Report: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to be sacked by Manchester United

Per multiple reports, the Manchester United board of directors have decided to sack Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. An official announcement is expected in the coming hours, and the search will begin once again for a new manager on a permanent basis.

It is rumored that Darren Fletcher or Michael Carrick could take over as interim manager, with the other acting as assistant, while the search for a permanent manager continues. Zinedine Zidane was rumored over the last couple weeks to be an option, but the club may be waiting until the end of the season to decide on a permanent replacement. Any manager that comes in now would likely only be a short term option.

Solskjaer took over from Jose Mourinho after a disastrous start to the 2018/19 season, and impressed enough to earn the permanent job. In his two full seasons in charge he led the team to 3rd and 2nd place respectively in the Premier League, reached the semi-final stage of cup competitions on 5 occasions, and reached the 2021 UEFA Europa League final. Unfortunately he never led the team to silverware, and the collapse of the team to start the 2021/22 campaign is indicative of the holes that remain in the squad despite meaningful work and recruitment in his rebuilding project.

Whoever takes over as manager will indeed find a stronger team on paper than the one Solskjaer took over in 2018, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of work to do. Midfield will remain a problem, as will establishing order in defending, and the attacking problems since adding Cristiano Ronaldo to the mix will need to be sorted. The board clearly believe that the current team should be good enough to challenge for silverware, but a commitment to building a team the new manager wants must be made or they run the risk of doing all of this over again in a couple years time.