The main criticism of Ole has usually been about his tactical acumen, or general style of play. While I think this is overplayed by those that never backed him, it's true that we've seen an uncoordinated football team at times. That, aligned with Ole's reluctance to discuss tactics publicly (who does that anyway?) and his sometimes uncomfortable demeanour in front of the camera, has led some people to conclude that there wasn't enough focus on the details. I'm not on board with that. There wasn't enough there to label him a tactical visionary, but there was enough to say that he was a competent manager holding his own against some of the best in the world. Until this season of course when it all went wrong.
This is the man that claimed football is an easy game and went on to say its about desire. This is a man who only ever looked half decent as a manager when he was facing better coached and better manned sides because he could sit back and counter attack. i.e. a style of football that is by far the simplest kind. He had nearly 3 years and our best period results wise and performance wise was when he had literally just taken over. We were outplayed by I would say probably 70% of teams we played. I would watch us against a relegation team and they would have a better shape and transitions than us but were hamstrung by poor finishing and we would string a couple of high difficulty passages together and sucker punch them and win. I would watch Chelsea, City, Liverpool and numerous other teams play and just pull my hair out that our own fans couldn't see the huge gulf in coaching between us and them. Ole deserved pretty much every shred of criticism he got with regards to tactics. He put this team together, he oversaw their development as a team and decided on tactics and what to focus on.
However, I do think what we've seen since then has vindicated him to an extent. Ralf hasn't yet been able to instil a balanced team out of this squad either. We are still suffering from basic mistakes by players. We don't look like we know how to score goals. We don't have a team capable of pressing well. We haven't seen a noticeable improvement from any player, bar perhaps Dalot, that would suggest these players were demoralised by a sub-standard management team.
RR has come into a squad that has been bereft of coaching for years, is low on morale and is trying to fix god knows how many issues in the middle of a busy season. Not to mention he is currently an interim and we know how awful players can be when they decide they don't want to buy into a managers ideas or the manager has simply pissed them off. I have no idea how good a job RR is doing but this has 0 reflection on Ole other than negative. Our players are unfit, unmotivated and under-coached. Who takes the blame for that?
Ralf is using all of the 'more passion, win our individual battles' soundbites that Ole was derided for, but the message is largely the same from both. Tactically he has abandoned his philosophy and at this point is pretty much going with the same setup that Ole was using. A competent & very experienced manager hasn't been able to come in and make an immediate difference, as you would expect from a squad that had been free-wheeling it under a poor coaching setup. You say that quick success would have vindicated Ole, where I believe it would have been a sledgehammer against him - 'look how easily a competent manager has been able to turn this around'.
This again makes no sense. Of course you need these things. City are the top team in the league because they are fantastically coached, tactically astute
and they work their arses off and want to win. If your players don't want to work, run and contest 50:50s on the pitch then the best tactics in the world won't be enough. That doesn't mean that those tactics aren't absolutely vital. United haven't had an issue with work rate or desire for the past 3 years solid, they have had an issue with the technical side of the game and finally the "desire" side of the game went down to match the level of technical execution they were delivering.
Now, I'm aware of the counter-argument here. This is not Ralf's team, Ole built this squad. That's inarguably true, but I don't think they thought that this team was finished. I'm sure he wanted a midfielder or two. Instead he ended up with a last minute Ronaldo, who has caused us to rethink our approach and broken some of the continuity. It's notable that Ralf hasn't bought a midfielder in this window either, perhaps for financial or political reasons or more likely because we just can't get the players we want at the moment. Either way we haven't really seen any signs that would suggest that any of our problems were easily fixable by either manager.
Ole has had nearly 3 years to fix these issues. I have no idea about the Ronaldo transfer and how much Ole wanted him. I would suspect that he didn't want him that much and Ronaldo was a board signing. That being said, he has spent nearly half a billion on this squad. He should have sorted out these issues if they were holding him back so much.
I genuinely think a top manager would have this team easily in the top 4 and challenging for the title for at least half of the season if they had complete buy in from the players and had a summer to work with them. RR doesn't have that luxury and hes working with one hand tied behind his back. There is a reason why plenty of people said that we
had to challenge this year. Ole had spent massively and we just got Ronaldo, Varane and Sancho. How many thought we
would is another matter.
Like it or not, the writing had been on the wall for Ole from about 3 months into his tenure. People just don't like to be analytical and are blinded by stupid ideas like "giving a manager time" being an absolute rule. Or that being a good supporter means that you cannot be critical of a manager who isn't showing signs of being capable of achieving your goals.
Management is hard and its even harder at the top clubs. That doesn't mean that whoever is in those positions should not be judged against those standards. Ole fell short in most areas.
