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While Solskjaer hasn’t always convinced at Old Trafford, he is yet to suffer a significant blow – but that could change as his side travel to Leipzig.
For all the ups and downs, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has suffered very few major setbacks as the manager of Manchester United. Chart their trajectory during his time in charge and the line of best fit currently points upwards, albeit at a gentle gradient.
Not that there haven’t been slip-ups. The failure to finish in the top four at the end of the 2018/19 season came on his watch but could not be separated from the miserable start made under Jose Mourinho. In fact, a top-four finish only seemed possible that year because of United’s transformation under Solskjaer.
Last season’s three semi-final defeats were disappointing in the extreme, but success in either the EFL Cup, FA Cup or Europa League was never of critical importance.
The main objective was returning to the Champions League at the first time of asking, preferably through a strong Premier League campaign. It took until the final day, it came through a historically low points total and at one stage even that appeared well out of reach, but it was ultimately achieved.
The task now is to avoid falling at the first hurdle in the same competition and to avert what would be a first substantial setback of Solskjaer’s spell in charge.
Some will say that’s unfair. Group H was marked out as this year’s traditional ‘Group of Death’, with United needing to overcome either last season’s runners-up or one of the semi-finalists to qualify for the knockout stages. Others will point out that reaching the last 16 should not have come down to the last game after taking six points from the first two.
And if not for two basic errors, they might already have qualified. The defending for Demba Ba’s goal in the 2-1 defeat at Istanbul Basaksehir and the failure to substitute Fred before his sending off in last week’s 3-1 defeat by Paris Saint-Germain raised troubling questions about Solskjaer’s coaching and game management.
Either way, United only require a point from their trip to play RB Leipzig, while defeat will mean a third-place finish and dropping into the Europa League whatever the result is between Paris and Basaksehir. It is a cliche, but if you had offered Solskjaer what is essentially a play-off two months ago, he would have taken it.
“It’s something that we want, games like this,” he said before United flew out yesterday afternoon. “It’s a tradition for Man United – we never make it easy for ourselves.
“Of course we look at the games, especially the away game against Istanbul that we could have got three points, but that’s just the way we do things. We do make it hard for ourselves. That’s been [the case] ever since I played.”
And that’s certainly the case now, too. Saturday’s 3-1 victory at West Ham was United’s fifth straight comeback win on the road of their league campaign after similar turnarounds against Brighton, Newcastle, Everton and Southampton.
Solskjaer sees such comebacks as part of United’s football heritage. Harry Maguire said yesterday that they demonstrate the character within the squad – something that one of his predecessors as United captain has questioned. If nothing else, winning that way is thrilling for the supporters.
But is it sustainable? Is it what consistent success is built on? We remember similar exhilarating wins that defined the modern United during Sir Alex Ferguson’s 26 years in charge but we forget the routine, comfortable victories on which United and their manager’s imperious reputations were built.
And in any case, United’s recent record of doing things the hard way in the Champions League group stage is not particularly promising. The last time United travelled to Germany needing to secure a place in the knockout phases, a Louis van Gaal side containing the likes of Guillermo Varela, Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and – infamously – second-half substitute Nick Powell were consigned to the Europa League in a 3-2 defeat by Wolfsburg in 2015.
Even under Ferguson, they lost 2-1 in Basel nine years ago to crash out at this stage. In 2005, defeat away to Benfica left United bottom of their group and eliminated from Europe entirely. Since the Champions League switched to a single group stage in 2003, United’s qualification has gone down to the wire on five occasions. They’ve gone through twice and gone out three times.
Fail again tonight and they will be counting a cost of approximately £15.2m in lost revenues. At a club who could be forced to sell their most marketable player for a cut price this summer, with a squad that is still in need of reinforcement in key areas, in a year when even one of the most lucrative brands in world football has suffered financially, that would be a bitter pill to swallow.
And elimination would also carry an additional cost for Solskjaer and his players. The United manager has spoken a lot recently about his sense that his team is improving, that the difficult start to the campaign is behind them, and a glance at their league form suggests he is right. “The belief coming back,” he declared yesterday.
Yet the momentum generated from a run of narrow wins and thrilling comebacks is a fragile thing, and with an improving Manchester City to visit Old Trafford this weekend then a challenging Christmas schedule to follow, the risk is that it is suddenly broken by a single, significant setback.
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