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LIVERPOOL, England – It will take more than a win at Everton to prove Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s premature claim that he is still the right man to resurrect Manchester United, but for now he will stop the bleeding.
After coming out to fight in his usual press conference on Friday, Solskjaer, under pressure following losses to Arsenal and Istanbul Basaksehir this week, scored a well-deserved 3-1 win at Goodison Park which at least gives him more time. to back up your words. results.
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For the most pessimistic United fans, it will be yet another test of a now familiar cycle. Good games followed by bad games and vice versa. At the very least, Solskjaer has developed an incredible ability to produce a result when you need it most. He owes it to Bruno Fernandes, who scored twice in the first half after Bernard put Everton in front in his first Premier League start.
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It was Fernandes who was in charge of giving instructions after the soft opener and then assumed the responsibility of fixing it; first with a powerful header from Luke Shaw’s ball into the box and then drifting a cross past Marcus Rashford and into the far corner. In the final minutes, he was battling Abdoulaye Doucoure at the back post in his own penalty area to make sure Everton didn’t equalize and then charging up the field to set up an Edinson Cavani first goal to put the game out of question.
Solskjaer, who later said that his team had been “primed to fail” after being kicked off Saturday lunchtime after a long journey back from Turkey, needs more players like him if he is to finish for good. with the whirlwind of speculation about his position and make this team a true title challenger.
“Bruno is a leader,” Solskjaer said after the final whistle. “A lot of enthusiasm and reactions were great from everyone. I’m very happy with the reaction of the week, the goal and the impossible start of the game.”
Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer avoided losing three games in one week with the victory at Everton. Getty
As much as this was a morale-lightening result at Old Trafford, Solskjaer was left counting the cost of three much-needed points after injuries to Shaw, Rashford and Victor Lindelof.
“It doesn’t look very good,” Solskjaer said. “Any injury, when it is serious, is not worth the points, but the boys were not going to give anyone the opportunity to take three points from us. They were very determined.”
If United fans want Solskjaer in or out, there can be little debate as to whether the players are still after him.
It’s a quirk of their form that the win over Everton meant they equaled a club’s record of seven consecutive away wins in the Premier League set in 1993, while not winning would have left them with their lowest points tally after seven games a season in the top flight from 1989-90. Everton didn’t help themselves defending in a way that made it easy to see why they conceded more than one goal in five straight home games in the top flight for the first time since a club-record streak of seven in 1958, but Solskjaer has also become a master to stop rot.
After a miserable defeat at Newcastle a year ago, United came within minutes of beating Liverpool and won the next three. Back-to-back draws with Sheffield United and Aston Villa were followed by unexpected victories over Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City. Two defeats in four days to Liverpool and Burnley in January once again had the feeling of the beginning of the end for Solskjaer ahead of a 19-game unbeaten streak in all competitions. Their lives are yet to be exhausted and this time it was Everton after Arsenal and Istanbul Basaksehir. It is Schrodinger’s United, capable of producing surprising results and not at the same time.
After the international break, Solskjaer’s team is next in action against West Brom at Old Trafford, but you will find very few fans willing to predict the outcome with real conviction. They don’t know what to expect from one week to the next and the only consistent thing in Solskjaer’s 23 months in charge has been his regular demand for consistency.
“We want more consistency,” Solskjaer said. “We want to start, go for a run and get on the table. My job is to make sure the guard is up all the time and that we don’t go into any game thinking it’s going to be easy. It was an exceptional experience. Performance after a week difficult “.
Whether this triggers the kind of winning run Solskjaer has achieved before, or if he is left answering more questions about his job next month, is anyone’s guess. At least United Executive Vice President Ed Woodward, watching from above the benches, can breathe a little easier for the next two weeks knowing his next big decision can wait a while and Mauricio Pochettino can stop sitting by the phone. Perhaps in time this result will turn out to be the game that marked the beginning of the end for the “Ole out” calls. Or maybe not.
Source: espn.co.uk
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