“Solskjaer needs to call out the owners and demand transfer funds” – John O’Kane

It was a tough one at the weekend. Plenty of blame being given, plenty to share around. 

A lot on the goalkeeper, David De Gea. A lot of people are saying his place is under threat. I actually don’t think it is – and that’s the main reason why his form has been so poor. At the weekend, there were some schoolboy errors and there’s just no excuse for it. Some of them have been embarrassing.

You have to feel for him – he’s been United’s best player, mainly because of a poor defence in front of him, for about seven years. He’s had to rescue us time and time again. And now he’s finding out the harsh reality of any industry – if you’re not producing, no matter what you did before, you have no right to not be challenged or dropped. 

At the minute Ole seems to want to stand by him, even though that might come at a cost to the top four plans. But mentally De Ge looks shot and he needs to be rescued so he can come back refreshed for the Europa League. He won’t be sold. He knows that. No-one will take on those wages. So he needs a challenge and that’s going to mean bringing back Dean Henderson to try and motivate him.

We saw on Sunday that the problem isn’t only the goalkeeper. I can’t understand why we persist with trying to play the back. That’s not a strength of De Gea, and it’s definitely not a strength of either centre half, so it’s often a recipe for disaster and invites pressure. It’s no wonder De Gea is nervous, but if you don’t have the players to play that way, the staff should just change the approach. The thing is, of course, we don’t know if Henderson can handle the pressure and weight of playing for United. He’ll hopefully thrive but many have struggled. We’ll have to wait and see. 

Harry Maguire was brought in because of his dominant performances for England. But people forget he was in a back three, not a back two. He looked comfortable and assured and he had all this pace around him so that he could stroll out of the defence and have lots of time to pass the ball and look a million dollars. Now, though, he’s at United. He’s normally in a two and in a high line with no centre halves to cover him. Because he’s a big lad, he can’t move his feet or body quickly enough, and we’ve seen that he’s been done a lot recently. He’s struggled, in my opinion, since being named captain. That’s a concern. Before, I thought we were getting a Van Dijk type player, but we can clearly see that’s not the case.

So what do you do? You don’t bin him off, you look at the qualities he does have and see if you can compensate or complement. Naturally then people have mentioned getting a quick partner for him, but quality is also a big factor. We’re not going to challenge for major honours with two defenders with average pace. Koulibaly and Upamecano would be perfect but that’s never going to happen. Hopefully a player will be brought in who complements Maguire more.

That said, it’s easy again to say “we just need a defender”. We don’t. It’s a priority, yes. But we need another right winger, another defensive midfielder, another striker and strength in the full-back areas if we want to seriously challenge. 

But that’s it for the players. They’ve taken a lot of stick but the man who put them out there was Ole and he should take some of it. It was obvious he would replicate the way he’s beaten Lampard before. But the selection was a big mistake. Our best technically gifted and in-form players were left on the bench and that was criminal. In the past, Sir Alex had a squad that allowed him to chop and change – even at the semi-final stage – because they were reliable. We have already seen so many times over these years that this current squad have a tendency to fold, especially in adversity, especially when starting with the squad players. 

It was true to form. 

Not one player put in a good performance – that’s pretty hard to do! But there was this great chance of silverware, even better with City out, and with that on the line Ole put James, Fred and Bailly in, three players with no form of late and they all looked way off the pace. Yes, there were mistakes, but we’ve seen mistakes in recent games, and the quality was usually on the pitch to get us out of trouble. It wasn’t on Sunday. The game was over by 60 minutes.

So you’re left with the feeling that the manager has been told to prioritise Champions League qualification because of the financial implication. We can’t win the Champions League. So it’s for revenue. 

And that’s a crossroads for Ole, because it always feels like qualification for the Champions League is the height of the Glazer family’s ambition. Ed Woodward can go to them and tell them he’s done it if we get there and that’s that. No pressure to spend. Ole was ruthless to get us within a chance of qualifying but if we do, he needs to be ruthless again, and spell it out that this team needs strengthening. 

Don’t just say that we’ll get the players if they are there. They are there! 

So call the owners out. Do what Mikel Arteta did and let it be known we still need investment. Ole now has credit in the bank – he has that from the fans anyway, and he’s done a decent job to get us where we are, so shouldn’t find his job at risk if he makes it clear. Ole’s never questioned the owners. I understand that – you don’t want to rock the boat – but there is a crossroads for him because they will be happy with qualification, and his standards are like the club’s. He’s a winner. But he needs the backing from them to match his ambition. If he doesn’t, he runs the risk of being seen as just being happy to have the job, and that’s going to be one of the worst things he could do. He was brought in on the premise that he would feel lucky to just have the job. But now he’s in the position to do something, hopefully we’ll see that positive step.

I’ve been saying for a few weeks that I had a concern about how these players could handle pressure games. It did not go well on Sunday. But there’s another one on Wednesday – it’s a poor West Ham team, but one riding high on confidence from their recent results, with a player in Antonio who has caused us problems before and is in great form. His relentlessness will be an issue for our defence. 

Still, don’t call me negative. I’m going for a 3-1 win. Now, anyway. Ask me again when I’ve seen the team-sheet!

John O'Kane

Manchester United Class of '92 alumni.

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