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I would bet that in Manchester United there is no one who has the power to make decisions that saw him coming, except perhaps Ole Gunnar Solskjær himself. But here we are, and United rewards Solskjær for his full recovery from what looked like a lost season by officially designating him as the club's permanent director today.
Despite all the praise that the Norwegian coach has received for his impressive and unexpected success in the club that made him famous as a player, he has come with many doubts as to whether he is really the best player for the position. This question is now irrelevant. It's his job, and it's up to him and the club to prove that decision is the right one.
At this point, it would probably have been odd if Solskjær had not been appointed permanent director of United. Regardless of what one thinks of Solskjær's actual level as a tactician, no matter, no one can seriously discuss his immediate and seismic impact on the team. Solskjær took over a club in freefall with an unpopular manager at José Mourinho, a torn locker room, a boring playing style that was starting to alienate fans and lamentable prospects for success in the Champions League and, more importantly, in the Premier League where finishing in the top four is absolutely essential.
Solskjær immediately improved the situation. With a couple slight modifications to the style of play, keep fewer men behind the ball in possession of the ball and thus prevent the governor from finding a desperate motor, and a new and sympathetic approach to player-coach relations the star players in place of the tactics of the previous Manager to annoy them, United took off. The team went from very long distance to rank among the top four in the league and huge underdogs in a draw between the Champions League and PSG, then came back in the top four standings and pushed the Parisians to qualify for the quarter-finals. Not bad for a coach who started the year managing a club with expectations that would finish second in the Norwegian league.
Even if the first months of Solskjær in Manchester were not successful, it is still hard to shake the feeling that Solskjær himself may not be quite responsible. Is the revitalization of United mainly attributable to the new director or is it simply a return to the mean? Is Solskjær just a friendly presence that benefits from a rebound after succeeding a character as unpleasant as Mourinho, or is there something deeper and more lasting behind his management style? Is he purely a man-manager gifted for contentment with the big names, or does he have the tactical sophistication to stand up to Guardiola, Klopp and Pochettino? What former Solskjær player, who has become an interim player and has become permanent, is closer to home: Zidane's time at Real Madrid or Di Matteo's at Chelsea?
In the end, United bets that the Solskjær mandate will be more like the extremely successful Zidane period in Madrid than the unfortunate passage from Di Matteo to Chelsea. This is not a crazy bet. Zidane has demonstrated the effectiveness of a management style designed to keep superstars cheerful, relaxed and engaged during a long season in one of the superclubs of the game, while proving that simple tactics can bring so many trophies than more elaborate trophies. Solskjær is obviously appreciated by United. Although it is too early to discern the exact contours of Solskjær's playing philosophy, he is already sufficiently warned in this department to know what to keep, what to change and how to achieve it. Football is a game of players more than coaches and strategies. It is the club's ability to identify and engage great players that the main task of giving back to the Red Devils the best will be to do, not the fancy building mechanisms. of the coach.
It is hard to argue that the work of Solskjær so far has allowed him to manage the team permanently, as well as the idea that he is qualified enough to make the lease a perfectly intelligent company. It's different to ask if he's the best possible United manager, but the answer to that question is an unequivocal no. It is unlikely that Solskjær has the means to compete directly with the aforementioned groups, such as Guardiola, Klopp and Pochettino, and it is not really certain that it will ever reach the level of Benítez, Sarri, Pellegrini, Emery or Rodgers. .
In a league at the margins as thin as England, a club the size of United with a second-ranked coach like Solskjær could be what distances them from the titles they seek, even if they reorganize their alignment and build one with talents to the likes of Man City and Liverpool. For this reason, even the most optimistic fans supporting Solskjær and United must be a little disappointed today as the decision to hire a Norwegian probably removes their hopes of attracting Pochettino next season.
However, I can not imagine that United is doing so without having good reason to believe that the mentioned hiring of Pochettino was never envisaged. (That, or the club was smart enough to include something in Solskjær's three-year contract that, if Pochettino were to be available this summer, United could hand over the job to Argentina and send Solskjær on his way with a warm "Thank you" and a few million pounds.) If that's the case, then it makes sense for United to hand over to one of them now. Someone & # 39; a must manage the team, and if the ideal candidate does not want it, you can as well sign the guy who knows and loves the club, and has already demonstrated his ability to win players and fans by winning some big games In progress.
Solskjær is certainly not the best manager in the world, and he may not be an excellent manager. But for a handful of important reasons, it's probably pretty good at the moment. Sometimes, even for a club with unlimited ambitions like United, it's "pretty good".
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