A club lacking in structure and direction

IT IS amazing how results can get in the way.

Just six games into the Premier League season, two defeats and two draws have managed to blow away the optimism of the summer when three signings were brought in.

Sunday’s loss – the eighth of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s 17-game tenure – had the manager saying “sometimes along the road you are going to hit bumps”.

More lie in wait over the next few weeks, with a growing striker crisis and tricky opponents waiting.

It may be unthinkable the bumps will lead to Solskjaer being jettisoned in October or November if they remain on course to miss the top four, but someone will take the flak, and it will not be Ed Woodward.

Solskjaer was handed a hospital pass at United – a club in decline on the pitch who judge themselves not by the league table but by their balance sheet.

How else can you explain the repeated failure to embrace the successful model employed by Liverpool and Manchester City regarding football structure – notably a director of football (Edwin van der Sar, below, would be the No1 pick) – and transfer policy?

A lack of direction was the problem last season and remains so. For all the promise of Marcus Rashford and even Mason Greenwood, United sold Romelu Lukaku, above, without a back-up plan.

Interest in Paulo Dybala cooled because of his excessive financial demands and third-party ownership of his image rights – no doubt spooking a board who were stung so badly by Alexis Sanchez.

It was probably the right call but if not him then who? Where was the thinking outside the box that a director of football with contacts in Europe would bring? United’s transfer policy seems agent-led rather than club-led.

While that might sell more shirts, executive boxes and perimeter advertising space, it is results that matter.