Ole’s occasional honesty can’t mask
THERE are times when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer glosses over the myriad problems with his Manchester United side and there are times when he confronts them in an honest and frank manner.
That second scenario is always preferable to the first, but after Burnley ended a 58-year wait to win at Old Trafford, you begin to wonder whether such honesty and contrition is still enough.
Days after sounding satisfied with being outplayed by Liverpool and hailing ‘strides forward’, Solskjaer said that there could be only one response to United’s third defeat in four league games, and this one to a side threatened by relegation.
In his post-match television interviews, he admitted: “We can’t do anything but hold our hands up and say: ‘This isn’t good enough for this club.’”
This frank assessment was reminiscent of the only league defeat this season to really rival Wednesday’s, back at St James’ Park in October.
Solskjaer had defended his players from criticism after a dismal Europa League performance and goalless draw away to AZ Alkmaar a few days earlier, accentuating the positive on an evening when United had not managed a shot on target.
The Norwegian was expected to enter his post-match press conference with a sunny outlook once again when United faltered at Newcastle, but he instead described his side’s performance as “symptomatic of where we are at the moment”.
He admitted: “We don’t create enough chances to deserve to win a game of football”. What had been clear to everyone else could no longer be denied.
His return to those direct, honest appraisals was welcome on Wednesday night but provoked a question: four months on from Newcastle, what has changed?
Do United look significantly better at creating chances? Have they learned from these lessons? Has Solskjaer improved this side? Or are they just as one-dimensional and reactive as ever, relying on their opponents to be brave or foolish enough to give them space to play into?
Supporters making their way home from Old Trafford in the hours after the Burnley defeat clamoured for signings. Bruno
Fernandes’s name came up on several occasions, desperately so at times.
Great expectations have been pinned on a player who left Europe’s major leagues three years ago with a relatively mediocre record. Talks with Sporting over an acceptable transfer fee continue.
But cries for signings ignore the growing sense that no one player — not even Fernandes (above), should he live up to his considerable hype — can transform a side this fundamentally dysfunctional. Solskjaer has now lost more league games as permanent manager than he has won. No sustained progress has been made since the start of the season and time is quickly running out.
With almost twothirds of the campaign gone, United have 34 points. It is their worst start in 30 years. They are currently projected to finish with 54 points, which would be their lowest total of the Premier
League era by some distance. No team over the last decade has secured a top-four finish with fewer than 66 points. How does Solskjaer expect to nearly double United’s points tally with only 14 games remaining?
Most damning of all, though, is the fact that United’s projected total of 54 would be 10 points — double figures — short of ‘the David Moyes season’.
Moyes was, of course, sacked with four games remaining but had 57 points to his name at the time. If that was considered the club’s nadir post-1992, what exactly is this? How far has the bar fallen? How much lower can it go?
Like in Newcastle in October, Solskjaer is at least acknowledging his side’s problems and that is a positive. Yet the time to acknowledge them was then, back when there was still much to be decided.
That time has been and gone. The time to address the issues is here and more urgent than at any previous point this term.
Solskjaer must fix United and quickly, lest he is not given another chance to do so.