Manchester United vs PSG: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's sheer momentum could carry his side to quarter-finals

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer watched the draw for the Champions League round of 16 with his son Noah, enjoying the relative quiet of the Norwegian off-season while planning a new campaign with Molde.

When asked yesterday how he had reacted to seeing Manchester United paired with Paris Saint-Germain, Solskjaer recalled how both he and Noah simply thought to themselves: “Wow, that is a tough challenge.”

Less than 48 hours later, that ‘tough challenge’ became his to face when he agreed to become United’s caretaker manager. And now, just eight weeks on from being parachuted in to a club in crisis, he has every reason to be confident of success.

What a difference two days - and indeed, two months - can make.

They may be saying the same in Paris. Comfortable favourites at the time of the draw, PSG have travelled to Manchester having suffered a series of setbacks which have lengthened their odds of progression.

The absence of Neymar from both legs of this tie with a metatarsal injury is the one that has been discussed most and there is a fear in France that it could ultimately prove pivotal. Edinson Cavani and Thomas Meunier are out of this Old Trafford leg too and will also be missed.

What's more, since the turn of the year, the Parisians have suffered the second and third defeats of their season. Bottom-of-the-league Guingamp first knocked them out of the Coupe de France, then Lyon ended Thomas Tuchel’s hopes of spending an entire Ligue 1 campaign unbeaten.

But nothing has diminished PSG’s chances of reaching the quarter-finals quite as much as Solskjaer’s remarkable restoration of United in the image of Sir Alex Ferguson - a team where hard work must be matched by talent, and there is a commitment to playing quick, direct football.

He walked into a club that - aside from perhaps Schalke 04 - was the one every group winner in the last-16 draw had wanted to play. After 10 wins in his first 11 games in charge, few members of European football’s elite would now fancy a reunion with United for a place in the last eight.

“We knew we had a big challenge in front of us [when we arrived] because we were far behind in the league,” Solskjaer said yesterday. “Confidence was low after the defeat to Liverpool but they have responded fantastically. I don’t think we could be in a better frame of mind with confidence and form.

“We have given ourselves the best possible opportunity in the way we have gone into this game because we’re confident,” he would add. “I have found out what kind of team we have. If there was any time to go into big games like this, it is now for us.”

Two months on from his arrival, there is still an element of disbelief around just how well Solskjaer has done. None of those behind the decision to appoint him as caretaker expected this to happen. His success is a pleasant and welcome surprise but a surprise all the same.

The flipside to his excellent start is that this pace surely cannot be sustained. And then, once the honeymoon is over once and for all, what if this all suddenly unravels? A glance at United’s upcoming fixtures suggests that could easily happen over the coming weeks.

After PSG’s visit, Solskjaer and his players travel to Chelsea in the FA Cup and Liverpool then come to Old Trafford. The return leg in Paris follows a-week-and-a-half later. United will hope that the crest of the caretaker’s wave does not suddenly trough at this vital point.

But then why worry when the surge of momentum behind Solskjaer and his players could quite as easily carry United through this challenging run of games, into the Champions League quarter-finals and all but settle the issue of who should succeed Jose Mourinho?

Yesterday, Solskjaer’s opposite number perhaps summed that line of thinking up best. “There is an Ole Gunnar Solskjaer effect,” Tuchel said. “I do not know how he does it, but as we say in Germany, you do not ask what the doctor does. As long as you feel better, that is enough.”