Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s future at Old Trafford is now dangling precariously on the thinnest thread in the universe that could break at any moment following the calamitous 5-0 humbling at the hands of their most bitter rivals Liverpool before a stunned home crowd at the Theater of Dreams.
On a parallel development, the popular news is that the Glazers had earlier expressed interest in purchasing an IPL cricket team in the extremely lucrative Indian cricket league ahead of the 2022 season and that they’re now moving to complete a deal, which could frustrate United fans as the latter have long complained about the Glazers apparent lack of involvement and sincere interest in managing the football club.
Antonio Conte is reportedly open to taking on the Manchester United manager’s role despite having some reservations about the club’s structure, the Manchester Evening News reported. Last season’s Serie A-winning manager is currently out of work following his departure from Inter Milan and was considered by Tottenham about replacing Jose Mourinho in the summer.
Although the 52-year-old earlier had not given any thought to United as an option for his next place of employment, the club’s dismal form, gravely exacerbated by the 5-0 home humiliation by bitter rivals Liverpool, has left clueless manager Solskjaer balancing preciously on thin ice that’s already showing major cracks.
Sources are already inferring that Conte is seeking reassurances from United over the club’s direction, apart from maintaining his firm stance that he would not entertain the prospect of having ‘marketable’ players foisted onto him.
An unreal, eerie quietness prevails. There seems to be no response so far from United to queries about the manager’s predicament, without even any pretences of a smoke screen of sorts – just a veiled curtain of total quietness.
Based on the assumption that United have a free midweek, today would be the logical day off ahead of the Tottenham trip on Saturday. Yet somehow the unnatural quietness ominously suggests awkward, yet familiar, parallels similar with the manner of Jose Mourinho’s dismissal even at this juncture – the Sunday chastening defeat to Liverpool and a suspiciously quiet Monday. Mourinho had been sacked on a Tuesday morning.
Manchester United players, agitated, are becoming increasingly vocal and the least bemused by some of Solskjaer’s questionable selections, with some of them surprised by the lack of playing time for Jesse Lingard, who has not started in the Premier League for United since New Year’s Day in 2020. In fact, doubts had already begun to surface over Solskjaer’s earlier selections with the incongruous inclusion of Daniel James in two of their first three games this season, two days before he was sold to Leeds United for £25million, according to The Manchester Evening News.
News had also leaked out from dressing room sources alleging that Donny van de Beek’s training performances have also impressed teammates but the long-sidelined Dutchman has not started in the league since May and had only made just one substitute appearance in the competition this term. Fast-forwarding to the recent Sunday’s disastrous match at Old Trafford, the Norwegian’s subsequent decision to field an unchanged team for the 5-0 demolition by Liverpool was again questioned by the players.
Finally a tiny wisp of news seeps in through the veiled curtain with The Manchester Evening News reporting that the club hierarchy is seriously considering dismissing Solskjaer before United’s next game at Tottenham on Saturday. United have yet to respond for comment on the manager’s tenuous position.
Meanwhile, on the Indian front, despite their best efforts, news confirmed that the Glazers actually missed out on becoming the owners of a new IPL franchise, which would add another layer of dark clouds hovering above the United owners after the shameful debacle on Sunday at their Theater of Dreams.
The Glazers were reportedly among 18 interested parties to have collected tender documents for the purchase of one of the two new cricket franchises, ahead of the IPL’s expansion from eight to ten members.
Should United really decide to follow through with the dismissal of Solskjaer, this would clearly follow a repeated bureaucratic routine of out-of-favor managers losing their job two days after their final match in charge at the club.
David Moyes’s execution had been delayed by Easter Monday, while Dutchman Louis van Gaal’s tenure was terminated immediately after the FA Cup final and the ‘Chosen One’ Mourinho spent his Monday off in London before he was summoned to Carrington on Tuesday and unceremoniously ‘un-Chosen’, returning to London later that same fateful day.
The familiar ‘subdued’ noise around United is now beginning to reverberate quite ominously for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer despite there being multiple reasons for the delay to a possible, even likely, decision such as United finally compelled to opt for a change of manager.
There is the manager’s compensation to finalize, a potential interim coach has to be identified, and, most crucially of all, a permanent replacement. Decisions have to be made over which coaching staff members are retained and released from their contracts. There is a lot to plough through.
Hard though it may be to believe, reports allege that two of the favorites to be the next manager should Solskjaer be sacked ultimately, Zinedine Zidane and Brendan Rodgers, have shown apparent disinterest and have ruled themselves out of contention.
Former Real Madrid boss Zinedine Zidane, although currently without a club after leaving the Bernabeu earlier this year, ‘doesn’t think about Manchester United’ at all, according to Mundo Deportivo, via SportWitness, as he is ‘recharging his batteries’ after some ‘intense years’ in the Spanish capital. It’s also reported that the lure of returning to his native France with either Paris Saint-Germain or the national team would be the only bait to tempt him back into the game at this juncture in his career.
Meanwhile, CaughtOffside report that Leicester City boss Brendan Rodgers, who is again on a great run this season, isn’t at all keen on a move to Old Trafford either, with the claim that he is ‘reluctant’ to hold talks with United as he has designs on the manager’s post at Manchester City as Pep Guardiola’s successor – even if it means waiting for the Blues boss to depart in another 18-months time.
Well, looks like there are certainly proven, worthy successors who are openly disdainful of occupying the supposedly coveted Old Trafford post that the current manager of the club is so desperate to protect.