Man United have improved in leaps and bounds under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer – particularly this season but their performance against the traditional top-six Premier League sides still needs vast improvements.
This campaign, Man United have not done well against the big names of English football, losing badly against Spurs and then dropping key points against teams like Man City and Chelsea.
Both Arsenal and Liverpool held Man United to a 0-0 draw in the league over the past fortnight, something which has seen them slip from the top spot of the table and according to journalist Gerard Brand, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer might be using the Ferguson way against the top-six teams.
Gerard Brand on the Pitch to Post Review show: “To say Man Utd haven’t exactly gambled against the big sides this season would be an understatement. In all of those goalless draws, they seemed rather satisfied at full-time.
“I actually think this is a legacy issue that Solskjaer is implementing from his days of playing under Sir Alex Ferguson, whether consciously or subconsciously. People talk about United under Ferguson being this all-conquering side, and they were, but against big teams away from home, they would always take a point.
“When Arsenal were their big rivals between 1997 and 2004, United only beat them three times in the Premier League in 14 games, and drew with them five times. Many would assume they beat them more times.
“Then there was Jose Mourinho; in the three years that Jose was Fergie’s big rival with Chelsea between 2004 and 2007, United beat them once in six Premier League games, and drew twice.
“And then of course the game Fergie would always call their biggest, Liverpool away; since 2000 Fergie won there just five times in 13 games in the Premier League. He was cautious in big games, it was a case of getting out alive and it’s something a lot of his ex-players have spoken about.
“I think Solskjaer, whether consciously or subconsciously, may be implementing that attitude. But it doesn’t work these days for two big reasons. Manchester United now have up to seven big opponents a season, not two or three, and because back then the rest of the Premier League were a lot more beatable than they are now. The middle-ground of the Premier League is much, much stronger.
“We spoke after the first five or six weeks about how manic this season was in terms of goals – it was 6-1 here, 7-2 there, and not a goalless draw in sight. However, we’re now below the goals per game level of last season at around 2.7, which is lower than the season before at 2.82. So it’s all gone very ordinary again, and United are contributing with their incessant 0-0s in big games!”
To truly compare the tactics of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer with that of Fergie’s we’d ideally have to wait for a few more years before we can truly dissect them side by side.
But what we think is that the Man United players and the manager right now are just not confident about taking on the biggest teams head-on.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer fully understands that his side’s not good enough to match teams like City, Liverpool and Spurs in every area of the pitch which is why he’s been going for damage limitation during the 2020-21 campaign.
From the Norwegian’s tactics against the mid-table sides, it’s pretty clear that he wants his players to dominate games from the first till the 90th minute but he just doesn’t have the artillery to deploy the same plans against the bigger teams.
