News: Impact Sub - OGS The New Gaffer Thread

I agree. It would have been a very difficult choice to get rid of him given how good the results were during his interim stint. Can you imagine the media narrative if we had gone a different direction and were getting identical results this season under whatever other manager? We would never hear the end of how much better Ole had the team playing, how it was madness to get rid, and the calls to bring him back would've been ceaseless since about the third week of the season. So I understand why they stuck with him.

But it should've been absolutely clear to everyone around the club that while Mourinho was a problem, he wasnt the problem, and consequently Ole could never be the full extent of the solution. Even if we decided to go with Ole full-time there needed to be massive changes put in to how we handle long-term planning, recruitment, the entire football operation really (outside of the youth setup which seems to be producing again). Instead, as you say, they basically used his tenure as an excuse to put off having to make any real changes for yet another year at least. That's where the real rot lies and the people at the top of the club have no interest in doing the first thing about it.

 

Said it when they appointed Ole, there was absolutely no reason to hand him the job until the season ended. They gave him the job based on the new manager bump and all the players being happy that Jose was gone. Once that died off, we got the Ole we have right now which is one that, beyond man management, is clueless.

 

But he took the job. If he isn't good enough, he is part of hurting us, especially as he continues to play the game of the owners and Glazers. You can be a club legend as a players, and still do things later that hurt your legacy. Ole is responsible for everything good or bad he does. I find it weird to even suggest otherwise.

Also I disagree. Considering the state of the PL, this squad could easily be in 4th, with a proper manager. The amount of points left on the pitch do to tactics and management are high this season.

 

I think this was a huge miscalculation on their part. Fans and former players in the media aren't gonna turn on Ole like they did on Moyes, LvG, and Jose.

 

The only way it could become an 'easy' move is if they find and announce a new DoF and a new manager right when they fire Ole.That obviously won't happen.

 

If they get Poch on board and announce him shortly after firing Ole, the average fan will move on quickly.

We forget the casual United fan doesn’t know the backstory on the Glazers. Or at least the depths to which they’re ********ing us over.

 

You may be right. But I don’t think the Glazers care about bad press. As long as it doesn’t effect stock prices they won’t change. Woodward has been getting bad press for 5 years and they’ve kept him around. I hope this time is different but I think it would take major stock plummeting or a bottom half finish to shake them into action.

 

“No value in the market.”

 

and the classic "Happy with the squad we have"

 

I think Ole gets a lot of stick but I think he's a much better operator than he's given credit for. I want to be clear: he's got his flaws and weaknesses, but I think for the most part, he understands that they exist and he has ideas on how to cope with them.

His big flaws? Coaching build up play. We're terrible at breaking teams down when we have established possession. To that end, he's put a system in place where, in the absence of our only player effective at breaking teams down, we prioritize a high number of duels to increase chances of turnovers and counter attacking opportunities.

The other big flaw, one that I think he doesn't see or understand is set pieces. We've been bad for years, but we're probably league bottom if you consider we have slabhead on our team and we've been unable to get him to score a single header.

Ole is a canny guy. His game was based on exploiting gaps that better players missed. He sees himself as an underdog and knows that he's got to work tirelessly to have any success. That mentality is one we could use at the club. Moyes, LVG and Mourinho all had much better resumes and probably 2 of the 3 had better ideas tactically. But to a man, they all loved the sound of their voice and believed their own bullshit. The exact opposite of what we need to get past this belief that we are a top club because we used to be good. We haven't been good in a decade, we have been below our standard for a lot longer than that. We need to be underdogs and we need understand that there is real work to do and that it will be earned, not handed to us, even if we buy expensive players.

I think he's the right person to rebuild, but not the right person long-term. I think unless you get someone like Poch who can build and you commit to keeping the squad fresh with new buys once the team gets good, you waste your shot appointing a good manager to get shit players out of the club and establish a good young core to build on.

All of this to say, I think Ole can be our Brendan Rodgers, not our Klopp. We've been looking for a Klopp and I think we need to understand that to get good, we have to stop being bad first. The Mourinho appointment was a step back and had we let JM sign Toby on huge wages and a 4 year contract and that old ass winger he was obsessed with AND sold Martial, we'd have ended up with an even longer period of rebuilding.

The thing to remember is that even if we aren't capable of attracting the very best players out there, that wasn't the model under Fergie and it doesn't mean that we haven't been spending. We have an outrageous wage bill. It is better now that it was this summer, and better in the summer than last winter, but the sooner we can stop paying 18M a season to Alexis ********ing Sanchez and another 8.3M a season to Marcos Rojo, the sooner we can spend good money on more players the profile of Martial.

 

I can't stand to hear Ole speak any more. He was disarming at first, but the more exposed I am to his interviews, the more he talks, the more it is clear he really doesn't belong here in a managerial capacity. He could help w/ recruitment or even coaching (just so long as he stays away from buildup play) but he's not the right person for the job of manager.

 

What did I miss?

 

nothing... there's no one thing. He's just always fumbling for words and either confused by concepts or changing his mind mid-answer. If you've ever interviewed someone for a job and got the feeling they were full of shit, that's what is going on for me. At first, I kind of found it refreshing that he didn't have set ideas of what he thought about things prior to the question and I saw it as him just being honest and open... but the more I see him in press conferences, the more I'm concerned he doesn't have any ********ing clue what to do.

 

I haven't listened to an interview from him since last season

 

he is not doing anything differently.

recent results should have no bearing on anything

if you thought he should be given a chance before then you should still think that. if you thought he should be gone at season's end then that should still apply. stop swaying any which way the breeze blows (at least until he gives you some mark of real improvement).

 

He’s really just ********ing with the English press, he doesn’t respect them and tbh, why should he? There are a few interviews he gave with the Norwegian press where he’s more candid and direct with his answers.

 

what has changed are the results. these few games are not enough to confirm or deny anything.

if you question what i am watching, i question your memory.

this logic of yours is the same one that got us married to ole in the first place. some good results and next thing you know he is our manager permanently. by your logic we would be saying we've turned the corner things are great now on the back of a few games let's extend his fcuking contract before Molde pries him back.

 

Have you been paying attention here?

I've interviewed hundreds of people. I did it for a living for a decade. I've come across people who are cagey or people who are rude. I've interviewed a shit ton of people who were superior and thought they were better than everyone else in the room. Ole doesn't strike me as any of those things. He strikes me as a guy who is underqualified for the job he has, who is hedging and making shit up. One trait with them is they change answers to the simplest of questions repeatedly. Take for instance the bad info coming out regarding Pogba. One week Ole says he's almost back, the next interview he says he has no clue when he'll be back it will be a long time and then a week later he's a week away and then later on that week he's 2 weeks away. He's just all over the goddam shop. The best quality he has is that he's self effacing.

 

He has more options with his signings and players coming back from injury. But I wouldn't say he is doing anything differently. We are most likely seeing the results of what he has been doing all along. Don't be blinded by the results. Besides it is too short of a time period to draw any meaningful conclusions at this point.