Football NewsIs Ole Gunnar Solskjaer Really Up to the Manchester United Job?
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Ole Gunnar Solskjaer dwindled in the fumes of goodwill as he made his way to United fans after a shambolic 4-2 defeat to Leicester City.

Solskjaer was faced with sympathetic applause, anger, and a few empty blue seats as he moved towards a discontented corner of the stadium to clap the traveling fans.

The Norwegian at times looked lost in his technical area as Leicester, back to their best, swarmed all over a team assembled at vast expense and one that lacked organization and leadership as they panicked and creaked under pressure all afternoon.

As a manager, Solskjaer will take the majority of the blame although the bottom-line question will be if Solskjaer is the right man to take Manchester United forward.

Harry Maguire was ring rusty on his return from a calf strain. He ran the ball out of play with his first touch. He was robbed by Kelechi Iheanacho in the build-up to Youri Tielemans’ strike to make it 1-1 and was part of a defense lacking any sort of composure. He looked well short of match fitness.

Bruno Fernandes on the other hand spent much of the game complaining to referee Craig Pawson. Nemanja Matic was too slow to cope with Leicester’s midfield while Paul Pogba had one of those frustrating, ineffective matches marked only by persistent fouling that ended with a yellow card.

And, the biggest personality of all, Cristiano Ronaldo, was not exempt from this morass of mediocrity. He was on the margins throughout, only getting involved in flashes and unable to turn the tide in the manner of old when it went against United.

It was a grim 90 minutes for United, with Mason Greenwood – who scored a magnificent goal – among the few who can escape criticism.

Solskjaer is now the man in the eye of the storm. He may have found a few friendly and sympathetic faces among the remaining United fans. However, his glorious deeds as a player and admiration for the healing job he did after succeeding Jose Mourinho only goes so far.

One of the cases for Solskjaer’s defense has been a similar points record to the much-celebrated Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool – and the two face each other in a potentially pivotal clash at Old Trafford next Sunday.

Currently, the United team shows no signs of being anywhere near as good as Klopp’s Liverpool, who won the Champions League in 2019 and the Premier League in 2020.

This places the magnitude of next weekend’s game at Old Trafford into sharp relief. It is huge for United but especially for Solskjaer because he appeared powerless to do anything to stop the match at Leicester from getting away from his team.

Even his double substitution of Scott McTominay and Jesse Lingard for Greenwood and Matic when Leicester went 2-1 up smacked of an act of desperation as opposed to a considered strategy. It had the same whiff of panic that characterized Manchester United’s entire performance.

Certainly, they will need to do better than this against Liverpool. It will need magic and more given their respective form.

Solskjaer now faces a huge week, with Atalanta at home in the Champions League and then Liverpool, who will have regarded United’s defensive woes here as mouth-watering.

These are testing times indeed for Solskjaer still without a trophy and with little indication he is transforming this expensive squad into title challengers.