Manchester United’s desperate search for consistency continues as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer passes 100-game mark

Volatile results are provoking volatile reactions, with each win a turning point and each defeat a crisis

(Manchester United via Getty Imag)

Before his flight to Istanbul on Tuesday lunchtime, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was asked about Manchester United’s worrying lack of consistency. How did he explain the drop-off in performance between last week’s 5-0 win over RB Leipzig and the limp 1-0 defeat by Arsenal on Sunday?

“It's fine margins in games of football and everyone who’s played and everyone who is part of it knows that,” he said. “There are games that you get the margins with you. There’s games you get them against you. Of course we want to go into every game thinking we can out-play any opposition.

“We play against good teams. They’re definitely teams that will do their homework against us, we do our homework against them and [the Arsenal defeat] was a game decided by small margins.” Then came the curious part of his answer. “Even the Leipzig one,” he added. “I know the end score will be remembered and highlighted 5-0, but it wasn't a 5-0 game.”

Few managers in Solskjaer’s position would talk down the stand-out result of their side’s season to date – particularly during a difficult run of form – but the Norwegian can be remarkably honest in his assessment of United’s displays, sometimes too honest. And as surprising as his analysis was, it was fairer than much of the reaction to the two results over the past week.

United were excellent against Leipzig, especially in the second half, but only truly blew Julian Nagelsmann’s side away late on, once their visitors had over-stretched themselves in search of an equaliser. Arsenal, meanwhile, just about deserved their three points for posing a greater threat than United’s woeful attack, but – as in the stalemate with Chelsea a week earlier – the contest was so low on quality that neither team could really have complained had the game ended in a draw.

So are United as bad as they were against Arsenal, as good as they were against Leipzig, or does the truth lie somewhere in between? Results and performances are so inconsistent at the moment that it is hard to tell, and volatile results provoke volatile reactions. Each win is a turning point, each defeat a crisis. Perhaps it is impossible to get a sense of whether Solskjaer has achieved, underachieved or is performing par from a mere 90 minutes.

Handily, then, Sunday happened to be Solskjaer’s 100th game in charge, with the two-year anniversary of his caretaker spell fast approaching. But sadly for Solskjaer, an overview of his record in the Old Trafford dugout is not particularly flattering. A record of 56 wins, 20 draws and 24 defeats is not befitting of a United manager. The defeat by Arsenal saw his Premier League win percentage dip below the 50 percent mark.

That’s over the 100 games. Strip out the interim spell that propelled him from trusty caretaker to permanent manager and it becomes particularly grim reading. Then, the league win percentage drops as low as 42 percent. Solskjaer’s average of 1.56 points-per-game is typically enough for a team to finish seventh. United’s lowest-ever Premier League finish? Seventh. Even David Moyes, the man responsible for that nadir, took more points per game on average.

Solskjaer’s record would improve if United found consistency, which in turn may come if they settled on a particular system. The diamond excelled against Leipzig and failed against Arsenal. It has a lot of strengths, but – in the lack of attacking width from full-back – one glaring weakness. Solskjaer, for what it’s worth, seems happy to keep journalists and opposition managers guessing.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer looks on as Arsenal defeat his United team (Manchester United via Getty Images)

“It’s always positive to have options and ways of playing,” he said on Tuesday, when asked about the increasingly frequent changes of formation. “We have a style that we want to play, but it’s 11 players who rotate and fill different roles and different positions. Sometimes you can look at it on paper as 4-4-2, diamond, 4-3-3. It doesn’t matter, the principles are still there.”

Those principles still need to be harnessed into a winning system. Will that happen against Istanbul Basaksehir? On the one hand, it is a midweek Champions League game rather than a weekend Premier League fixture. United are playing well in Europe and three points would put Solskjaer and his players on the brink of qualifying for the knock-out stages with three games to spare.

On the other, it is against a side who are expected to happily sit off, give up possession and dare their guests to break them down. United have shown signs of improvement against stubborn opponents, picking off several of them during Project Restart and patiently waiting for their moment to strike in last month’s win away at Newcastle United, but defeats like the one in the opening game of their season to Crystal Palace still stick in the craw.

But if the last few weeks have taught us anything it is that, whatever the result in Istanbul, it should not be viewed as a triumph or disaster. It should be placed in a wider context. When Manchester United’s results are taken in isolation, they appear to be veering from the sublime to the ridiculous. When viewed in the full perspective of Solskjaer’s reign to date, it is clear they still remain a long way off their former standard.