Manchester United EPL News

Yet another International break, it feels like the season is constantly stopping and starting at this point. But now is as good as any to take a look at a roundup of all the latest news from in and around the club right? Injuries to talk about, potential managerial changes and possibly more, it has been a bumpy ride so far this season, so fasten your seatbelts, because it isn’t going to be getting any smoother.

There has been much discussion floating around the football world in general, not just amongst United fans, as to whether Ole should still be in a job. There are two schools of thinking here, one being sack Ole and the other being to give him time. Today I want to look at the benefits of both of these schools of thinking. First up, getting rid of Ole. I think it’s quite easy to look at some of the players on the roster, both for fans of United and neutrals, and think that things really should be going much better than they are. There are some unbelievable names amongst the squad. Bruno Fernandes, Edinson Cavani, David de Gea, CRISTIANO RONALDO? United should be cruising. But they aren’t. United sit 6th in the league with 4 losses right now and it isn’t really good enough, that’s true.

Should United already have qualified from the group in the Champions League? Absolutely, in a group with Young Boys, Atalanta and Villareal, with this squad, no doubt. The hardest games here should theoretically be Atalanta, as serious Champions League dark horses every season, but to have a 2-1-1 record from 4 games, including 2 against Atalanta, it isn’t really good enough, yet again. So the question that remains, would another manager, a big name manager, get more from these players than Ole is currently getting out of them?

Well Ole never really had a solid resume as a manager to begin with. Spent some time with the Academy before going to Molde where he did pretty well, allowing him to get a job at Cardiff, where he got them relegated. Can you hold that against them? I don’t really know, but it doesn’t look great. He then returned to Molde before being given the chance of taking over Jose Mourinho, one of the most decorated managers in the game, at United. Not really great is it? Personally, Ole doesn’t have enough managerial experience to be given a job at a club the size of United, not yet anyway.

So it’s understandable that he wouldn’t necessarily be doing as well as the fans want. Not getting as much out of players who are used to working with genuine world class managers. But the problem that remains after getting rid is, who do you get in to replace him? Conte is now at spurs, you could go for Zidane, but is that going to be more of the same? You could try and pry Poch from PSG but that’s not a guarantee. When you look at sites that offer English Premier League odds, the names in the hat aren’t great. So is it realistically worth taking the risk to potentially be in the same position? The clubs around United all have world class managers. Klopp at Liverpool, Pep at City, Tuchel at Chelsea and now Conte at Spurs. What’s the play to make here realistically?

Option two is to give Ole time, the benefits of this is that it doesn’t disrupt the system. Is the system great right now? Not particularly, but the players should be shelving some of the blame here. It’s very easy to point the finger at the manager but honestly, there is HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS worth of talent on the pitch and the only one seriously trying to drag the team into games is quite often the oldest man on the pitch, it’s no wonder there are rumours flying around that he wants to leave in January.

Paul Pogba has picked up what appears to be a thigh injury during a training session while on International duty. Initial diagnosis has suggested he may miss out on potentially 10 weeks. Pogba is still currently serving his 3 match ban after his straight red card against Liverpool, but has since withdrawn from the French national team for their World Cup Qualifiers against Finland and Kazakhstan. It isn’t fully confirmed yet the extent of Pogbas injury, but until then we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for updates. There we have it, the news has been dominated in recent weeks by this subject and it continues to be dominated by it still. Even during an international break it’s all anybody can talk about, United fans or not.