Why Manchester United will only carry on going backwards with OGS

Manchester United appointed Ole Gunnar Solskjaer on a three year contract after winning 14 of his 19 matches whilst in charge, the appointment, though deserved, is showing to be very naïve.

Since his full time appointment United have won just two games and lost 4 out of their last 8 games.

Now a lot can be said for a lot of the player’s recent performances, David De Gea has had consistently bad games, the 3-0 loss to Barcelona and the 2-0 loss to Manchester City being two that stick out, Paul Pogba has looked out of place and is if he’s simply not bothered in recent game and Marcus Rashford has simply forgotten his shooting boots.

So the argument that it’s just personnel is there and I’ll get to that but first let’s talk about at the management of this team.

Under Jose Mourinho it was very clear that United were constricted by heavy defensive tactics which left a lot players being negative in the way they played and a lot of them clearly felt like they could not stray from their role even slightly, causing the team to become very stagnant. It was clear that this made United’s creative spark disappear, making going forward even more difficult. This in turn applied more pressure to a young backline that wasn’t getting the guidance from senior players or the coaches that it needed. Mourinho’s tactics created a very negative and quite simply confused team.

So when OGS came through the door, he simply gave the team that freedom it had craved for so long, and this United team rowed that wave for a while until United officially appointed OGS in March. The ‘honeymoon’ period was well and truly over after that point, United have gone back to being confused but this time they literally have no idea what to do. United’s defensive woes have increased, Pogba is still a player that seemingly no one knows how to coach, that creative attacking spark OGS had appeared to bring to the team has vanished and they look lost.

OGS is out of his depth and that’s a phrase I’ve said a lot this year but it’s true, it’s worth remembering that this man has coached two professional teams before United, Molde in Norway and Cardiff City who he pretty much pushed towards relegation. His knowledge is unfortunately very slim and I struggle to quite understand how United were fully confident that this appointment was the best for the future.

In all honesty I believed OGS to be one of Ed Woodward’s way to bring the fans back on side in an experiment where he had zero clue of the outcome. Manchester United should be competing in the Champions League and right now they’re struggling to qualify for the Europa League and they can’t even beat already relegated Huddersfield Town.

I do believe there is a small case that a some of this could be down to the team simply not having the right so it will be interesting to see if OGS can make me eat my words after a good transfer window but it does look as though under his management that United will continue to be clueless and will be going back to square one for fifth time since Sir Alex retired.

I do believe OGS is out of his depth and no matter the team, he’s not the right man for the job. At this rate United could be fighting for fifth place for many years to come.