Bosnich believes stars want out
MARK BOSNICH believes Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has already lost the support of the Manchester United dressing room if the evidence of Sunday’s crushing defeat is taken at face value.
The former United goalkeeper says he saw no fight, no identity and no obvious plan as his old club were put to the sword by Liverpool.
And while he took no pleasure in suggesting support for his old team-mate’s reign was collapsing from within, he maintained the club may have to act by next week to stop the rot.
“You can talk about tactics, you can talk about having a clear playing identity, but if players are not executing it, if they’re not doing the basic things, if they look – as they did on Sunday – that they just do not want to play for the manager, all those other things you can rule out,” said Bosnich.
“Last week I said we will see how much the players really want to play for Ole because this is a really crucial month and I thought we saw the answer to that.
“There seems to be far deeper problems than we are hearing about, deeper problems than having an identity or a way of playing. It looks as though the players are looking for a way out.”
Not one United player put in a good performance for Solskjaer on Sunday as the Norwegian’s side were blown away by Liverpool, slumping to their worst home defeat against their biggest rivals in the club’s history.
It continued a poor league run having now lost three of their last four and contributed to a run of five defeats in their last nine in all competitions.
Things will not get easier over the next three games either with trips to Spurs and Atalanta followed by the Manchester derby all in eight days.
And Bosnich believes the visit to Old Trafford of Pep Guardiola’s Premier League champions could be the one to end Solskjaer’s reign.
“If they happen to lose those three games, which looks a possibility, I don’t see there being any other choice,” he said.
“As much as I want Ole to do well, if this continues there is no other choice for the board.”
Bosnich added: “I heard Gary Neville saying he thought he would be given until the end of the season but does he think United supporters are going to be putting up with this week in, week out just to go to the end of the
season?”