From ‘hopeless’ at Cardiff to running Man United

Out of his depth at Cardiff City, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is now suddenly in charge at Manchester United.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been handed the reins at Manchester United

Confirmation that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is Manchester United’s caretaker manager brought out the inner Alex Ferguson in one source at Cardiff City this week. “Football, bloody hell!” he exclaimed, except with a whole lot more expletives.

Football, eh? You couldn’t make it up was the gist of the reaction — the shock heightened by the coincidence that Solskjaer’s first game will be at Cardiff on Saturday — given that in south Wales they remember a lovely chap who was so far out of his depth. “Hopeless” was one of the kinder adjectives.

Of course, that was four years ago and Solskjaer has gathered a whole lot more knowledge and experience. “I wasn’t mean or cynical enough back then. Now I’ve learnt a lot,” Solskjaer told FourFourTwo when reflecting on his one, spectacularly unsuccessful foray into English club management.

No doubt he will explain at his unveiling how he, at 45, is wiser, hopefully tougher. But this appointment has very little to do with whether he has changed, or not, but the lurching chaos at Old Trafford, which will not be eased for some time yet.

When Ryan Giggs wanted the manager’s job, he was told that all his history and understanding of United could not make up for lack of experience. They plumped for Jose Mourinho. Now “culture” is precisely the buzzword from Ed Woodward’s office, at least in the short term. They want and need healing after all the self-defeating antagonism of Mourinho, and Solskjaer is loved, the good guy who always put team and club first.

“You couldn’t have picked a nicer bloke to score the winning goal in the European Cup final,” Gary Neville wrote in Red, his autobiography. “I sat next to him for 11 years in the dressing room, him on one side, Scholesy on the other, and he’s one of the most genuine guys you could ever meet.”

It is enough for United for now that they have a man in charge who the fans will instinctively support for his 1999 heroics and the players will give him a chance because, unlike Mourinho, he will actually want them to enjoy it. As Solskjaer said of his time as a player: “At United, we came to Carrington and worked our bollocks off, but we never felt like we went to work.”

Just do not mistake any of this for a strategy or any kind of consistent thinking when, in mid-December, one of the world’s biggest clubs end up asking Molde if they can borrow their manager.

Ferguson’s influence is all over this. Checking back, it was in February 2012 that we reported the Scot had privately been talking up the chances of Solskjaer, as well as Giggs, eventually succeeding him at Old Trafford.

By then, Solskjaer had coached the strikers and led United’s reserves while completing his badges, a promising stint from 2008 to 2011. Ferguson saw him as a potential United manager (but he also hand-picked David Moyes and we know how that worked out).

Solksjaer is still trying to live up to all those early hopes and expectations. In his first spell in Molde, he won the Norwegian title twice, and the Norwegian cup. Aston Villa were among the clubs looking to him as one of Europe’s rising coaches. But it all hit the rocks at Cardiff. Arriving in January 2014, he claimed 12 points from 18 top-flight games, taking the side into the Championship in an horrendous free fall.

He lasted seven games in the Championship, winning two, to make an overall record of nine wins in 30 matches. A piece on WalesOnline deliberated where he ranked among the worst Cardiff managers of recent times.

His reign was remembered for a lack of pattern — he stuck with the same starting XI once — and a lack of conviction or on-field organisation. He came over as weak, not least in some of his dealings with Vincent Tan, the owner.

As for signings, he recruited three Norwegians, Mats Daehli, Magnus Wolff Eikrem and Jo Inge Berget, who looked as out of their depth as their manager. Tan put everyone out of their misery with Cardiff in 17th position and Solksjaer could have no complaints about his dismissal.

It happens to young managers, including some very good ones, but it was still startling on Wednesday to speak to several who experienced that eight-month reign first-hand about just how bad it got. His teams looked naively adventurous, not least in losing 6-3 to Liverpool, and he would recognise that he was not equipped to build a team to be solid, to scrap.

“I’d always been at Manchester United or Molde, dominating games and played attacking, entertaining football,” he said, admitting that he was wrong.

That was then and, back at Molde, he has been restoring his reputation, albeit at a club with an average attendance of less than 8000. He has enjoyed good results at home and in the Europa League, although how much preparation that is for restoring zest to a club of United’s scale, ambitions and expectations remains to be seen.

But, then, however much the next five months reveal about what Solskjaer has learnt and how much more there is to him these days than being a nice guy while United chase Mauricio Pochettino as the man to take on the massive long-term rebuild, this move has already revealed much about where the club finds itself — still reflecting on the managerial genius of Ferguson and incapable of properly moving on, caught in the turbulence of his departure five and a half years later.

Presumably, United hope this move will have echoes of Roberto Di Matteo taking over at Chelsea in 2012, and somehow presiding over Champions League success (before being sacked three months into the next campaign). But just qualifying for next season’s competition rather than winning it is the desperate target for the club that aspires to rule the world.

Already 11 points off Chelsea in fourth place, this would be a challenge for any manager, never mind one with so much to prove.

The Times