Manchester United have reached a point at which keeping Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as manager any longer will only start undoing all of the positive work he has previously done.
Solskjaer inherited a really poor situation in December 2018 following Jose Mourinho’s dismissal and has worked hard to reset the culture at the club, rid the squad of deadwood and get United back to where fans expect them to be.
The project has obviously fallen incomplete, but there is no denying that the club is in a far better position now than it was back then. To argue otherwise would be utterly delusional.
United have tangibly improved year on year in the league, have much better players - albeit not currently performing as a cohesive team, and have done reasonably well in both domestic and European cup competition, even if trophies have proven elusive.
Solskjaer has played a huge role in that positive change since 2018. But to argue now that he hasn’t done as much as he can do and needs to be replaced is also utterly delusional.
It is increasingly clear that he has reached the end of the road, it is becoming wearing to keep saying it. But things aren’t getting any better and Watford was only the latest in a run of woeful performances. Whether he is failing to set a gameplan or give clear enough instructions to the players, failing to motivate them, or they are no longer playing for him, is kind of irrelevant.
The end of last season seemed to be a natural end to an important chapter. The time has come for someone else to take it on – a continuation of the same project – in order to now reach the next level. But the mistake the club made was handing Solskjaer another contract.
Even though things were generally heading in the right direction then, it was already clear that something wasn’t quite right. The way United struggled to beat what should have been an inferior Villarreal side in the Europa League was perhaps the single biggest indicator of that.
There is no saving this situation for Solskjaer, even if he personally insists he can still turn it around, it seems completely impossible.
The danger now, however, is the longer he stays in charge – the club is so reluctant to sack him, otherwise he would already be gone – United are as likely to end up heading back to where they started from because this unbreakable slump will crush the life out of the prior progress.
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Source : 90min