While the last 12 months have been a rocky time for Manchester United, no other manager in the Premier League would do better with this current squad than Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is doing at the minute, according to football journalist Daniel Harris.
While Manchester United were impressive in their 1-0 FA Cup victory over Wolves last night, many are still in doubt that Solskjaer is the correct individual in building a successful future at this legendary club.
“I think that, ultimately, if you gave any manager in the league his squad, where would United be? I don’t think they would be very much higher in the league,” said Harris on Thursday's OTB AM.
The main error where Solskjaer has failed to tackle is the scouting of a top-class midfielder to the club.
Harris wishes for Solskjaer to bring a world-class partnership, such as the kind that the baby-faced assassin played in front of during his 11-year career at Old Trafford.
“He made one significant error I think, which was spending the Harry Maguire money on Harry Maguire and not on midfield, but if you gave Pep Guardiola a midfield of Fred, Matic and Mata, you would not see particularly coherent football.”
Since being sacked by Tottenham in November 2019, many believe that Mauricio Pochettino would be the perfect managerial candidate for the Red Devils.
However, Harris has claimed that Pochettino is not the solution in bringing United back to the glory days that they once had under the tenure of Alex Ferguson.
“Mauricio Pochettino is an excellent manager, but I think we’ve seen enough to tell us that Pochettino, if he is available, is not someone that a club must go and get, and Barcelona didn’t think that either.”
“You can look at Pochettino and say he completely turned the club around at Tottenham, but when it came to making that final step he proved himself to being incapable, he lost the league to Leicester and Chelsea when he had the best striker in the league and probably the best defence in the league as well and he still managed to lose the big games.
"So, Mauricio Pochettino is not the second coming of Alex Ferguson or Jock Stein or Bill Shankly", said Harris.
Starting his reign as interim manager after José Mourinho’s sacking, Solskjaer brought United to 13 wins and two draws from his opening 15 domestic games.
His first defeat came to Arsenal which was followed a 4-0 thrashing away to Everton and culminated in 2-0 home defeat to Solskjaer's old club Cardiff City on the final day of last season.
When becoming the permanent United manager last March, Solskjaer stated that the progression to be a successful club once again would take time and fans needed to be patient.
Harris believes that Solskjaer, though, has improved the squad more than any of his predecessors, with Marcus Rashford, Brandon Williams and Aaron Wan-Bissaka all vastly improving their game under the Norweigan.
Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer after the FA Cup third-round replay match at Old Trafford, Manchester.“For me, with the other managers that have come subsequent to Fergie, I wanted rid of them when I ran out of hope and it was clear it wasn’t going anywhere.
With David Moyes, that was before he was appointed because it was obvious it wasn’t going to go anywhere, but with Van Gael and Mourinho, I was happy to let them have a bit more time when there was a possibility of things still improving, but once things looked like they weren’t going to improve you felt, 'Okay, these guys need to go.'”
“With Ole, you can see things are still improving. United started whacking the rubbish teams at home, they have been beating some of the better teams, they mentally looked a little bit stronger now, they are still in the Europa League and they are only five points behind Chelsea,” Harris said.
Harris has also hit out at Solskjaer’s harsh managerial criticism by the public in comparison to the praise given to Chelsea manager Frank Lampard even though Manchester United only trail the London club by five points.
“We keep hearing about what a wonderful job Frank Lampard is doing, well why aren’t Chelsea further ahead of United then if Solskjaer is doing such a terrible job, given that Lampard has senior players who have done a lot more in the game than Solskjaer’s senior players have”?
In terms of going forward, Harris has urged the need for United to buy players, with particular emphasis on the midfield position. One key player linked with United is 24-year-old Portuguese midfielder Bruno Fernandes from Sporting CP.
“On Bruno Fernandes, his numbers are phenomenal [13 goals in 22 games this campaign] and, given those numbers, the fact that he is still in Portugal at the age of 24 makes me slightly suspicious.
"The second thing about Bruno Fernandes that makes me suspicious is his numbers are so good that, if he is also a player that can help you control the game and is able to translate that to play in a better league and not the best team in that league, then we are talking about one of the greatest players in the world.
"So, how can you have a free run at one of the greatest players in the world at their peak? I don’t get it! So, I am suspicious about Bruno Fernandes for those reasons, but I am absolutely certain that he is better than Jesse Lingard and Juan Mata combined.”
Manchester United go to Anfield this Sunday in the Premier League to face runaway leaders Liverpool. Kick-off is 4.30pm.
Written by Conor Breslin.
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