Manchester United: Looking at Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's four biggest problems after West Ham setback

Manchester United offered little to nothing against West Ham on Sunday as they suffered a 2-0 defeat at the London Stadium and their underwhelming run under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer continued.

United have achieved just five wins from 17 matches since Solskjaer became full-time manager in March, and there are a number of reasons as to why the Red Devils have been so lacklustre in that time.

Here are a few…

Lack of squad depth

Although Solskjaer deserves praise for removing some underperforming, high-earning players over the summer, the required replacements did not arrive.

Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez both departed over the summer and neither has been directly replaced.

While Daniel James has shown flashes of brilliance, it would be unfair to expect from the 21-year-old what was expected of Chile international Sanchez, who was earning £350,000 a week.

Solskjaer, wise to the ways of United promoting from within, has done just that, but the new crop of youngsters are not being integrated into a title-winning side led by Sir Alex Ferguson with leaders and role models to smooth the process over.

Instead, the likes of Mason Greenwood, Axel Tuanzebe, Tahith Chong and Angel Gomes are being asked to adapt to senior football at a time when United’s poor performances, disappointing results and clear lack of quality are being laid bare for all to see.

Injuries

Following on from the first point, Solskjaer has also been unlucky with injuries in the opening weeks of the new campaign.

The 4-0 win over Chelsea on the opening weekend of the season was full of pace, vigour and promise.

But the main attractions of that game have struggled since. Anthony Martial has been sidelined with a thigh issue, Paul Pogba has missed the last three games with an ankle complaint and now Marcus Rashford is set for a spell on the sidelines with a groin injury suffered in the defeat at West Ham.

Full-back Luke Shaw is also missing, while Jesse Lingard has had a spell out and even Greenwood, the 17-year-old who scored his first senior goal in an unconvincing 1-0 Europa League win over Astana last week, missed the game at the London Stadium through tonsillitis.

So, with a squad already struggling for numbers, being hit with such injury issues only compounds Solskjaer’s woes.

Confidence

Given their run of form spanning the end of last season and the start of this one, it is no surprise that plenty of United’s players seem bereft of belief.

There was a moment in the West Ham game, with the score still goalless, when Rashford was played in behind the defence – this pacey, strong attacking England international seemingly set free on the Hammers’ goal.

But instead he dallied, barely controlling the ball, and was easily dispossessed – a small moment, but an incident that sums up the current confidence levels across seemingly the entire squad.

Contrast that to Solskjaer’s run as caretaker manager, when United were beating almost everyone in their path, playing quality football and seeing smiles – which had slowly turned to scowls under Jose Mourinho – return.

Only victories – and those achieved in a convincing manner – can truly address the issue of confidence among the players, and those wins are certainly proving hard to come by at present.

Improving rivals

Not all of the problems facing United can be solved in-house.

While their main rivals Manchester City and Liverpool look to be the sides tussling for the Premier League title once again, plenty of other teams in the division have improved over the past two years.

The ‘big four’ became the ‘top six’ and now there are clubs outside of that once unpoppable bubble who have designs on getting inside – and even if that is not possible, there are several sides good enough to beat United.

Gone are the days of the Red Devils destroying the smaller teams – it has been that way for a while, but United are now in danger of falling into the pack of sides who need to summon up all the qualities they can muster, just to make sure they can pick up three valuable points.

PA Sports Staff contributed to this article