What to fix at Manchester United
The club is in desperate need of a massive To Do list
It shouldn’t have taken a 5–0 loss against the club’s biggest rivals for a crisis situation at Manchester United to arise.
The team had visibly been quite poor in the games leading into Sunday’s hammering to Liverpool. And yet it wasn’t until this catastrophe that the club started to wonder if Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is the right man for the job.
It says everything about the ownership and the board in charge of the club that it takes a result like this before action can even be considered.
There has been talk in the last few years of a “cultural reset” at Old Trafford, but it’s not ever been made any clearer what that’s supposed to mean.
It has been so obvious that a result like this has been coming that Paul Scholes literally predicted the exact outcome of Sunday’s match during the previous midweek.
Speaking on BT Sport after United pulled off a 3–2 comeback win against Atalanta, the former Red Devil warned Solskjaer that he needed to change how the team played or they would be humiliated by Jurgen Klopp’s side.
“I thought in that first half United were all over the place. They were disjointed, they had the two midfield players playing on their own,” said Scholes.
“If you do that playing against Man City or Liverpool, at half time it’ll be three-or-four-nil, you’ll be out of the game, you’re not coming back.
Since that 5–0 loss, reports have surfaced from all angles about the mess surrounding the club.
The players have “lost faith” in Solskjaer according to any credible journalist under the sun. It’s hardly surprising either given many players have openly questioned the setup of the team in post-match interviews against Leicester City and Liverpool.
And yet the current reports are suggesting that the board are giving Solskjaer the next three games before the international break before making any decision.
It’s humiliating for the Norwegian to be put in this situation. Sunday night was bad enough, but now he has to endure another two weeks of everyone discussing his future and even more reports about how the players want someone with greater “tactical acumen.”
It is also true that whoever is Man United manager come Christmas will not be the saviour to fix all problems.
As of writing, it sounds like Antonio Conte is being most linked with the role — and he could be an excellent appointment considering his standing as one of the best coaches in the world — but there are further structural issues at play at the club that this week has made even more painfully obvious.
In any time of crisis and stress, the best thing anyone can do is create a To Do list of everything that needs to be done to put out all the little — and large — fires. United are at a point where they are crying out for the world’s largest To Do list.
The coaching, medical department, data analysis structures, set piece routines, scouting and entire management needs overhauling.
If that sounds like a lot, well then it is barely scratching the surface of what’s wrong at Man United.
A set piece coach was hired over the Summer from Chelsea, Eric Ramsey, who is a well respected coach who came in from a successful system at the Blues.
Yet, Man United have gotten worse at defending set pieces. Aston Villa, Leicester and Atalanta all scored directly from set pieces against United and Everton scored from counter attacking a United corner. Serious questions need to be asked of how this can happen.
Earlier in October, Man United also announced the appointment of a new Director of Data Science.
That someone like Dominic Jordan has only come into the club now says a lot about how far behind they are from their rivals. Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea have all embraced the data analytics side of the game years ago and it has helped them get ahead.
And while the appointment of someone in this role is a positive step, there is only so much one man can do. A whole team of data scientists and analysts will be needed for this area of the backroom staff to have any impact on performance on the pitch.
The same is also true of Ramsey’s position.
Both departments need to be integrated with the day-to-day operation of the first team. It’s all well and good to hire these people, but if the main coaching staff aren’t working with or listening to these departments then the whole thing amounts to a PR exercise to keep fans happy.
In Laurie Whitwell’s report on The Athletic (paywalled) of the current situation at Man United, there were numerous stories that were all quite concerning.
The players were said to be “confused” by Solskjaer’s pre-match tactics which is a position no Premier League manager should ever find themselves in.
“In training, United do not train much pressing, with an explanation being that the strategy under Solskjaer is for the nearest man to the ball to close down the opponent in possession as the team track back and get into shape,” wrote Whitwell.
This is literally schoolboy stuff, an U12s side might be expected to coordinate a more sophisticated pressing system.
Attempting this against most sides is bad, but to do so against Liverpool is suicidal.
Whitwell also wrote that there are concerns over Harry Maguire and Luke Shaw’s performances since coming back from England duty at Euro 2020.
However, Maguire and Shaw have been made to play 90 minutes of effectively every game for the last 14 months, and have been made to either play through injury or to come back early from a break caused by injury.
They visibly look fatigued and hurt.
This was the case with Marcus Rashford last season, too. This is a recurring pattern at the club that is totally unacceptable.
For the club to have such a huge squad, to the point of being bloated, and yet only the same 14 or 15 players get used each game is nonsensical.
There are huge talents being wasted away on the bench.
Ultimately, while all of these structural issues are extremely problematic, there is no running away from the fact that Solskjaer is simply not good enough.
It’s been said over and over how well he has done to steer the club in the right direction in the last three years, but it’s also been obvious during this time that the 48-year old has a ceiling.
Can he reasonably compete with Thomas Tuchel, Pep Guardiola or Klopp? Only a handful of people can be expected to do that. There should be no shame in admitting Solskjaer isn’t one of those few.
But the board lacks that kind of proactivity. At a more efficiently run club, Solskjaer would’ve never made it this far.
The club has seen those three aforementioned managers all let slip in the past, as well as Mauricio Pochettino. They cannot afford to let another elite manager out of their grasp while they are still available.
By having a board filled with people who clearly don’t understand these problems — or even football in general, frankly — then these kinds of rot will always set in after a time.
This reactive method of running a club will only ever lead to short-term solutions for long-term problems. Replacing Solskjaer is needed, but so is so much more. Until that is achieved, the next crisis is only another 5–0 loss away.
