Underrated, out of his depth or somewhere in between? Inside Solskjaer’s role at Manchester United
48 
Perhaps the best place to start is the January evening this year when Manchester United, then unbeaten in 13 league matches under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, faced Sheffield United at Old Trafford.
Solskjaer’s side had the opportunity to leapfrog Manchester City at the top of the Premier League table that Wednesday night. Instead, they choked, losing 2-1 at home against the division’s bottom side.
That defeat was the start of an eight-match run where United dropped 13 points from the 24 available. In the space of five weeks, City pulled 14 points clear in a title race they would eventually win, with United finishing as runners-up, 12 points adrift.
On the night of relegation-bound Sheffield United’s victory, certain senior players in the home squad were surprised by Solskjaer’s response. Or, perhaps more precisely, his lack of response. They entered the dressing room post-match expecting a hairdryer but at full-time Solskjaer offered only a gentle breeze.
A fair interpretation may be to reflect Solskjaer’s team had performed well over the winter months and that blip need not be turned into a crisis. He’d been irate at half-time too. Yet The Athletic has been told players felt a tremor was needed. “They need to be scared they’re going to get a mouthful,” says one source close to the squad.
More broadly, it was the kind of evening when United supporters were left wondering whether Solskjaer, for all the improvement he has yielded since returning to the club as manager nearly three years ago, may ultimately be several steps short of reasserting United’s dominance in English and European football. That he has made them better but lacks the stardust to make them the best again.
Others, however, will caution that a little more time is required to make a judgment.
For United, the outlook under Solskjaer often feels like a riddle of contradictions. The good news is that they have qualified for the Champions League through a top-four Premier League finish in consecutive seasons for the first time since Sir Alex Ferguson retired as manager in the summer of 2013. United’s final league position has improved from sixth to third to second in Solskjaer’s time in charge. They have come from behind to win matches 14 times since the beginning of last season.
There is a general sense United have, by and large, rediscovered a sense of purpose and direction in the transfer market. They have attracted world-class players in Cristiano Ronaldo and Raphael Varane, while signing a player of world-class potential in Jadon Sancho.
Yet at the same time, United have started this season rather poorly, after suffering the setback of a Europa League final defeat by Villarreal at the end of last season. A generous set of fixtures has yielded only really two convincing performances, the opening-day 5-1 win against Leeds and a 4-1 victory one month ago over a Newcastle side now second-bottom and still winless after seven matches.
Solskjaer generally has a strong relationship with his players (Photo: Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)
They were fortunate, in the extreme, to beat Villarreal there in the Champions League two weeks ago. They also underperformed in a defeat by Aston Villa and draw against a depleted Everton side in the home matches either side of that European fixture. Against Everton, Solskjaer did not name Ronaldo in the starting XI, which created a mini-drama when the forward immediately exited down the tunnel alone at the end of the game, having come on with half an hour to go.
Video footage from an Old Trafford lounge on the day of the game subsequently showed Ferguson telling the UFC fighter Khabib Nurmagomedov that “you should always start your best players”. Other informed people suggested Ronaldo could rest during Portugal’s subsequent games against Qatar on Saturday and Luxembourg on Tuesday.
Ronaldo, though, was informed more than 24 hours before the Everton match that Solskjaer intended to rest him, after the 36-year-old had played the full 90 minutes in United’s two previous matches. He accepted the decision privately. This is just one of those soap operas that are part of the package when a club signs one of the world’s most famous footballers.
For Solskjaer, the more urgent situation can be found in United’s upcoming fixture list.
His team, currently two points off the top of the Premier League, face Leicester, Tottenham, Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal before the end of November and must also negotiate their Champions League group, having surprisingly lost the opening game to Swiss side Young Boys. It is a period that should go a long way to defining whether they will spend this season as contenders or also-rans.
For now, at least, United retain confidence in Solskjaer, even if there is a clear desire for performances and results to improve. The club awarded him a new contract until 2024, with an option of a further year, in July and his most experienced assistant, Mike Phelan, also renewed terms until 2024 during the past week.
When Solskjaer first returned to Manchester United in December 2019, he sought to implement a cultural reset. This initially boiled down to being nice to people. When Solskjaer was a United player for 11 years in the 1990s and early 2000s, he would bring in chocolates from his Norwegian homeland as a gift to behind-the-scenes staff members.
Solskjaer had constructed the culture of a club before.
While working at Molde back home, he sought to create a mini-United. Former United coaching colleagues Mark Dempsey and Richard Hartis linked up with him there. They introduced symbolic gestures, such as working with ex-Molde players to design a badge for a club suit that players could wear to games. He ensured those former players had access to the club’s canteen every Friday, to avoid the loneliness that can grip retired footballers, and granted them access to the club gym twice a week.
At United, of course, the issues are of a different dimension. One of Solskjaer’s friends in Molde once described that club as a “rowing boat” whereas United are an “ocean liner.”
Solskjaer has, however, reconnected the present with United’s past. Ferguson is at his most influential and visible since retiring eight years ago, whether it be comforting goalkeeper David de Gea on the pitch after the Europa League final, conducting interviews on the club’s official podcast or calling Ronaldo to engineer his return this summer. Inside the club, former chief executive David Gill is also a more prominent figure once more. It all underlines that Solskjaer is inspired, rather than threatened, by the club’s past.
In the dressing room, the consistent message is that United’s players do get along with Solskjaer and want him to be successful.
At Molde, he reinvented the club’s approach to nutrition. Previously, players bought food from the club cafe but then Solskjaer hired chef Torbjorg Haugen, from the country’s Olympic skating team, who provided breakfast and lunch every day. He also redesigned the dressing room so it resembled the one he knew at United and he flew over a United consultant to set up video-analysis software. He adopted Ferguson’s practice of hosting the opposition manager for a drink after matches.
In many ways, therefore, Solskjaer was doing a dummy-run of managing United in Norway. He implemented strict rules about timekeeping, such as locking doors when meetings began at the allotted time to close out those who were late. At United, he has previously dropped Anthony Martial after the forward missed a flight back to the UK from his native France.
On the whole, however, Solskjaer knows he must man-manage carefully. When a senior player is to be rested, or dropped, he pulls them aside, sometimes on the way out to training, to say, “Let me explain my team.”
He has inspired loyalty, most notably from players such as De Gea, Harry Maguire, Luke Shaw, Victor Lindelof, Jesse Lingard, Mason Greenwood and Marcus Rashford, all of whom have experienced moments of criticism before finding improvement under Solskjaer.
Phil Jones, a long-term victim of injuries, was uplifted by his manager’s passionate defence of his character in a press conference following public criticism from former United defender Rio Ferdinand.
Juan Mata remains grateful to Solskjaer for the space and time he was afforded to grieve for his mother in the second half of last season. Despite his lack of playing time, Solskjaer wants Mata’s influence around the club’s younger players, most notably his professionalism and approach to training.
His view is that habits are installed by example. Indeed, The Athletic has been told one player has stopped having sugar in his tea and coffee following the arrival of Ronaldo in August and witnessing the five-time Ballon d’Or winner’s monastic approach to diet and fitness.
The cultural change has also been embodied by United’s signings, who have for the most part been young players with potential or senior stars. Older talents, such Ronaldo, Varane and Edinson Cavani are those who Solskjaer believes can both contribute to his team and also set an example.
United have missed out on players under Solskjaer, most notably Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham to Borussia Dortmund, while Manchester City beat him to Rodri and Joao Cancelo.
Some of Solskjaer’s United players feel training could be taken by more elite coaches (Photo: Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images)
While the re-signing of Ronaldo has been presented as opportunism, United first asked Juventus about him at the start of the transfer window. When the Italian club insisted the player would not be sold, United decided to end their interest, rather than waste time on a doomed pursuit. Once Solskjaer had heard of his availability late in the window, United pounced. The involvements of Ferguson, Ferdinand and another former team-mate Patrice Evra in coaxing Ronaldo to choose United have now been well-told, but Solskjaer has often sought the views and influence of former United players when making signings.
Before signing Bruno Fernandes in January of last year, for example, he secured a character reference from Ronaldo, a Portugal team-mate.
Daniel James’ move from Swansea in the summer of 2019 came after Solskjaer spoke at length to the winger’s then-Wales manager Ryan Giggs, a fellow United great. Giggs also passed along positive reports from Crystal Palace’s Welsh goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey on Aaron Wan-Bissaka ahead of his transfer to Old Trafford in that same window, while Gary Neville added information gathered from Ray Lewington, the Palace assistant. Neville, a right-back like Wan-Bissaka, had worked with Lewington on the England coaching staff.
Phelan previously coached Maguire, another summer 2019 signing, at Hull City.
In many ways, therefore, Solskjaer has behaved more like an American-style general manager than the traditional football model, connecting different parts of the club to create a more harmonious environment in the dressing room and a more successful approach to the transfer market.
The next challenge, however, is out on the training field.
At times, Solskjaer has been typecast pejoratively, most notably on social media, where trolls describe him as “PE teacher”. Even more moderate voices question whether a former Molde and Cardiff City manager has the pedigree to carry United back to the summit of English and European football.
When Solskjaer initially returned to the club after the mid-season sacking of Jose Mourinho, his first phone call was to Phelan, previously a long-serving assistant of Ferguson, while he retained coaches Michael Carrick and Kieran McKenna from Mourinho’s staff. Over time, he added his former Molde colleagues Dempsey and Hartis to the backroom team.
A sign in the home dressing at Molde read: “Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.” Another said: “Losers quit when they are tired. Winners quit when they have won.”
At times, during the more meandering displays United have produced under Solskjaer, it has been tempting to wonder whether there is a shelf life to some of the soundbites he delivers about the United Way, and buzzwords such as freedom, expression and enjoying the game.
Even Solskjaer’s most ardent defenders recognise his team still lack the clear structure, style and consistency of performances — not only from game to game but also within individual ones — that we can see from Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool or Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City. It is why Neville, now a top TV football pundit, often describes his old club as “an odd bunch”. It also probably explains why this team can execute a one-off plan and beat serial champions City on their own patch, as they did in March of last season, but lose at home to relegation-bound Sheffield United little more than a month earlier.
Sources close to several senior players have said they feel training could be led by coaches with greater elite experience. Sessions are mostly run by 35-year-old McKenna and former United and England midfielder Carrick, who is 40 but has only been coaching since 2018.
McKenna’s previous experience had been coaching under-18s teams at Tottenham and then United, before Mourinho promoted him to his first-team staff.
The Athletic has been told his approach can, at times, be schoolmasterly. There may or may not be substance to that but these are also familiar complaints from players when results begin to turn. Separate sources countered that Carrick’s skill is in spotting details and influencing players with an arm-around-the-shoulder and a one-to-one chat. A well-placed associate said McKenna has the potential to go on to manage a top-six Premier League club, such is his level of diligence and research when preparing. Others, though, question whether he possesses the requisite charisma.
The plans for training sessions are run past both Solskjaer and 59-year-old Phelan, now into his fourth decade of coaching, who observe and interject when appropriate.
Very occasionally, Solskjaer or Phelan will aggressively let rip in the dressing room, such as after the 3-2 second-leg defeat by Roma in April’s Europa League semi-final (United had won the first leg 6-2 at home) or half-time recently against Villarreal, but that is not McKenna’s personality. Solskjaer encourages his players to demand more of each other, with Fernandes particularly vocal, while the voices of Paul Pogba, Shaw and Maguire are growing louder.
More than one well-placed source insisted McKenna commands respect from players through the manner of his set-up but conceded that when he asks them to push past a comfort zone they might subconsciously question his pedigree.
Solskjaer made Phelan one of his first calls when he got the job (Photo: Michael Regan/Getty Images)
Against Young Boys in the Champions League last month though, the newly-signed Ronaldo was briefly barking the orders. Critics would argue that this undermines Solskjaer’s authority, but his approach is communal by nature.
United’s former head of first-team development Nicky Butt tells The Athletic: “He (Solskjaer) understands what he excels in and he understands what other people are better than him at. He gives autonomy, he doesn’t micromanage everybody, he’s good at delegating.
“You can see that with how he works on the bench. One minute it will be Carra (Carrick) standing up, the next Mick (Phelan) or Kieran or Ole. You don’t see that with all managers but it works for Ole and that’s how he likes it. He can be an out-and-out coach but he sees himself as the manager of a team who are, together, managing the biggest football club in the world.”
However, some sources The Athletic has spoken to feel the collegiate approach means the 48-year-old former striker is not decisive enough at some key moments.
Solskjaer has sought to fill in gaps in expertise. He brought in Eric Ramsay as specialist set-piece coach this summer. The club hired their first data science lead last week, and Dominic Jordan will now be tasked with finding the incremental gains that clubs such as Liverpool have sought so successfully in recent years. In the dugout during matches, Ramsay and goalkeeping coach Hartis carry folders detailing the pattern of play, likely substitutions, and how the opposition’s game is likely to change when certain substitutions are made.
Supporters at matches will often see Solskjaer studying his TV screen in the dugout. The feed contains live data but is mostly used to offer instant replays so that Solskjaer can confirm what he has seen with his own eyes. He is not a slave to the monitor, but after conceding a goal, for instance, he does not want to blame a player for being out of position or too slow to close down if there was an offside or other infringement.
Following the full-time whistle, Solskjaer is sent a series of bullet points condensed by his analysts to ensure he is fully briefed on the major statistical elements of the game just ended, mainly so he is ready for questions at the post-match press conference.
While Solskjaer has improved United in many ways, they are almost three years into the project and still without a trophy since the 2016-17 Europa League won by Mourinho. Their signings this summer have reinforced expectations and even those pundits who often defend Solskjaer commonly say he must win something this year. They are already out of the Carabao Cup, beaten 1-0 at Old Trafford by West Ham last month.
There are also concerns that the progression of certain players has slowed.
Martial was granted a start and scored a goal against Everton on account of apparently outstanding performances in training in the week leading up to the match but his trend of performances has been disappointing for the past year. Equally, some wonder whether players such as Wan-Bissaka, Scott McTominay and Fred have hit a ceiling with regards to their ability as first-choice United players.
Solskjaer does sometimes do individual work in training with players, most notably with Rashford, Donny van de Beek, Lingard and Greenwood. First-team coach Martyn Pert is involved in repetitive work for players. He is multilingual, also speaking Spanish and Portuguese, and befriended Solskjaer on a coaching course in 2010. Formerly a coach at Vancouver Whitecaps of Major League Soccer, he has visited Marcelo Bielsa at home his home in Argentina and studied the methods of NBA basketball side Miami Heat.
United’s ultimate issue remains in midfield, where coaches retain concerns about £35 million Van de Beek’s suitability for the rough and tumble of Premier League football. Senior figures at the club, including Solskjaer, still believe he can succeed despite only four starts in the division to date and just one five-minute appearance off the bench in the top flight so far this season.
Van de Beek, we should remember, was previously pursued by Real Madrid when he was still an Ajax player, while former United manager Mourinho was confident and excited about signing the Dutchman in the summer of 2020, only for Tottenham to fail to move out fellow midfielder Tanguy Ndombele to fund the transfer.
Sancho is another player experiencing teething problems after signing this summer but Solskjaer has been encouraging him to be himself, urging the England forward to commit defenders and be prepared to make mistakes while taking risks in a United shirt.
“I don’t think people realise how big and long the project is,” reflects one source close to United. “It is a patience thing. Internally, they are absolutely fine — there is no remote thought of panic.”
The fixtures of the coming six weeks will tell us whether that internal confidence is well-founded.
Additional contributor: Andy Mitten