Ole Gunnar Solskjaer likes to talk about the Manchester United DNA.
It’s a bit of a old cliche — United do not have sole copyright to comebacks and exciting football — but if Solskjaer believes it exists then now is the time to lean a little on the bravery that is supposed to be part of it.
Solskjaer, the United manager, is in a mess, a hole so big that only immediate results feel like they can save him.
If Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is to go out with a fight then consideration must be made regarding the dropping of underperforming Portuguese stars Cristiano Ronaldo and Bruno Fernandes
To get some, the Norwegian may to have to change. He may have to make some big, brave calls.
What is it they say about the definition of madness? Something about doing the same thing over and over whilst expecting a different outcome.
That has been Solskjaer’s season so far. Send out roughly the same players to play the same way and hope it works, even when the signs are that it will not.
So now is time for change, time for some clear and original thought, some real coaching and some decisions that may not rest well with some players.
There is an abundance of coaches at Old Trafford but it’s tempting to wonder what they do.
Solskjaer has looked like a man without ideas and now is facing real calls to be sacked
Two of them — Mike Phelan and Michael Carrick — were first-rate midfielders but you would not know it from watching United play. United’s defending was calamitous against Liverpool but it is from the centre of the field where this red disease actually spreads.
It is a department that offers Solskjaer’s team no protection. It has all the solidity of wet cardboard.
Solskjaer has set his team up in a 4-2-3-1 formation for a long time. It allows him to get four of the Premier League’s most gifted attacking players on to the field. But it has stopped working.
United play Tottenham on Saturday and rather than heading to London merely hoping that Cristiano Ronaldo, Bruno Fernandes and others can help his team out-score Spurs, Solskjaer must set up his team not to lose.
When a football team are struggling, the best route out of the dark is often found in
