If there is anyone Manchester United should sack, it is not Ole Gunnar Solskjaer – yet

As ever in times of panic and dismay, the scatter guns are out. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, for whom approval seemed universal a month ago, learns from many who endorsed him that in fact he should never have been given the Manchester United job. Like fools the board rushed in, appointing a coach basking in Twitter love. It was another reactionary move reflecting a lack of policy and structure.

Ed Woodward, that proxy figurehead of the reviled Glazer regime, is back in the doghouse, representing all that is wrong with a club too centred on profit at the expense of the football. It was ever thus. Someone has to get it in the neck when the ball bounces off Romelu Lukaku’s shins for the umpteenth time, Anthony Martial goes missing again and Paul Pogba does… well, what Paul Pogba does.

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The performance at Everton was indeed a shocker. It revealed a team lacking any kind of leadership, authority and ultimately quality. It would appear that after his initial rebound the structural difficulties identified by Jose Mourinho have returned to snare Solskjaer. The United defence at Goodison Park included two centre-halves employed by Sir Alex Ferguson, who left in 2013. Chris Smalling and Phil Jones were not up to it then. Either side of this limited bridgehead was a right-footed defender playing left-back, Diogo Dalot, and a centre-half playing right-back, Victor Lindelof.

Ineptitude

In midfield, which has been an acute problem since Fergie left, only Fred gave it a go. Pogba drifted listlessly and Nemanja Matic slowed everything down. Wedged between indifference and ineptitude the industrious Fred had nowhere to turn. No part of the team functioned and without a figure of real bite around whom to chomp the whole sorry edifice unraveled.

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The scene departed by Fergie has been turned on its head, old orthodoxies shredded. The ancient dogma that insists success is built from the back no longer applies in the same way. Since the advent of Pep Guardiola and the high press, defence starts in attack and attack starts in defence via flying wing-backs. United don’t press and they are utterly ill-equipped to break from the back. There is no world class right-back, routinely making do with a makeshift former attacker in Ashley Young, and with Luke Shaw injured the team is without a left-sided defender capable of launching attacks.

It might be that Solskjaer proves unequal to the task but having appointed him, now is not the time to get all trigger happy. And in his defence, Solskjaer has been quick to identify the problems. His analysis is first rate. From “reality checks” to players being downright “not good enough”, Solskjaer has identified the issues. The question is can he put it right? For that he must be afforded at least some time to clear out the hopeless and to refresh in key positions.

Basics

“If you want to play for this club, it has to mean more,” Solskjaer said during the post Everton defenestration. Other hot takes included: “That performance was not good enough from a Man Utd team… they beat us at all the basics, throw-ins, corners, first to the ball… there is no place you can hide on the pitch… running, desire, fitness, nowhere near good enough.”

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United’s priority is to pump some immediate authority into the spine of the team, to buy or promote players with a pair already grown. Right-back, centre-back, defensive midfield and No 10 are the areas of principal concern. Maybe he can go all moneyball and bulk buy the entire Liverpool rearguard and, while he is at it, make a cheeky move for Eden Hazard. Or more realistically he can stick with the kids worth retaining, Marcus Rashford, Scott McTominay, Dalot and Fred and instruct Mike Phelan, if he is to be his director of football, to get busy bringing in the appropriate targets.

This should not be read as an endorsement of Phelan, by the way, simply recognition of the route the club seems ready to pursue. The truth is United must advance on myriad fronts addressing issues short-term and long. The ultimate solution might be to jettison Woodward for a leader with industry qualifications, which is as likely as fish voting for chippies.