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A Villa vs Man City
January 17, (****************************************************************************************, 4: PM
Live on
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United are barely trying to build attacks in the same way. Solskjaer’s admirers continue to argue that this is because he does not have the personnel at his disposal but it is not just that. Not when Brighton have had more sequences of ten passes or more this season. Not when they have had more such passages of play leading to a shot.
This is a problem of personnel but it is also one of coaching.
Solskjaer has constructed a reactive team, one that can hit opponents on the break but one that utilizes pace but not skill. A team short on quality and short on the qualities that are needed to succeed. It is football unrecognisable from what City and Liverpool are serving up.
And he maintains that he just needs time.
“I have said before it is not going to be a quick fix,” Solskjaer said afterwards. “The two teams you are talking about are two of the best teams in the world. That is the task that we have got ahead of us. That’s something that we have started and I think you can see that we are still a way off, but we have started something that needed doing. “
Time will only close the gap if it is being used to take this team in the right direction. For all the heart. For all the fact that, as bizarre as it might seem, United fans trudged away from the theater of Dreams grateful to have been spared the nightmare that looked inevitable at half-time, there was little sign of that at Old Trafford on Tuesday night.
This gap is not closing. United still need a midfield, but then they still need a striker and a defense too. They might need a goalkeeper. And they might just need a manager as well. It was a grim night, a grim situation. Still the biggest club in the world? What is certain is that Manchester United still have the biggest problems of any big club in the world.
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