Martin Keown asserts that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is under tremendous pressure and says he does not expect the latter to still be in charge of Manchester United when the next season begins. He told BBC’s Match of the Day:
“I don’t think he’s going to last beyond the end of the season. I know people are saying he needs more time but this is Manchester United, it’s a massive football club.”
Peter Crouch opined:
“This squad has got to be the worst squad in the last 30 years, it is nowhere near it. It’s a sad state of affairs. This is one of the biggest clubs in the world and it has been run badly, it has been mismanaged.
I don’t know what United have allowed the likes of Alexis Sanchez, Romelo Lukaku and Ander Herrera to depart the club without signing replacements, and Champions League qualification looks set to be a struggle with Chelsea six points ahead in the race for a top-four finish.
I don’t know what a Manchester United player is any more.”
Hold it for a second!
What does the particular individual stranded in the full uncomplimentary glare of the spotlight have to say about all this fuss and commotion that he’s now caught in the midst of?
“We are working to improve and get players in, and hopefully we can get something over the line. I think everybody can see these players are being stretched, they are stretched, and I’ve got absolutely no complaints on any of them because they give absolutely everything they’ve got,” the Manchester United boss said.
“We know we have to strengthen, and we took that decision that some of these players, we let them go, because we needed to start afresh with a clear sight on target in front of us and that means a certain type of player in the squad,” he affirmed.
“This is our second defeat at home and first since August. I thought we had turned that corner,” he defended.
“For me the most important thing is that we have to perform on the pitch and this wasn’t good enough for a Manchester United team,” he promised.
“At one point it felt like we were creating openings and didn’t take them. We hold our hands up, it is not good enough. Burnley scored one wonder goal and one you see them score all the time. When you are dominating and you don’t have that cutting edge to score that was disappointing. When they scored, we didn’t have an answer. The players are giving everything, they have done absolutely fantastic so far this season but they know it wasn’t good enough tonight. The boys looked mentally tired towards the end, we didn’t find that creativity. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves,” he was befuddled.
“When you are at Man Utd you are privileged because you are playing for the best club in the world. Burnley stunned Manchester United at Old Trafford. Sometimes you go through periods like that and it is a test I am sure they are going to come through,” he sought refuge in self comfort.
Aw, come on, man! Still holding on to your own preconceived notions of dignity, self esteem and nobility, Ole?
When in blazes are you gonna get your sanctimonious butt off your high horse and softly tread the ground of remorse and humility instead of puffing up your chest and feigning modesty and false humility? Are you still persisting in your fantasy flights of self delusion and actually believing that the rest of the world can’t see the wood for the trees just because you are victim to your own empty promises of being able to positively turn things around soon?
Solskjaer’s predisposition and predicament are in a way reminiscent of the protagonist in Cervantes’ literary classic, ‘Man of La Mancha’, a character lost in his own Quixotic journey of fantasy, jousting with windmills that are the self-inflicted dragons torturing his self-deluded mind. Away from the luxuriating refinement of the literary arts and into the Mack-the-Knife world of cut-throat, Club competition football at the highest international levels, the fine line of demarcation between the beguiling fantasy of fiction and the hard, cold facts of stark reality needs to be clearly drawn.
Finally, in concluding, this might just be the appropriate time to quote the famous couplet by Alexander Pope:
“Madness is near to genius allied,
and thin partitions do their bounds divide.”
Judging from the growing, odiferous pile of mistakes and flaws stemming from his callous and careless misjudgment apart from his initial few months as an interim caretaker manager, it is highly doubtful that this quizzical manager in question, wobbling in the direct line of fire, is a flaming genius.