Ole Gunnar Solskjaer does not need the adornment of the Europa League to bolster his position as Manchester United manager. There are plenty of golfers who have won a major trophy whose names you won’t recall. Why? Because those wins were not part of a pattern of success.
Winning the Europa League in itself does not mean much for a club of United’s stature. Only if it is part of a collection of trophies will it become significant for United. Louis van Gaal is proof of that, leaving Old Trafford with the champagne still cold in his glass after toasting his FA Cup success five years ago.
The evidence of Solskjaer’s progress as a manager and his ability to handle the post of United boss is laid out in the club’s Premier League position, second, which demonstrates a broad improvement in the quality of football and his grasp of the environment.
Solskjaer’s understanding of his realm, the shortcomings of his squad, the gap to better teams, has always tallied with outcomes. He has never shied away from the truth. When results disappointed he identified the reasons and acknowledged failings with candour. Whether it be a lack of individual poise or quality, poor decision-making, an absence of composure, he called it out. No excuses.
This honesty earned him the respect of the fans and bought him time. Other than his success at Molde in Norway, Solskjaer does not have a back catalogue of management success. There is no major league heft, only failure at Cardiff City.
The affection of the fans for a United folk hero was an important factor in his acceptance early on, but would not be sufficient to sustain him. What he needed was the time to persuade the viewing public he was up to the task.
By increments he has done that, bringing United arguably to the point of one more push in the transfer market from challenging the gold standard set by Manchester City. Solskjaer claims he is two or three players short.
His old chum Gary Neville identifies Harry Kane, Jadon Sancho and Raphael Varane as the solution. Maybe the reviled Glazer ownership is listening. Signing that three-ball would be an easy PR win for them. After all, it’s only money.
Back in the real world Solskjaer has his hands full with a Villarreal team expertly marshalled by Unai Emery, a coach who got lost in translation after a decent start at Arsenal. Emery has restored his reputation in Spain and knows his way around this competition.
Solskjaer has done well to rehabilitate Paul Pogba, in part by accepting his limitations. Pogba remains a mixed bag, an exotic meld of high end improv and park player. As a rule, the further he is from United’s box the better.
The team should benefit from the rest against Wolves afforded Bruno Fernandes and Marcus Rashford, both of whom have been overplayed this season as a consequence of squad limitations. Fernandes has become prone to overreach, which in turn has resulted in too many mistakes.
How to watch the Europa League final
The quality of output has also declined in Rashford, who has lost all rhythm after being played out of position on the right to accommodate Pogba on the left. Solskjaer has been hooked all season on the thorny problem of reconciling Pogba and Fernandes with the defensive necessity of Fred and Scott McTominay.
The displacement of Rashford has been the unhappy compromise, a situation that looks set to continue should Harry Maguire fail, as expected, to make the final. “He will jog up and down the sideline I reckon, probably try to join in,” Solskjaer said of Maguire’s involvement in training at the stadium in Gdansk.
Though the result has no bearing on the broader context of Solskjaer’s project, that does not mean he does not want to win it. “The next game is always the most important and the next one is final. We have improved but we will only go home happy if we win tomorrow,” he said.
“These are big nights for us. It might be the stepping stone for something better to come. It’s a bright future. This team is a young team, it’s a team we’ve rebuilt over the last few years. Hopefully, this is the start of something more.”
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