My darkest day at United
Solskjaer refuses to quit after shambolic display Maguire apologises to fans following humiliation
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer vowed not to quit as Manchester United manager despite suffering his “darkest day” in football after total humiliation by Liverpool.
A hat-trick from Mohamed Salah led Jurgen Klopp’s side to an extraordinary 5-0 win at Old Trafford, United’s worst ever home defeat by their great rivals and biggest since a 7-1 humbling 126 years ago. The capitulation piled the pressure on Solskjaer, who admitted he had never felt lower and that United had hit “rock bottom”. United were booed off at half-time, when Solskjaer is understood to have ripped into his players, and full time. Liverpool fans taunted the manager mercilessly with chants of “Ole must stay” and “Ole’s at the wheel”.
But Solskjaer said he had been given no indication by the Old Trafford hierarchy that the defeat would cost him his job.
He insisted he would not walk away, despite conceding that his side had “hit a brick wall” in recent weeks after taking just one point from 12 in the Premier League.
United’s misery was compounded when Paul Pogba was sent off for a studs-up lunge on Naby Keita in the second half.
“I have come too far, we have come too far as a group,” the United manager said. “We are too close to give up now. We know we are at rock bottom. We can’t feel any worse than this. Let’s see where we take it. It’s not easy to say something apart from it is the darkest day I have had leading these players.”
Asked if he still had the club’s backing, Solskjaer added: “Well, I’ve heard nothing else, and I’m still thinking about tomorrow’s work. I can’t say now I’ve felt any worse than this. It’s the worse I’ve been, the lowest I’ve been, but I accept the responsibility. That is mine today, and it’s mine going forward.
“The only way I know how to approach life is to wake up tomorrow morning, look forward, evaluate what’s gone on and come through a difficult time.
“The feeling we’ve had that we are getting to where we want to be,
in the last few weeks we’ve hit a brick wall, the performances haven’t come and we’ve conceded too many easy goals.
“I do believe in myself. I do believe that I am getting close to what I want with the club, what we’ve done, what I’ve seen, the development. But the results lately haven’t been good enough. That brings doubt in anyone’s mind, probably, but I’ve got to keep strong and believe in what we’re doing.”
Harry Maguire, who endured a woeful game, issued an apology to the fans on behalf of the players. “We apologise to the fans, it was nowhere near good enough for this club,” the United captain said. “They stuck with us right to the end and we appreciate that, but as a club we have to do better.
“I’ll be looking at myself and my individual performance. We have to stick together, there is no point blaming each other, but look at ourselves.
Look in the mirror when we go home tonight and think where we can do better.”
Cristiano Ronaldo, who had a goal disallowed and could have been sent off for a clash with Curtis Jones, demanded an instant improvement in his own apology to supporters. “Our fans were, once again, amazing in their constant support,” he wrote on Instagram. “They deserve better than this, much better, and it’s up to us to deliver. The time is now.”
Solskjaer was given the full backing of United’s decision makers after the previous weekend’s 4-2 defeat at Leicester. But the United manager admitted he was not sure how the players would react with Tottenham to play in London on Saturday before they face Atalanta in the Champions League in Italy three days later. United have conceded 11
goals in their past three games and have kept one clean sheet in their past 21 matches. Their run of 13 consecutive games at Old Trafford without a clean sheet is their worst record since 1964. “I am sad, disappointed, angry, of course,” he said. “My emotion doesn’t matter apart from what we do to improve and make sure it doesn’t happen. This could go either way, we could sulk or we could come together. We have to sort our frame of mind out.”
Asked who shouldered the responsibility, Solskjaer said: “It is mine. The coaching staff are very, very good, brilliant. I choose the way we approach the game, we were not clinical enough and gave too much space, and when you give good players space they score.
“You can look at last season when we lost to Spurs 6-1 – this is worse, miles worse. This is miles worse for me as a Manchester lad.”
Gary Neville, the former United captain, said he did not think the club would react by sacking Solskjaer but raised serious questions about his management.
“I don’t think they’ll change things, but it brings massive pressure,” Neville said. “United’s fixtures have been as simple as they come, but this is the first super team they’ve played and they’re being there’s a mentality issue. I didn’t think it’d ever get as bad as it did today. As soon as they played a proper team, they’ve been obliterated, pulled to pieces, dismantled. I thought they’d flip a switch. But you can’t flip a switch in football.
“That Manchester United group of players, they get outrun. They are one of the lowest running teams in the league. There’s nothing worse than being told you’re one of the lowest running teams in the league and that you’re easy to play against – but they’re both. It’s a poor reflection on the manager, the staff and the players.”
Klopp, the Liverpool manager, admitted the win was “special” but expressed some sympathy for Solskjaer. “The last thing I want to be is in his shoes in this moment,” he said. “When you lose a derby, which happened to me once or twice, you don’t want to give interviews and for sure it is not nice.”
Liverpool lost James Milner to a hamstring injury and Keita was taken off on a stretcher after Pogba’s challenge and will be assessed.
Klopp also wondered if Ronaldo was fortunate to escape a red card for lashing out at Jones. “It looked like a red card, but I got told he hits the ball or didn’t hear the whistle,” Klopp said.