Now that Ole’s underwhelming three years as United manager have, thankfully, finally been brought to a close the search is on for an interim manager.
It’s to be hoped this search is concluded very quickly as the alternative is quite frightening. On Tuesday night the team to play Villareal will be selected, as will the tactics & the substitutes, by the very ‘coaching’ staff who have done very little, if anything, to keep their former boss in a job.
Yes Solskjær was tactically naive, yes he was hopeless when it came to substitutions but surely he should have been able to rely on some sound advice from people with the experience of Phelan and Carrick. It doesn’t look like that was the case.
So why not? Well, on the one hand, Phelan was assistant to Sir Alex Ferguson where he had no option other than to do what he was told. On the other hand, however, Solskjær is not the kind of person who would give orders to his coaches, he would expect them, rightly or wrongly, to know what to do.
So Phelan was in a hopeless position. He had already proven, with his abject failure as a manager at Hull, that he couldn’t hack it on his own. He needed a strong character behind him. Solskjær was not that strong character.
Carrick’s first job in coaching was when he was employed by Manchester United. So, basically, straight from school to a responsible job with, arguably, the biggest club in the world. That was always going to be a massive risk.
As Solskjær couldn’t rely on any meaningful assistance from the two aforementioned then maybe he could have expected more from Kieran McKenna. A former youth team coach he was promoted way above both his pay grade and his professional knowledge when he was given a first team role at United.
One extraordinary moment, which was captured on camera, was when he was seen leaning over Cristiano Ronaldo, notepad in hand, explaining what he had to do on the pitch! Ronaldo’s face was a picture in itself! Talk about the baby telling the mother how to cook!
Despite the lack of any kind of help or assistance, Solskjær continued to defend his backroom staff, frequently saying how fantastic they were. Either he was more naive than we thought or he was lying! (He did have a penchant for the occasional untruth during his time at United).
Had Solskjær done the sensible thing and brought in one or two experienced backroom staff instead of remaining loyal to football’s equivalent of the Three Stooges then who knows, he may have been more successful and stayed in his job.
So these three have certainly been a large part of the problem for the last three years and any manager, interim or otherwise, will surely dispose of their services sooner rather than later.
The next problem on the new man’s agenda should be the captaincy. Great captains come in one of two types. They can lead by example or they can lead purely because they are born to. Occasionally one will come along who possesses both qualities, such as Roy Keane and occasionally a club will mistakenly select a captain who has neither.
Harry Maguire has neither. He isn’t particularly vocal and his kind of examples include getting sent off for stupid tackles, throwing the armband to the floor and, off the field, getting in trouble with the Greek police.
Most Manchester United supporters want a change of captain so it would be a wise and popular move by the new manager.
Finally, when is Ed Woodward actually leaving? The longer he hangs around the more damage is being done to the club. Apparently, it is his fault that Solskjær wasn’t put out of his misery months ago because he didn’t want another sacked manager on his cv. Well guess what Ed? Whether or not you had sacked Solskjær when you should have you are still reviled by the fanbase along with your bosses. So stop serving this interminable notice and just go!
Once Woodward, Phelan, Carrick & McKenna have gone we can get back to the #Glazersout campaign.
What a club!
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 