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Mediawatch: The Ole Gunnar Solskjaer backtracking begins

Ole!
After the media-led campaign to get Ole Gunnar Solskjaer appointed as permanent Manchester United manager suffered its genuine first hitch in two months against Paris Saint-Germain, Mediawatch was intrigued to see the reaction.

Many newspapers had spent much of Tuesday suggesting Solskjaer would be the ‘irresistible’ choice if they could get a positive result against the French champions at Old Trafford. It was, as Martin Samuel of the Daily Mail had it, ‘the next stage of the audition, a recall’.

By Wednesday, United ‘were exposed at the back, toothless up front, second best all over and ill-disciplined’. Just 24 hours earlier, the same writer told us that ‘Solskjaer has transformed the club, realised the potential of his squad, so that signings such as Paul Pogba and Anthony Martial now play their purchase price and Marcus Rashford plays like he’s wearing an England shirt’.

Weird.

‘What does this say about Solskjaer?’ Samuel asks now. ‘Only that to have experienced a first defeat 55 days in is hardly the worst record and here was a sobering reminder that, however far United have travelled on his watch, there is still a long way to go.’

Just yesterday he was ‘not so much the people’s choice to be the next United manager, as the obvious one’. And ‘to some extent, Solskjaer has won already, just by allowing Old Trafford to feel good about this tie’. Now ‘there is still a long way to go’? Which is it?

Old Trafford was apparently ‘silent bar the raucous visitors’ on ‘a rotten night’ for the hosts. And Solskjaer, as Samuel points out, ‘becomes the first United manager to lose a home European tie by more than a single-goal margin’.

It turns out that perhaps making the club feel a bit more positive didn’t mean he had ‘already won’ a Champions League game against PS-bloody-G.

 

Nothing to see here
What do you do when you have spent the last two months backing Solskjaer for the job, and prematurely blew your load when you exclusively announced he ‘will be named the full-time manager of Manchester United’ at the end of the season?

You lead your report from a pretty poor result and performance on the club possibly facing a UEFA probe after a fan threw a bottle at Angel di Maria, of course.

That was definitely the story. If you don’t want to break all of the eggs you placed in one precarious basket, anyway.

 

The Kidds are all right
Elsewhere in The Sun, Dave Kidd proclaims that ‘from a distance, it felt as though everybody around Manchester United has been getting a little too carried away in recent weeks’.

Quite.

‘That the rush to anoint Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as Jose Mourinho’s full-time successor has been a ‘marry in haste, repent at leisure’ scenario.’

Indeed.

‘So complete had been the change in mood music – from Darth Vader’s Imperial March to Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah – that some had taken leave of their senses.’

Yep.

‘United may well go on to finish in the top four and win the FA Cup but the apparent decision to make up their mind on Solskjaer before a key run of fixtures seemed unnecessarily impulsive.’

Neil Custis is only in the other room, Dave. Keep it down; you don’t want to upset him.

 

Crossed wires
At least John Cross is here to offer a level-headed view. The Daily Mirror‘s chief football writer is not about to be swayed by one result.

‘As good as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has been, last night showed why Man United are not to rush into a decision on his future,’ he tweeted on Tuesday evening. Good stuff.

Shame about this, mind:

 

Tour point
‘PSG won the game and in all likelihood the tie in that spell at the start of the second half. They scored twice and could have scored five’ – Ian Ladyman, Daily Mail.

So will United still ‘not go to Paris as tourists’ – as per your claim on Tuesday – even though the tie is, ‘in all likelihood’, over?

 

Check this out
Writes Andy Dunn in the Daily Mirror:

‘It would be easy to label this a brutal reality check, to call it out as an audition quite comprehensively failed by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.’

Indeed. Who would do such a thing?

Ah.

 

Beautiful disaster
Writes Andy Dunn in the Daily Mirror:

‘United’s performance was not disastrous, not at all.’

Indeed. Who would claim such a thing?

Ah.

 

The Dunn thing
Writes Andy Dunn in the Daily Mirror:

‘Never mind the implications of this match, if Solskjaer can pull it off in Paris, he will be able to write his own contract.’

That’s one way of describing how he f***ed it up in the first leg.

 

Mirror image
‘Stand-in boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer sees no reason why Manchester United cannot WIN the Champions League this season’ – David McDonnell, Daily Mirror back page, February 12.

‘Ole Gunnar Solskjaer suffered his first defeat as Manchester United boss as Paris Saint-Germain stunned Old Trafford’ – David McDonnell, Daily Mirror back page, February 13.

 

Load of old shirt
Perhaps United fans can console themselves with the fact that Ilkay Gundogan is ‘set to wind up City fans – as he’s caught shopping for Utd kits’.

What a scoop from The Sun website, who advise City fans to ‘look away now’. Why? Because a German player living in Manchester visited a store that sells classic football shirts, and he had the gall to briefly look at a United one from 1993.

Did he buy it? No. Did he caress it and kiss the badge? Apparently not. Did he touch it? Yes. F***ing sell him now.

 

A Sarri state
Emmanuel Petit is not bothered with the Champions League. Talking about Chelsea and the consequences of a game that happened three days ago is precisely where it’s at.

“When Roman Abramovich feels the pressure like this, he doesn’t dwell on feelings, he just cuts down the tree,” says the Frenchman.

“He did it with Jose Mourinho and he did it with Antonio Conte after winning the Premier League, so he will have no emotion about doing the same with Sarri.

“I understand that a manager has to stick with his views and opinions, even sometimes against his own players’ thinking – because maybe he’s right – but I’m sure that Sarri is very nervous.

“His body language in a recent press conference showed this. And what he did after the City game – not shaking Pep Guardiola’s hand – showed a lack of respect. So, I think he’s in big trouble.

“Things like this shouldn’t happen, and when they do you show everyone – fans, journalists, players – that you’re losing the plot.

“It reminds me a bit of the dark times under Jose Mourinho.”

A reminder that Chelsea were 16th, one point above the relegation zone after 16 games, when they sacked Mourinho in December 2015. That seems a little ‘darker’ than being sixth and one point off fourth after 26 games.

 

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