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Ole Gunnar Solskjaer replaced José Mourinho at Old Trafford two years ago today. Has the experiment of naming an inexperienced former player worked?
Perhaps the strongest answer to that question – 731 days, around £ 250m transfer fees and 71 league games later – is that the jury is still out on the former United striker.
Has United progressed in the time since José Mourinho was fired and Solskjaer entered?
Only Mourinho has a higher winning percentage than any of Manchester United’s four permanent coaches since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013, but only Solskjaer and David Moyes have failed to win the silver medal during their time in the hot seat. , and the latter only received nine. months to do it.
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What changed with Solskjaer?
As seen now across the country at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, football that predates Solskjaer’s tenure at Old Trafford is often pragmatic, when it works. Mourinho has never been one of the tiki-tika and neither was Louis van Gaal, who has since championed his “boring” style of soccer before him.
After years of being entertained by the Ferguson winners, United supporters were likely never to marry any of their styles in the long run. It was no surprise that it was one of the first things Solskjaer set out to change when he took office.
Defensively, United have regained some form of solidity after making Harry Maguire the world’s most expensive defender to join Aaron Wan-Bissaka on a new bottom line in the summer of 2019, conceding just three more goals than the champion. Liverpool last season, but it is with the ball where the most pronounced and commented changes have been seen.
In the 21 games Solskjaer oversaw in his first season, his counterattack allowed United to mount six times more counterattacks than Mourinho’s team, in just three more games. Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford, who had started just 35 league games between them in 2017/18, were now front and center.
“Manchester United looks like Manchester United five or ten years ago,” said Gary Neville. Sky sports less than a month after Solskjaer took office following United’s 1-0 win at Tottenham, their fifth consecutive Premier League victory. “They have recovered the counterattack.”
They certainly had, but that weapon could only carry them so far. 23 months later, United have accumulated 2.1 points per game out of 19 games in which they have the least ball, the kind of account that could create a serious title charge. Where they’ve had more than 50 percent possession, that figure drops to 1.71 points per game, and just 25 wins in 52 games.
Bruno Fernandes’s arrival in January was meant to fix that problem, and the results suggest that it has worked. Since then United are undefeated when they have had more of the ball, winning 12 and drawing five. But against the big boys, he’s still not showing enough: out of four games against Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal and Manchester City this season, United have only collected two points and only scored one goal.
“In the next six to eight months, they have to dominate the games and dominate the big ones,” Neville said. Sky sports after last weekend’s boredom draw with City. “That will be the determining factor for Ole.
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After a 0-0 draw in the Manchester derby, Micah Richards questioned whether Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is the right man to take Manchester United forward. Former teammates of Manchester United manager Roy Keane and Gary Neville discussed the matter
“They have to start playing as a team and acting. Today was ‘good’, but it is not a Manchester United tactic to win long-term football matches or win titles. All teams that win titles dominate football matches – dominate possession, being up front and winning big games. Ole doesn’t have Manchester United there yet and he’s been in the job for two years. “
Questions about hiring
David Gill’s name is not regularly mentioned when evaluating what has changed at Manchester United since Ferguson retired in 2013. But the man who replaced its chief executive, Ed Woodward, has sometimes been more at the center of pay attention to the four permanent managers you have worked for. with. That has not changed under the current regime.
At first, things seemed to be looking up with Solskjaer determined to create the right atmosphere in the club’s dressing room, something that had been made worse with Mourinho with side shows like Paul Pogba’s endless transfer saga that didn’t do much. to keep the narrative about getting results.
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Gary Neville, Roy Keane and Micah Richards discuss Paul Pogba’s future at Manchester United with Neville and Keane suggesting that he should be allowed to leave the club.
“You have a certain DNA and identity when you play for Manchester United or work for Manchester United, you have to be a certain type of character for me,” Solskjaer said in July this year, apparently now with some kind of control. on the way the transfer business was conducted at Carrington.
By then, the arrivals of Maguire, Wan-Bissaka and Fernandes, to a greater or lesser extent, seemed to be a step in the right direction. Jadon Sancho could have added to that list this summer, but United’s failed approach to his number one goal was called “embarrassing” by Neville, and quickly raised more questions about the club’s approach to signings.
“The Sancho thing is embarrassing. It has been happening now for four months. It’s embarrassing that,” he told the Off The Ball podcast in October.
“And then you make an offer that is rejected; the smart clubs, they have agreements worked out behind the scenes, the agents are working hard, the club officials agree on things and when the offers are accepted, it is done.”
Donny van de Beek, Facundo Pallestri and Amad Diallo seem like Solskjaer signings; players with something to prove, on the rise. The kind of players Ferguson would have admired. But how the coach makes sure that fiascos like the Sancho chase all summer don’t happen again can be a mystery to him as it is to anyone.
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FREE TO SEE: Highlights of Manchester United’s victory over Sheffield United in the Premier League
Has United progressed?
United are just three points higher than after 12 games in 2018/19, just weeks before Mourinho was fired to signal Solskjaer’s arrival, and while United have only accumulated more points to date in two of the seven Previous post-Fergie seasons are only slightly ahead of where David Moyes sat in the early days of his short career at Old Trafford at this point.
He reached three cup semi-finals, but has yet to go the distance and reach a final since Solskjaer took over, and is now in his longest title drought since the 1980s, with his last trophy in the Europa League in 2017 with Mourinho.
But without significant gains in terms of points or progression, there’s no better time to mount a charge for the title than statistically in the most open Premier League season ever. If they win their hand game over those at the top, they will narrow the gap with the leaders to two points, only matched since Ferguson’s departure under Louis van Gaal in 2015/16, when a winning streak in the Next seven games put an end to any hope of a serious challenge.
Certainly another former player thinks the silverware will prove decisive for the coach.
“I think he has to get a trophy,” Roy Keane said. Sky sports after the Manchester derby. “There is an obsession with being in the top four, but I think Manchester United should do it automatically.
“I think by the end of the season Ole will have been at work long enough to say if we think he is the man who will get Manchester United back in competition for the titles. I still think they are behind Liverpool, Tottenham and Chelsea. But get some trophies. “
Two years later, the debate revolves around whether Solskjaer is the right man for the job or not. Maybe in another six months, we’ll know for sure.
Preview from launch to publication: evaluation of the early years of Ancelotti and Arteta; Plus the latest from Gareth Bale and Dele Alli, and why Leeds could cause trouble for Man Utd
This week on the Pitch to Post preview podcast, Peter blacksmith joins Sky Sports News reporter Alan Myers and Sky Sports expert Alan blacksmith analyze Carlo Ancelotti and Mikel Arteta’s work in Everton and Arsenal, before their one-year anniversaries. Who has done a better job?
We also heard from the SSN reporter Paul Gilmour yes Tottenham will bounce back from a frustrating week against Leicester, and the latest in Gareth Bale’s fitness and his All is future.
Plus Sky Sports Feature Writer Nick Wright evaluates Man Utd’s 3-2 win on Sheffield United and makes his pitch why Leeds could upset Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team at Old Trafford …
Listen to the launch of Sky Sports to publish the podcast on: Spotify | Apple | Castbox
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