As a close follower of Manchester United and curious about the development under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer you are of course concerned at the moment. But to be fear to him, taking stats from the last games is a bit unfair. Forget the Barca games, don’t judge Solskjaer on them, just focus on PL games.
Everton met Manchester United probably at the best time in the season, but as stats tell the story, this was a very strange game. Manchester United had 54% possession through the game but had few clinical chances and Mr. Marco Silva is not to be faulted.
Silva does his homework, and he knows what players to “track down” and use “vanishing powder” on. Paul Pogba and Nemanja Matic are two players to get out of the game. With five players in midfield and two of them defensive, Man Utd are more or less stopped, if they cannot play up on Lukaku, Rashford and Martial.
Strangely Ole Gonnar Solskjaer decided to leave Jesse Lingard and Scott McTominay on the bench, no need for that as both players clearly are better in should now play all games for the rest of the season.
The job for Solskjaer is to decide on plan a. This was in place for his first game against Cardiff City, and he should have stayed lojal to that plan, but with Matic and Herrera both out of longer periods, not easy to cover those two in form.
Matic was back for this game, but not 100% ready and Marco Silva used his “vanishing powder” on Lukaku and Rashford also, and watching the game from an analytical approach you will find the clues in Silva’s approach to the game.
Scoring the first goal was so vital, and Man Utd never found a way through to Jordan Pickford who had a relatively nice day at work. Central defender Kurt Zouma played with great confidence and was probably Everton’s best player.
To see Solskjaer juggling his defense, playing with a naive offensive system away to Everton, using Lukaku instead of Lingard, it’s really all down to a three men midfield to win a battle against five men in blue, not really easy. The fact that he is moving Lindeløf out of the center, leaving that job to Jones and Smalling is another riddle difficult to understand.
It’s like moving Bobby Moore to right back in the England 1966 team, you don’t take your best central defender and move him to the right to get in a weaker player, strange. Lindeløf should play every day and then Young is a better alternative to either left or right.
After watching Solskjaer for many years in Norwegian football you will get away with blunders like this, because you are strong enough, but in the Premier League making this crucial juggle you are lost and please don’t blame players for tactical errors and playing players out of position, that is a deadly sin Mr. Solskjaer.
We hope that things will be set back to the right positioning, if not this could be falling apart very fast. The Man Utd game is set up and very depending on Paul Pogba and taking him out as Marco Silva so brilliantly did today this team looks totally dead.
