If you have no comment, why post it?

I read this in David Brents voice

Seems fair enough to me

Deluded coach

Well, there’s always a thingy… every few seasons there’s a new buzz word added to the lexicon of football culture.
In principle Ole is very much correct, breaking football down into its simplest form.
It adds further weight to his stance that he is a Man Manager and not a coach. So he’s in the SAF kind of mindset in his approach to the game, rather than say Wenger or Pep. The issue for him obviously is, having not won a trophy, and with people questioning his credentials, he’s walking a very fine line, but it’s easy for detractors to dismiss him, disrespect him.
Ole knows what he has to do… can he? I truly hope so.

Thanks for the quote, OP, good stuff from Ole.

Solskjaer's a really weird manager when it comes to this issue for me. He doesn't appear to have any type of consistent philosophy, wouldn't really describe him as a pragmatist, but I wouldn't describe him as tactically clueless at all. I've seen him more than once in big matches come up with an original plan & it work perfectly, also seen him mess it up completely. It's like he throws random stuff at the wall on a game by game basis

Lampard wasn't like this for us. He had one main idea initially, sort of a mini gegen with elements of Sarriball, but once that got figured out he had nothing & wasn't the best man manager it has to be said - and that's where Solskjaer does appear to excel (from the outside at least).

Wow, this is bad.

He doesn't like to talk about tactics, and admits his philosophy is based on how football use to be.

In context of the press conference for the West Ham game, here's the question and Ole's initial quip before he went on to reply.

Carl Anka: "In November last year I asked you about your long term vision for United and you told me how you planned to attack, with quick attacks and crosses. In the new year I asked you about your layer-by-layer method with defense.
Could I spare some time to talk about your iterations in central midfield, that pivot behind your many attacking players, and your very defensive players, how do you want that two man pivot to work in future"

Ole: "I'll give David (Moyes) all my insights then won't I!"


I actually like the preference for having 'complete midfielders' and speaking of, OP the names are Roy Keane (not Kean) and Bryan Robson (not Brian).

thanks for posting this Fiddler.

Seems that Ole is well in control and knows what he wants and what he is doing

also can we assume that with your no comment stance, Ole has finally won you over?

Why would the stringing together of a few platitudes, truisms and general jibber jabber in response a contextually daft question concern anybody too much either way.

Not hyperbolic enough? Not enough references to 'being' and/or 'meaningfullness' perhaps? No emotionally delusional rhetoric?

Football IS "a simple game".

Love how Ole gets to you bed wetters so much.

Fiddler and N2 want him to have a PowerPoint presentation ready if he's ever asked that question.

Ole lets go of a winner in Romero and keeps De Gea in the team. Ole biggest downfall will be him playing the weak links in our squad. I reckon every team that face us know Fred and De Gea are the 2 weakest players in our squad yet they both start regularly under Ole.

It was funny I think Keown was saying De Gea had a good game, his game was 2 saves straight at him from long range in the first half and after red card we allowed 2 shots on target and 2 goals. Usually down to 10 men you expect your goalkeeper to make a save but he went missing and both goals he let in way too easily.

Yo, what?! You mad fam!?
Romero was never a better keeper than DeGea.
Sure UTD did him dirty, deserved a bit more respect.
But DeGea a weak link?!
Not having that…..

The only time he ‘saved’ anything after the red card was when a shot that was going over he tipped over lol. In a way gave a needless corner.

You blaming both goals on DeGea?! What you watching Hafi?
Man was left for dead on both goals.
You haven’t moved on from his mistakes last season, where sure, he could be criticised for being weak.
The Roma game he was immense. Yes he’s crap at Penalties.
But that was last season, and this season, he’s doing good so far, imo.

Romero had an 88.9% save percentage in the Europa League in 2016/17 season. De Gea faced 12 shots in the Europa League final, 1 soft shot straight at him in 120 minutes he let in the game I would expect nearly every keeper to save. He conceded 12 goals from 12 shots on target in the Europa League final and put in a pathetic penalty that was easily saved.

Ole dropped Henderson who in the quarter-final saved 8 of the 9 shots he faced. If De Gea played in the QF we would have been knocked out for sure.

The 1st goal was saveable but De Gea took so long to react the ball was nearly in by the time he moved. It was also a weak effort so lots of keepers would have saved that if they reacted quickly. The 2nd goal he did what he did for Leipzig 3rd goal, went incredibly small and opened near the whole goal for there striker to aim at. Most goalkeepers close the angle and spread themselves, De Gea opens the angle and makes himself as small as possible. De Gea did the same for Newcastle United goal, he left like 90% of the goal to aim at and didn’t close the angle.

It is funny in last 7 years De Gea has been statistically our worst goalkeeper every season and by a big way compared to our number 2.

I’m so-so about Ole generally but I don’t see anything wrong with what he’s said here.

People talk about teams being “a counter attacking team”, “a pressing team”, “a possession team” and the reality is that the best teams can do all of those things well and at the right time. There is no one way, one philosophy of playing or being successful, imo.

What he says about complete midfielders is a fairly common sense approach to the position. In midfield, you’re going to need to defend at some point and it’s preferable if the player doesn’t sh*t himself and make a daft decision when required to do so, same when attacking.

The guy who asked the question, (which is his job of course) “layer-by-layer defence”, “double pivot”, I’ve heard him use the phrase “metronomic passer” before. Sounds like a football hipster t*t tbh.

Shouldn’t a question be asked, at what point do we say, ‘We’re Man Utd’
So, we’re down to 10 men. We still have better quality players. Let’s take it to them.
Did you see what a SAF UTD team down to 10 men against Arsenal?
We are playing Young Boys, not one of the established teams of Europe. Fight and Die Hard dammit.
Give them something to think about. But no, we allowed for them to constantly pressure us, couldn’t even keep the ball for a string of passes at a time.
But you want to blame DeGea?! Nah…..

comment by StringerBell (U11749)
posted 2 minutes ago
Shouldn’t a question be asked, at what point do we say, ‘We’re Man Utd’
So, we’re down to 10 men. We still have better quality players. Let’s take it to them.
Did you see what a SAF UTD team down to 10 men against Arsenal?
We are playing Young Boys, not one of the established teams of Europe. Fight and Die Hard dammit.
Give them something to think about. But no, we allowed for them to constantly pressure us, couldn’t even keep the ball for a string of passes at a time.
But you want to blame DeGea?! Nah…..
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Just bad decisions and performances all round that game. It happens. Not too often, hopefully.

De Gea has been near the worst keeper in any top side for last 3 years and statistics back it up as well with his errors leading to goals. Look at how Chelsea, Man City and Liverpool all improved after they got rid of the weak link goalkeeper. Look at Liverpool CL finals in 2018 and 2019. The difference a good goalkeeper makes. De Gea is similar level to Karius or actually worse based on stats in european games.

Even a poor goalkeeper like Karius barely made an error. I know he flopped in the CL final but in the league he wasn’t gifting goals likr De Gea.
www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/8968925/stats-show-manchester-united-david-de-gea-worse-season-liverpool-loris-karius/

People say why Ole hasn’t won a trophy but Ole has played De Gea in most of the late stages in cup games and he has barely made a save and made errors leading to goals in most KO’s. You can’t win anything with a shocking goalkeeper. The fact we haven’t won anything in last 4 seasons shows that. We would have won the last 2 years Europa Leagues if Romero was in goal.