The big kick-off
Jamie Carragher
Why Solskjaer’s United must challenge for the Premier League title
Guardiola and Klopp would be confident of winning the title with this United squad
The day after Manchester United won the European Cup-winners’ Cup in 1991, Alex Ferguson came out and declared to the press: “We are going to win the league.”
He would later admit it was a risky tactic, but he said he felt it was time he “took the gloves off ” and “challenged this team of mine”.
David Meek, a Manchester Evening News reporter at the time, did not share his confidence and suggested he had been overly bullish, but Ferguson was having none of it. “David, if Manchester United can win a European trophy, why can’t we win the league?” he shot back. “It is about time I raised the stakes at this club.”
Ferguson would narrowly lose the league that next season to Leeds, but the tone was set and they finally ended their wait the following year.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer may have fallen just short of winning a European trophy last season after United’s penalty shoot-out defeat by Villarreal in the Europa League final, but is it not time he and the club threw down a similar challenge to this squad? Solskjaer is entering his third full season at Old Trafford and the club have backed him with a new three-year contract, so it is time United really went for the league. That has to be the expectation, the belief.
It is no good thinking anything else. Real Madrid or Bayern Munich would not expect any less and Manchester United absolutely consider themselves to be in that bracket of club.
You cannot downgrade ambition at clubs like that.
I am not saying what Ole has done is not good enough, because he has settled the club down after things were threatening to turn toxic under Jose Mourinho and you can see what he is trying to do with the players he has brought in, but now it has got to take off. United got themselves into a position to challenge for the title last season and then crumbled from January onwards.
They have to react far better in those decisive moments this season.
If they do not, if they come up short again, what will that say about Solskjaer? We are about to see if he has that X-factor – the buzzword United often use to describe players – to help the team to take the next step they absolutely must. They finished second and were unbeaten away from home last season, but they have got to go one better. I think Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp would be confident of winning the title with this United squad. They have £50million-plus players all over the pitch. United have the most expensive starting XI in the Premier League at just over £500million, a shade more than what Manchester City’s best team cost, even with £100million Jack Grealish in the side.
Do I think United have got a goalkeeper who is good enough right now in David de Gea or Dean Henderson? Probably not. And you could maybe say they have not got a centre-forward who can guarantee the goals and play every three days, but neither have City and they won the league last year without an elite striker, because Sergio Aguero barely featured.
People talk about United lacking a pedigree defensive midfielder and I get that, but the rhetoric coming out is almost like no team have ever won a league with someone who was just a decent player. But is Rodri at City that good? Am I missing something there? Pep has won the league three times with Oleksandr Zinchenko at left-back, given what a disappointment Benjamin Mendy has been.
The reality is that plenty of title-winning teams have a position where there may be question marks. When Liverpool won the league in 2020, they did not have anyone scoring goals from midfield, but Klopp made it work. Chelsea won the title in 2016-17 after Antonio Conte switched to a back three and improvised with Victor Moses and Marcos Alonso at wing-back. It is almost like there is this idea that United have got to spend more than £50million in every position before they get to a point where they say, “Oh right, now we can win the league”. But there will always be some sort of imperfection. There are always areas where you feel you could, and should, do better.
There is talk of Solskjaer operating with a more adventurous midfield set-up and playing less frequently with a double pivot, but I find that strange to hear. When Guardiola and Klopp came in, they imposed their vision for the team straight away. They may not have had the players to deliver exactly what they wanted immediately, but they had their way and went with it. Wasn’t this more attacking 4-3-3 United are talking about playing this season – with Bruno Fernandes and Paul Pogba in central midfield together – how they started against Villarreal? Pogba was particularly poor in that game. Jadon Sancho and Raphael Varane will bring about improvement. Sancho offers a threat they have not had down the right and Varane brings pace, experience and medals at the back.
It is a good and expensively assembled squad. There should be real pressure on United to deliver this season. They have been through a period of transition, but that talk has to stop now.