TEDDY’S corner
Dear All If there is one thing which we must all agree about is that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer loves Manchester United! He tried his utmost best as a manager, and no one can ever deny him that, but it was not good enough. Way back in December 2018, he picked a team which was in shambles on and off the pitch. He reinstated the United way within the internal structures, brought back values which were side-lined during Mourinho and Van Gaal’s reign, signed some great players over the past 3 years and reinstated the youth policy within the Club, giving the likes of Scott and Mason the chance to shine. He had the mammoth task to rebuild a team which would challenge the noisy neighbours and the scousers who have now taken the stance as the best two football teams in England.
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VOL 49 - ISSUE 2 - DECEMBER 2021
If I had to criticize Ole from my armchair, I would say that he could have tried to bring more experienced coaching staff alongside him. Alex Ferguson always had shrewd, experienced number 2s alongside him – Knox, Kidd, McLaren, Queiroz, Meulensteen. McKenna and Carrick might be intelligent and good tacticians, they might become great coaches in the future, but during the past 3 years they did not seem to have the cutting edge required to step up the team when it mattered. As for Mike Phelan, he has always been a great guy but not sure he is Man Utd coaching quality (always had this gut feeling, even when he was Fergie’s number 2). We had fans comparing Ole’s first years with Sir Alex. I never agreed with such comparison. When Fergie joined United, he had won the league with Aberdeen in Scotland, breaking the Rangers-Celtic monopoly, won the Cup
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Winners Cup with the Dons beating the mighty Real Madrid in the final and was Scotland manager in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. He had experience and he showed it when dealing with the boozing lot he inherited from Ron Atkinson. Took a while but was it worth it! Ole’s CV compared to Sir Alex when he took over was ‘slightly’ different. Having been, let’s say, unlucky with the Europa League final, this had to be the year when the bar of our objectives was meant to be raised. With Ronaldo, Sancho and Varane coming in, most of us were dreaming. When we drew at Southampton, the way we played started to drill back those feelings that we were still not good enough. Our style of play still lacked convincing. The optimistic ones like me thought it could be a matter of time until the team gels together and the new signings fit in. However, game after game, it was all about a Ronaldo masterpiece or a De Gea miracle. As Gary Neville rightly pointed out, we were not winning as a team but thanks to individual brilliance. It was getting edgy. Sancho was on the bench most of the time and everyone was questioning why we brought him in after all, especially when most of us would agree that our top priority was
