WHY SAY ANYTHING?

Roy Keane thinks that, if he’s not careful, Ole Gunnar Solskjær will be thrown under the bus by the players. Why does he say that? If he’s right then there are only really two reasons for this to happen.

The first is that the players don’t like Solskjær and want him gone. This is unlikely as the Norwegian comes across as a very likeable person which, in fact, is one of his problems.

The second, and more realistic reason, is that he is tactically inept as a coach both on the training ground and on match days. This would explain the lack of any kind of trophy over the last three years as well as several awful performances against lower quality teams.

Consequently, if the players are prepared to throw Solskjær under the bus then it would certainly be because that’s where he deserves to be thrown!

Gary Neville thinks that a measure of progress this season would be winning the FA Cup and qualifying for next year’s Champion’s League. It is now around four years since he insisted that, for José Mourinho, he HAD to win the title or the Champion’s League. So this is progress? To now accept winning a cup and finishing in the top four having spent about £400 million is progress?

Neville refuses to, as he puts it, ‘call out’ Solskjær, or any other manager for that matter. If, by that, he means he refuses to advocate a manager’s sacking then we here at WSA agree with him. His platform as a Sky pundit does not give him the right to decide who should or shouldn’t lose their job. He is, however, paid a lot of money for his opinion and somebody at Sky should be reminding him of this.

He knows Solskjær is not a good manager. He knows the tactics are wrong a lot of the time. He knows the substitutions have been poor and mistimed and he also knows that team selection has been poor. Yet he refuses to acknowledge any of this preferring instead, like Keane, to heap blame on the players and make excuses for his mate. He is not paid to make excuses for his mate and, much as it hurts to admit it, he should listen to Jamie Carragher and Peter Crouch who are two of the pundits who talk sensibly on the matter.

Paul Scholes is another ex team-mate who was reluctant to say a bad word against Solskjær but he is now slowly coming round to the truth. He still hasn’t actually blamed the manager directly for everything that is patently the manager’s fault, but he has at least admitted that performances haven’t been good enough and that it’s ‘up to Ole to change things’.

His BT Sport colleague, Rio Ferdinand, is another who has become blinded by Ole’s ability to make everyone believe he is a great manager with a team who just ‘don’t get it’.

Unfortunately for supporters of United it is highly unlikely that Ole will change things. Not because he doesn’t want to, or doesn’t see the need. He is just incapable.

His press conferences are boring, monotonous and very repetitive. He mentions the same problems every week, what he needs to fix every week and what the players need to do every week, yet nothing changes. He is bordering on arrogant in the way he disrespects supporters and refuses to accept the blame for anything and yet the aforementioned pundits can’t/won’t see any of this.

It is time for Sky Sport and BT Sport bosses to have a little chat with Gary Neville, Roy Keane, Rio Ferdinand and Paul Scholes and maybe help them interpret their job description.