Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s bid to become the permanent manager of Manchester United is becoming more compelling with every game.
The 45-year-old Norwegian guided United into the fourth round of the FA Cup by winning his FIFTH successive game
since becoming interim boss after the sacking of Jose Mourinho.
And while a 2-0 victory over Championship strugglers Reading on the back of Premier League wins against Cardiff, Huddersfield, Bournemouth and Newcastle have given
Solskjaer the perfect platform to strengthen his claim, the feel-good factor at Old Trafford has now started to seep
through the corridors of power at the club.
Tottenham’s Mauricio Pochettino remains United’s No.1 target to take charge but there is a growing realisation that meeting Daniel Levy’s £40million compensation claim might not be enough to bring the Argentine 200 miles north to Manchester.
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Solskjaer already has staunch supporters on United’s football board.
We take a look at how he is building his bid to convince the executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward and the American owners that his sabbatical from Molde should be made
permanent at the end of the season.
1.Winning games
Solskjaer has become only the second United manager to win his first five games. The first was Matt Busby.
The gap to the top four has now been slashed to six points with 17 games of the season remaining and if Solskjaer can
deliver a place in the Champions League then he will have achieved more than the club expected when they asked him to heal a dressing room that had been torn apart by Mourinho’s methods.
Next up for United is a trip to face Pochettino’s Tottenham at Wembley. A victory over the man who is the club’s top
choice to take charge in the summer would crank up Solskjaer’s growing reputation at the club another notch.
2.PAUL POGBA
The sight of the French midfielder arriving late in the six-yard box of the opposition to score goals at the Stretford End is what was envisaged when United sanctioned a world-record £89m transfer fee to bring him back to Old Trafford.
Despite the flicks, tricks and terrible dance moves, Pogba is a simple soul who just wants to be loved. Solskjaer has found a cure for the man Mourinho called “a virus” by letting him to do the things he does best.
Pogba does not possess the discipline to operate as the deep-lying playmaker who protects his defence, but he has got the vision, the technique and the physicality to influence games with a flash of genius.
3.Sir Alex Ferguson
The former United manager is once again exerting his influence in the boardroom following his health scare last May – and he is a staunch supporter of the man who once scored a goal to win him the European Cup.
Fergie was instrumental in the decision to replace Mourinho and take the extraordinary step of bringing in an interim boss, whose only previous managerial experience in the Premier League ended with Cardiff being relegated.
The 77-year-old Scot is also a huge admirer of the job that Pochettino is doing at Spurs – and wanted United to make a
move for the Argentine when David Moyes’ attempt at replacing the club’s most successful manager ended in April
2014 only for Louis van Gaal to come in.
Ferguson’s fingerprints are all over the way United have thrown off the Mourinho shackles and if a kindred spirit like
Solskjaer can continue to improve the team then the Norwegian will have a strong ally in the boardroom next May.
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