Ole Gunnar Solskjaer prepared to face Goodison demons on day when Manchester United had ‘nothing’
The Norwegian insists progress has been made since Everton inflicted the worst day in his reign so far
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Your support makes all the difference.Ask Ole Gunnar Solskjaer for the nadir of his time in charge of Manchester United to date and his answer will be unequivocal: the 4-0 defeat at Everton last April. “That was the lowest I’ve been,” he recalled on Thursday night. “I think you all know that and remember that. That was a capitulation.”
United were dire that day, to the point where their own supporters were sarcastically celebrating each completed pass. It was a performance so devoid of character and coherence it rivalled the very worst away days since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement: Olympiakos, MK Dons, Midtjylland, West Ham and now Everton.
“We had absolutely nothing about us,” Solskjaer admitted. “Everything you didn’t want to see you saw in that game.” After the final whistle, he was bold and bruised enough in his post-match press conference to say some of his players had no future at the club. He could have been talking about nearly any member of the match day squad.
Ahead of United’s first return to Goodison Park since that day, Romelu Lukaku and Ashley Young are the only players present that day to have since left permanently. Chris Smalling is on loan at Roma and Alexis Sanchez with both Lukaku and Young at Internazionale but expected back in Manchester this summer. Everyone else remains in situ.
And yet, there is a sense of renewal about United at the moment. The defeat to Burnley at Old Trafford a little was not much better than the Goodison Park game. In fact, it was arguably worse. And yet United have won five of their seven games since and drew the other two, scoring 18 goals in the process and conceding only one.
The standard of opposition has not always been high, as was the case for Thursday’s 5-0 victory over a 10-man Club Brugge or the 6-0 hammering of Tranmere in the FA Cup. Both Manchester City and Chelsea have been beaten recently though, and Solskjaer is beginning to turn encouraging performances out of players who were previously written off.
Fred, for example, was hooked at half time of last year’s Goodison defeat but has quietly established himself as a reliable and regular presence in midfield over the last few months. After only scoring once in his first 59 United appearances, he plundered two against Brugge and assisted another to win yet more sceptical supporters around.
Bruno Fernandes has no such problem. The new €55m recruit from Sporting practically has Old Trafford eating out of his hands. United have been crying out for a player of his ilk for years. The novelty of having an ambitious, adventurous player who is willing to try the audacious will take some time to wear off around these parts.
“The culture, the attitude, the fitness, the camaraderie, the team spirit and maybe even the understanding between players have improved,” Solskjaer said. “That’s Man United as the fans want to see. There’s loads of movements, combinations, one or two touch, runs into the box, attempts.”
But this new confidence should still be fragile and delicate. United have turned so many corners this season that it is only natural to feel disorientated. It would be typical of Solskjaer’s dizzy, inconsistent tenure for them to stride off in one direction and trip over themselves. They are likely to be without Anthony Martial, who picked up a thigh injury in training on Wednesday.
Everton have improved under Carlo Ancelotti too and were unlucky in defeat at Arsenal last week. They have a comparable home record to United and a better one than Chelsea. If Solskjaer wants seven clean sheets from his last eight games, he needs a plan to cope with the in-form Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison.
Yet the United manager believes that, whatever the result on Sunday, he can trust his players to at least deliver an acceptable level of performance. “I can with hand on heart 100 per cent say these boys will never give in and never give up like that team [last year] did.” And that, compared to the worst moment of his United spell so far, is progress.
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