“It’s a pretty easy decision. This is my club. I have a lot of emotions and feelings. I’ve come with a belief I can come and help the cause until the end of the season. I’ll give my utmost to give the fans what they want.”
Not the imagined words of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer when he takes back the Manchester United reins during the October international break, but those of Frank Lampard in April 2023 as he returned for an interim spell at Chelsea two years after his sacking, for a two-month nightmare which should serve as a warning to the man now being mentioned as a possible replacement for Ruben Amorim.
“This is the worst Man United team I’ve seen,” Jamie O’Hara said on talkSPORT. “Honestly. I can’t believe Ruben Amorim is still in charge, honestly, when are they going to let it go?
“When are they going to just…do what Sheffield United have done, just swallow their pride [and say] ‘we got this wrong?’ Get Ole [Gunnar Solskjaer] back…get Ole back in. They can’t carry on doing this. They’ll go down. They’ll be playing Rotherham next season.”
We can understand why Solskjaer would be seen as an attractive short-term appointment by some fans. What you could never say about his Manchester United is that they weren’t entertaining. His tactics board featured no coloured magnets and simply had ‘United Way’ written on it in permanent marker, with the old ‘go out there and express yourselves’ mantra clearly evident in what was some fantastic football to watch at times. The best since Sir Alex Ferguson.
Sure, “Ole’s at the wheel” was shouted back at them by goading scousers when Liverpool spanked them 5-0 at Old Trafford, but for a fair while the Manchester United fans chanted it with nothing but joy in their hearts at seeing one of their favourite sons leading them by playing a similar – if significantly less polished and gritty – style to that which saw him win nine major trophies in his playing career at Old Trafford.
There’s no chance United would offer him anything but an interim role until the end of the season. Like Lampard upon his return to Chelsea having been sacked by Everton, Solskjaer is currently picking up the pieces of his managerial career after just 29 games in charge of Besiktas. And as evidenced by him not being good enough the first time, there’s only so much benefit to ‘knowing the club’.
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United hiring a manager whom they’ve already sacked once would be a bad look. But it wasn’t the INEOS regime that got rid of him and assuming they won’t make the same grave ‘now or never’ ultimatum error to force Amorim to take permanent charge mid-season, we could absolutely see them plumping for an appointment in a bid to get the fans back onside, with that fanciful ‘Manchester United DNA’ so far removed from the current football being played that it’s no longer even part of the ‘what’s wrong with United’ rhetoric.
Solskjaer would also usher in the return of 4-3-3, which may be United’s best bet of getting back into Europe with the current crop of players, many of whom have now taken against Amorim’s doomed formation and philosophy, and would presumably welcome Solskjaer’s – let’s call it fluid – style.
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But we would urge Solksjaer when asking himself ‘why wouldn’t I?’ to consider Lampard at Chelsea.
“I’m not getting ahead of myself,” Lampard said when asked about what the future might hold at the end of the 2022/2023 season. “I want to do the best I can to impact the club in this period and we will see what happens afterwards.”
He arrived believing it possible he would be handed a permanent contract. He won one and lost eight of his 11 games in charge and Chelsea scored just nine goals, and left that role with many of us wondering whether that would be that for him in management before showing his worth at Championship level with Coventry.
We imagine Solskjaer is poised for the United call. We can’t imagine a world in which he refuses an offer to return. But while the worst outcome for United would be another terrible season, the worst for him would be the demolition of an already broken reputation, and the best merely a few months of paid work and the Stretford End chanting his name before he’s out on his ear looking for further employment.
