearly Man. 20times, 20legend (U1270)
posted 7 minutes ago
comment by Sat Nav (U18243)
posted 23 minutes ago
comment by Vidicschin (U3584)
posted 46 minutes ago
Who’s pretending it wasn’t?

.....

There are quite a lot of people on here who give off the opinion that this is an Ole thing.

Yesterday’s match thread during the first half was full of such cretins. It made hilarious reading.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Exactly. Plenty on here make it seem that it’s been exclusive to Ole. As if we were the second coming of 2009 Barcelona under LVG or Mourinho.

Whether it’s poor coaching or not it’s not exclusive to Ole and I have to say that I don’t think we have the players capable of playing amazing football quite yet. We can show flashes but that’s it. We have McFred in our midfield for a start and Martial, Rashy & Greenwood up top.

Let’s compare that to most of our title winning teams, it’s should come as no surprise that we don’t play swashbuckling champagne football.
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We were pretty dull in the last years of Fergie's reign as well. People tend to forget that we used to grind results out without looking particularly good.
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I think people have been spoiled by City, as well as by Fergie.

How many managers in the entire history of the game have been able to deliver (even relatively) attractive attacking football every week coupled with the kind of results we’ve come to expect/demand as United fans with any degree of consistency?

There are some people who would prefer a Bielsa or a Potter in charge and accept us finishing outside the top four as a result because they’d enjoy the football more. That’s absolutely fine. I can’t see how anyone can have a problem with that.

There are many others on here though - and I don’t need to list their names because the rest of us know who they are, whether they do themselves - who moan every, single, fricking, week about the football on display, but would melt down and chuck even more spectacular tantrums if the club put a manager with an attacking-football-at-all-costs philosophy in place with the result being our descent down the table.

But why is it as a result? Playing more attacking football, and putting in better performances, doesn’t necessarily mean we’d drop down the table. If anything, we’d probably win more games.

comment by Shola The Ameobi Shoretire (U10026)
posted 5 minutes ago
But why is it as a result? Playing more attacking football, and putting in better performances, doesn’t necessarily mean we’d drop down the table. If anything, we’d probably win more games.
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I was offering a hypothetical. I wasn’t saying it would be a necessary result.

I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest that on balance relatively more attacking approaches are any more or less successful than relatively less attacking approaches in the modern English (or wider) game.

I think Ole deserves, if not some credit for this season, at least a shot at the next one. We've obviously not been great to watch this season though, and that's a bit concerning as there was a spell after the restart last season where things were looking more promising in that respect. I can only hope that Ole has tried to focus on getting us more solid first - though we're not there yet - before taking the handbrake off a little.

I'd love it if we were able to land two good signings in summer:

1) Either a CB or a DM.

2) Either an RW or a CF, to add more creativity and flair up front or, in the case of the latter, at least to provide a focal point in attack as well as a more. consistent goal threat than we currently pose

Ah I see.

I think over the last few years they have been, though in principle I’d agree. But what is true is that regardless of style, performances are important when it comes to being successful. Manchester United can perform better than they do, in my opinion. Whether that’s with a defensive or attacking coach, it’s something that is attainable. Fans want different things. Many wouldn’t care if we won the league playing crap like we do now. I would rather finish 5th and enjoy the football.

comment by Shola The Ameobi Shoretire (U10026)
posted 8 seconds ago
Ah I see.

I think over the last few years they have been, though in principle I’d agree. But what is true is that regardless of style, performances are important when it comes to being successful. Manchester United can perform better than they do, in my opinion. Whether that’s with a defensive or attacking coach, it’s something that is attainable. Fans want different things. Many wouldn’t care if we won the league playing crap like we do now. I would rather finish 5th and enjoy the football.
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I haven’t been as offended as many by the football we’ve played this season.

Personally, on balance, I think it has been no worse than we saw under LVG, and measurably better than we saw under Mourinho across his tenure. That’s all subjective, obviously.

Would I love to see handbrake-off stuff even two weeks out of three? Yeah, of course. We’ll need better players to do that and win things though.

Will we ever see it under Ole? I dunno.

Part of the problem with being United manager is that you’re expected to play attacking stuff, but if you don’t, and you win, you’ll keep your job.

If you do, and you lose, you’ll be sacked.

As soon as any given individual is put in the manager’s very, very shiny, hand stitched to order Italian shoes, they’re gonna consider their options and their willingness to expose themselves and their pay packet to risk very carefully.

I think we’d all like to see top quality football in most games but most of the times we have seen that we’ve had Fergie at the helm, arguably the best manager the game has ever seen at club level and we’ve had teams with the likes of Ince, Keane, Scholes, Beckham, Giggs, Cantona, Rooney, Ronaldo, Ruud, RVP, Carrick, Kanchelskis all backed up by proper defences much better than our current defence.

First things first, rebuild and grind our way back towards the top and then put the finishing touches to our squad and first XI. Then we can look to our style of football.

Imo we need to sort the RWF position out first and foremost. It’s the only area that is practically nonexistent for us and has been for a long time. Sorting that out will create space for the likes of Rashy, Greenwood and Bruno as it will occupy defenders.

I know that people mention CF & CB and they’re not wrong but they’d be behind RWF for me in terms of priority.

Every time we play forward it’s as if we’ve got one hand tied behind our back, we’ll never either get to the top nor have amazing football without having a genuine threat from our right wing.

comment by Shola The Ameobi Shoretire (U10026)
posted 2 minutes ago
Ah I see.

I think over the last few years they have been, though in principle I’d agree. But what is true is that regardless of style, performances are important when it comes to being successful. Manchester United can perform better than they do, in my opinion. Whether that’s with a defensive or attacking coach, it’s something that is attainable. Fans want different things. Many wouldn’t care if we won the league playing crap like we do now. I would rather finish 5th and enjoy the football.
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I certainly want to see some better football from Ole now. It the crap football was one of the main reasons I wanted rid of Jose. We've had spells of decent football under Ole. But not enough. He's had time to rebuild the squad and he's done a decent enough job. But now I really want to see a more expansive brand of football. Hopefully a top CB and/or CDM will encourage Ole to deliver on that.

I’ve found it as offensive as the stuff under Mourinho, in the main. The highs are higher, but we consistently serve up similar levels of shiiiiit. I get the point about their job, but as far as I’m concerned, if you are that cowardly then you have no place being Manchester United manager. The game against AZ Alkmaar in the Europa was what did it for me. It was more cowardly than anything I’d seen under Mourinho.