Ole Gunnar Solskjaer positively whistled all the way to Bergamo. The man who was replacing him at Manchester United a week ago, Antonio Conte, was on his way to London to take charge at Tottenham Hotspur, and instead of his own end he was discussing the demise of Nuno Espirito Santo.
Solskjaer would not have wanted Espirito Santo to lose his job, but heh, in football’s dog-eat-dog psycho drama, it is everyman for himself. If United’s visit to London last week were indeed to prove precipitous, then the head that rolled would just have to belong to the other poor sap.
Such is the speed at which the news agenda rattles along in the 24/7 soap that is the Premier League, Solskjaer’s predicament hardly merits a mention barely a week after shipping five at home to Liverpool. In that distant moment all those eons ago Solskjaer was cooked in the eyes of many.
Had the United board had the measure of the situation at Old Trafford Solskjaer might already be in Dubai watching the T20 World Cup with Steve Bruce and son, with Conte picking the team in Bergamo. Yet here was Solskjaer talking optimistically of United’s prospects while Spurs, arguably prompted by the possibility of losing Conte to Old Trafford, were preparing the red carpet. What a caper this is.
United can even afford to draw in Bergamo and at Villarreal in their subsequent Champions League fixture and progress to the knock out stage with victory against Young Boys in the final match. The scenario would brighten still further for Solskjaer with a win at home to Manchester City on Saturday. Should that come to pass United would be level on points with their neighbours and back in the thick of it.
Of course, we might just as easily be pouring over the entrails of another failed European campaign on Wednesday morning with Solskjaer limping towards a Manchester derby he just has to win. He fell into a defensive shape at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and happened across an opponent even more feckless than his own bundle. The result was a convincing victory and the suggestion of coherence.
This fits into a familiar Solskjaer cycle, the promise of boom leading not to nirvana but the precipice of bust and yet more soul-searching, DNA deconstruction, and angst about the “United way”. If Solskjaer were a manager out of his depth and lacking pedigree following the Liverpool cataclysm then no amount of 3-0 wins against a Spurs shell team changes that. Similarly Kieran McKenna and Michael Carrick remain inexperienced coaches in apprenticeship mode.
Temporarily the circumstances have changed but the conditions remain the same. In the first clash with Atalanta, United delivered the full Solskjaer cycle in the space of 90 minutes. At 2-0 down inside half an hour United were bereft and bottom of the group. By full time they topped the standings following a bacchanal 45 minutes in front of the Stretford End.
Solskjaer is unlikely to abandon the 3-4-3 shape that bought him time at Spurs. The situation is still too parlous to be worried about matching the aesthetes at Liverpool and City with their high-energy pressing and liquid mobility. Solskjaer wants runners and tacklers, grind and grunt. Sophistication can wait for now, especially with “killers” of the calibre of Cristiano Ronaldo and Edinson Cavani to sniff out the half-chance and put it away.
“I cannot give you the gameplan or the tactics but we have a squad to play many different ways,” Solskjaer said when asked if he would stick with three at the back.
“You can put any tactics or system out, it was the players within it and how they executed the roles that was the difference on Saturday. The quality we played with was more important than the system.”
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/2Y60Sv3
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