Football News: Manchester United should give Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at least 2 more years as Manager

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So here we are, should we be surprised? Obviously not, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer injected a new lease of life in these Manchester United players, yet ultimately they are still the same group of players who let both Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho down time and again.

Yes we have on paper a decent squad, we have talented players. Yet time and again these guys show they haven't got the mentality or personality to make the most of their talent.

Many need to be shipped out, several want to jump ship. How many of them know they don't have a long term future at our club? Maybe as many as half? David De Gea, Grant, Valencia, Jones, Smalling, Bailly, Rojo, Darmian, Herrera, Mata, Paul Pogba, Sanchez, Martial. All will either be sold this summer or have wanted to leave within the last 12 months.

You can't have that many players in your 25 man squad who want to leave and expect committed performances from them. It's just not going to happen. 13 of the 25 know or at least suspect they don't have a long term future. Plus we have players like Young and Matic who are getting older and probably don't have long left in them.

Someone mentioned something the other day which I think is key. I can't remember who said it, but kudos to you whoever it was. That is, under Sir Alex Ferguson we didn't just scout a player's ability on the pitch, but we did background checks on them. We found out about their personality, their mentality, Sir Alex liked to speak to family members of potential targets to get a better feel for the kind of person they were. Now, not all of Sir Alex's signings worked out, but every single one of them gave 100% effort, 100% of the time.

I would rather have someone with 80% of Pogba's talent, but who gave 100% effort all the time, we would also be more successful with such a player.

It's like job interviews, if you were always going to hire the most talented person, you wouldn't need to interview people. You can rank people on the quality of their C.V. and hire the person with the best C.V., yet no one does that. Everyone interview is a selection of strong candidates to work out who is best suited to the role. They base that on personality, experience, drive, motivation, and their long term plans and vision.

Pogba saw us as a stop gap and a big pay rise as a stepping stone to one of the big two Spanish clubs. Therefore, you don't spend a club record fee and give him the highest wage at the club, if you know he'll be itching to leave at the first opportunity, that's just bad recruitment.

And Pogba is only the tip of the iceberg; we have seen this approach time and again, offering players huge wages to tempt them to sign for us rather than a rival. So can we really be shocked when these same players don't appear to be prepared to give all their effort for the shirt?

Ole has the biggest job of any manager anywhere in the world, maybe other managers weren't prepared to take it on. I don't know, but I still feel Ole is potentially the right man to take it on. We are talking about a 2-3 year rebuild from the ground up. Our fans have shown a lack of patience with our last two managers. That said, both were a poor fit for different reasons and both had probably run their course at the club. However, if we want the club to back the manager over the players, then we need to do the same. The decision makers at the club have shown themselves to be weak and make decisions based on how the fans are reacting.

Ole is one of our own, he is one of us. That should give him an edge, the other managers haven't had. He needs us to back him, he might not be the long term solution, but he is probably the person best placed to put our club back on the right track and that will take years, not weeks.

If we turn against this manager, we will be doomed to forever being a former big club. A club held back by inpatient fans and weak decision-makers, resulting in manager after manager being sacked halfway through a rebuild. This means we are forever a year or two away from challenging again.

Be angry with poor results, be angry with a lack of effort but focus it at the people who deserve it. Aim that anger at the players and the board who signed them. Back Ole for 2-3 years which is the minimum amount of time it will take to turn us around. Hopefully then we might get our club back.

Written by Shappy April 22 2019 11:03:28