Title or not, Ole has now shown that he is more than a teacher or cone man...
THE manager of Manchester United isn’t doing a bad job, is he? I mean, considering that he’s a PE teacher and everything. Considering he’s just a cone man. Considering he just hands out the bibs and collects the balls. Considering he’s a novice who’s way out of his depth at Old Trafford. Considering he’s just a nerd i n thrall to the big-name players.
Those were a few of the labels some people hung around the neck of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer when he took over at Old Trafford. Those are the accusations they’re still making, although that noise fell silent when United went level on points with Liverpool at the top of the table on Friday by beating Aston Villa to make it eight wins in ten Premier League games.
The treatment of Solskjaer says a lot about our preconceptions of what it takes to be a successful manager in the Premier League in the 21st Century. Solskjaer doesn’t fit the template. There is no cult of personality around him as there is with Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and Jose Mourinho. He does not have the charisma those men have. That is one thing that has been mobilised to damn him.
Solskjaer’s softer, gentler persona does not fit with the qualities we expect in a man who can lead one of the elite clubs to the title. Sir Alex Ferguson was a hard man. Solskjaer does not give off the same vibe.
We have also grown accustomed to trusting coaches from Italy, Germany and Spain. It is obvious but it’s true. There is a reason for that: success begets success. It’s a natural instinct. We want someone who can replicate what Klopp has done, for example, and so we gaze towards Julian Nagelsmann or Thomas Tuchel. Solskjaer, derided as a tactical novice, selected teams that beat them both this season.
But there’s nothing sexy about being a manager from Norway with Molde on your CV. The only thing worse in coaching is being British. Every time United fail to win a game, you will find #oleout trending on Twitter. The pressure on him has been relentless.
Solskjaer has had all this to overcome and more. United’s recruitment policy under Ed Woodward has been shambolic at times. Last summer in the transfer market, Solskjaer needed a right winger and a centre-half with pace. He got another attacking midfielder, Donny van de Beek, who has spent most of his time at Old Trafford sitting in the stand with the other substitutes.
Many have never given Solskjaer a chance at United. They painted him as Woodward’s useful idiot, a yes-man for a clueless executive vice-chairman, someone who wouldn’t rock the boat, someone who had neither the coaching ability nor force of character to free the club from the mediocrity that assailed it when Ferguson left in 2013.
Even last week, I heard someone say Solskjaer would already have been sacked if United had not signed Bruno Fernandes last year. It was an odd argument. Liverpool might not have won the title last year if they hadn’t signed Virgil van Dijk in 2018. But they did sign him. Just as Solskjaer signed Fernandes. And, yes, he has been a catalyst for improvement. It’s how it works.
Sure, it’s too early to garland Solskjaer with laurels. We’re only a few days into the new year, not quite halfway through this strange season. United haven’t broken free of the shackles of the past just yet. And, yes, it is so tight at the top of the table that a couple of bad results and Solskjaer and his side could quickly slide out of the top six. But just by turning United into title challengers again, Solskjaer has achieved more than any of the men who have followed Ferguson and tried to emulate him.
It was a Herculean task cleaning up the mess bequeathed him by Mourinho but Solskjaer has stuck to that task and it is finally beginning to pay dividends.
United are not perfect. They still appear vulnerable in defence. They start games poorly too often and sometimes looks unbalanced and over-reliant on Fernandes. And they have benefited from the travails of others.
Their difficulty might yet be United’s opportunity.