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When Mauricio Pochettino was sacked by Tottenham last week, Manchester United leaked to the media that they were happy with Solskjaer because he had a vision for the club and they believed that results and performances were improving. That was after United had suffered their worst start to a league season in over 30 years. That makes this an extraordinary case of diminished expectations.

Are we allowed to ask what that vision is? So far all we have heard from Solskjaer are references to a glorious past that bears no relevance to Manchester United in 2019. That isn’t vision, quite the opposite; it’s misplaced nostalgia. And all the time United are moving further away from the top. They’re closer to the bottom three than top four.

Manchester United are a mess, and Solskjaer’s hands are dirty. He chose to try and match Sheffield United’s defensive shape but succeeded only in leaving Andreas Pereira and Fred against three hard-working and well-drilled central midfielders and saw his team dominated. Having changed the system and personnel to get back into the match, Solskjaer promptly to the original flawed plan and saw his side concede again. A team that spent £135m on two defenders in the summer have somehow got worse at defending.

It has been said repeatedly in this column, but we have seen nothing during his permanent tenure to suggest that Solskjaer is the right man for this job. No other Premier League supporter would welcome him at their club. You can believe that this is not all on the manager, and that Manchester United need significant structural change to compete again for the league title, but still consider Solskjaer entirely unfit for purpose. These are not mutual exclusives.

But this now comes to head with Pochettino out of work. One of the barriers to appointing him was the difficulty of pulling him out of the Tottenham project and the cost of buying out his contract, but neither of those issues now apply. It would be a move based on logic rather than sentimentality, but since when did sentimentality make sense?

If Manchester United get any whisper that Pochettino might take this job rather than go to Bayern Munich, they have to do everything within their power to move Solskjaer on and get their man. Anything else would be an abdication of responsibility on the part of the club’s power brokers. Which is exactly why we should expect them to persevere with the Solskjaer vanity project.

Quote (Pozer @ Nov 26 2019 06:46pm)

https://www.football365.com/news/premier-league-winners-and-losers-topped-by-jose-mourinho

Can't really argue with any of this.

Quote (ChaoCheeBye @ Nov 26 2019 11:53am)

Few things that may happen

1) team continue to struggle and we end up mid table with no CL next year. i.e dumped out of EL
- Ole sacked at the end of the season. Him being a legend and all. somewhat graceful exit

2) total collapse and with the team fighting relegation. very unlikely but anything can happen in football
- This is the only way ole will be gone before the season ends.

3) Qualifies for CL next year.
- There will be signings and departures, another year of rebuilding.
- Go back to 1,2 or 3

4) This will be his 3rd and defining season. if ole even lasts this long.
All his tactical brilliance or non will already be known. the team would have matured with those young players going into their early 20s with lots of playing time.

my personal gut feel is he will last at least this season. then the glazers might wanna take a bet on poch or whoever.

Quote (Pozer @ Nov 26 2019 05:46am)

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A team that spent £135m on two defenders in the summer have somehow got worse at defending.

Quote (cambovenzi @ Nov 26 2019 08:36pm)

I mean, this part was really stupid:



1 goal allowed per game before this past weekend(15 in 13 now), and none allowed in 4 europa games.. compared to poor defense and 54 PL goals allowed last season.
The defending has been significantly better, not worse.


But the rest was pretty good and accurate.

Quote (Pozer @ 27 Nov 2019 05:53)

I think it's supposed to be taken in relative terms i.e. the improvement of defending hasn't been as large as you'd expect after investing £135m into new defenders.

Quote (Pozer @ Nov 28 2019 02:03pm)

Throwing youngsters onto icy pitch in freezing Kazakhstan will do wonders for their confidence, Man Management 101 :hail:

Quote (Roped @ Nov 29 2019 03:23am)

I mean..if chong scores a wide open net from 4 yards out, united win 2-0