Why sacking Solskjaer doesn't solve all of our problems

By Suheil Hamada, published on 24/11/21

After back-to-back top four finishes for the first time since Sir Alex retirement, United got into this season fully expecting at the very least to be in a title race, and after the first five league games of the season, you wouldn’t have had too many reasons to put your money against that happening, but then, it all started going downhill.

Defeat against Villa and the whole tide changed. United didn’t just lose on the day but were pretty poor structurally as well, the cracks that weren’t as existent in the opening few weeks of the season seemed to be creeping in and everytime United played, it seemed like it was just a bunch of 11 individuals put out onto a field without a clue, and whenever United stepped out onto the field, they were anything but United. All of this suggested one clear pattern, Ole was seemingly losing the dressing room, at the very least the part of the dressing room that had the biggest influence.

Now Ole’s tactical systems had its faults, and there was no denying that improvement was needed, but this alone cannot warrant for the shambles that fans were witnessing week in, week out. The performances that the players were putting in reminded me of a certain phrase that Roy Keane said on air after United’s 2-0 derby defeat to City back in 2019: “Leopards don’t change their spots.” In this instance, there’s two sets of leopards, the ones that step out onto the field and the ones upstairs. Let’s have a look at both.

We’ll start with the ones upstairs, the ones that call the shots, the Glazers. Owners who have not invested a single penny into the football club and instead, all they’ve done is placed United into significant debt, trying to pay off the debt that they did collect to be able to become the owners of the club. You would think after 16 years of being in charge of the football club, they may have a clearer picture or idea of how the footballing world works, of what the beautiful game means to the fans but miraculously, it has just been getting significantly worse and what would you expect when one of the owners was infamously quoted saying that he does not understand the offside rule.

When Jose Mourinho got sacked back in 2018, United were in a heap of mess, any fan of the club would have been the first to tell you, this feels like it will get significantly worse because a club as big as Manchester United had a man who knew a whole lot more about accounting and finance compared to what needs to happen on a football field. What kind of players suit the system a manager wants to layout, what is good for the football club. When you have people such as Ed Woodward, Matt Judge and Richard Arnold taking care of matters like such, how do you expect there to be progress and change for the better.

All the biggest football clubs in the world currently have a clear footballing structure in place, well, all bar one of course. The appointment of John Murtough seemed like something that was supposed to improve how the football side of things were ran at the club but it certainly doesn’t seem that way because even when it was clear to every United fan that it was only a matter of time before Ole would have to depart given the football that was being played in the last couple of months or so, miraculously, the incompetence that is the United hierarchy didn’t have a plan in place and the man who is leading the search for United’s new manager or the interim, at this point we’re just as lost is none other than Ed Woodward, the man who reportedly handed in his resignation after the Super League debacle in April and yet a man who is still seems a part of the man leading the football side of things. Mind-blowing isn’t it?

Let’s talk about the second set of leopards and those are the ones who have significant power in the dressing room. We saw it towards the end of Mourinho’s spell whereby everyone just seemed to down tools and say, you know what, I’m not going to do the hard yards when I’m on the pitch. I’ll act like I run around for 90 minutes, and just move on with it.

These are professional footballers we are talking about, and they’ve done the same to Ole. Yes, Ole’s structural sight this season had been poor, and I am in no way denying it, but for professional footballers to down tools and not do something as much as giving it their best on that football pitch, all in the name of, they’ve lost belief in the manager’s system is unacceptable and genuinely despicable. Especially when it’s a manager who never threw a single one of them under the bus even on days, we all felt they were shambolic. For them to then go and throw the man who protected them always in the eyes of the media, it just doesn’t sit right and Keane was right. Leopards don’t change their spots.

Change, change is what is needed at United, especially in the hierarchy, because while Ole’s sacking makes sense, them running the club makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. As for the players who just gave up, time to take a long hard look at the mirror and ask yourselves, did you do anything near enough to warrant you to continue playing for United.