LIVERPOOL, England — The smile that became so familiar in those first few months has long since disappeared. The sense of awe and wonder that he was allowed to be here, at the club that meant so much to him and in the job he never dared dream of holding, has gone, too, melting away some time between spring and fall.
So, too, the nostalgia reflex. At first, in his first weeks as Manchester United manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had a tendency, an instinct, to hark back to the club’s golden past, mentioning Barcelona and 1999 and Alex Ferguson so freely and so easily that it seemed to be automatic.
He does not talk about the good old days so much anymore. It is as if he realized some time ago that the job of restoring Manchester United to what it used to be — not so very long past — demands more than a healthy respect for bygone greatness and the rhetoric of romance.
As he sat in front of the news media at Anfield on Sunday night, beaten, 2-0, by the hosts, Solskjaer seemed weary, dejected, a sigh in a club suit. When he returned to Manchester, 13 months ago, it was striking how little he had aged. Solskjaer had always been known, as a player, as the Baby-Faced Assassin, and he was still — even in his mid-40s — somewhat cherubic.
No longer. He looks tired, drawn, grayed, a cautionary testament to the pressure he is under and the responsibility he feels. It was immediately apparent how much losing to Liverpool had hurt him. He had to force himself to concede that his opponent — now 16 points clear at the summit of the Premier League, with a game in hand and a record that reads, Played 22, Won 21 — might just be the best team in England. “At the moment,” he added, more placebo than balm.
Still, he did what he always does; he trawled for positives. His players had retained their “commitment,” he said. That was one. They had “stood up for each other.” That’s two. In the final half-hour, either they made Liverpool “look tired” or United “looked strong.” And all of that without three of his key players, after Marcus Rashford joined Scott McTominay and Paul Pogba on the injury list a few days before Sunday’s game.
This is what all managers do, of course; to some extent it is the whole point of the often futile exercise of the news conference. It is their chance to provide context, to sway a few minds, to make excuses, if necessary. Solskjaer is by no means unique in using it as a stage for self-justification.
And nor is he deluded. Strange as it might be to say after a defeat that sent Liverpool 30 points clear of Manchester United, with almost half a season left to play, Solskjaer has a right to look back on this game with a sense of — if not satisfaction, or encouragement, or any actual positive emotion — then possibility.
United came to Anfield with a plan. For the most part, that plan worked: Liverpool’s fullbacks will have rarely had a less effective afternoon from open play; stymied by United’s back three, the league leader’s fabled forward line could play only in fits and starts, swarming for brief spells but blunted for much of the game; often, Liverpool’s defense seemed hurried in possession, chased and pressed by United’s forwards.
Of course, United rode its luck at times, with Mohamed Salah and Jordan Henderson hitting the post, Roberto Firmino and Georginio Wijnaldum seeing goals ruled out, and Sadio Mané unusually profligate, but then United created chances, too, most notably for Andreas Pereira and Anthony Martial.
Not too much would have had to change for Solskjaer to have left Liverpool with a point, in other words, and a sense of purpose. Though he would not describe it like this, there were, all over the field, small victories to be savored: Brandon Williams’s performance on the left; Fred’s energy and dynamism in the middle, further proof of a player finding his feet in England; a tactical approach to negating Liverpool that bore fruit.
The problem, of course, is that the very best teams can hurt opponents in many and varied ways. Liverpool could not find its rhythm in possession and, until the final kick of the game, was indecisive on the counterattack. So after 15 minutes it scored from a corner, instead. It is possible to frustrate this Liverpool team. It does not — yet — appear to be impossible to dull it entirely.
The last time United came here, Liverpool won, too. That 3-1 victory, in December 2018, sent Jürgen Klopp’s team 19 points ahead of its old foe, and it cost José Mourinho his job. A couple days later, United called Solskjaer and asked him to guide the team through the remainder of the season. He could not say no.
A little more than a year later, here we are again. The gap between the two has grown. There is no prospect of Solskjaer’s suffering the same fate as his predecessor, of course, something that is perhaps proof of how far United has fallen: defeat to Liverpool can now be shrugged off as something that happens, something to be expected, the natural order of things.
In part, that is because United has found a remarkable tendency in the last year or so to savor those small victories: the ones that do not add up to any tangible achievement, but the ones that offer an illusion of hope, a mirage of progress.
The most egregious example came after a defeat to Manchester City in the first leg of the league cup semifinals earlier this month. The fact that City fielded a full-strength team, Solskjaer said, showed how seriously it took Manchester United, how far the team that used to cast a shadow over not only its city but the country has come.
But perhaps the best is Solskjaer’s ability — a happy knack — to concoct a win just when he needs it most. It happened against Tottenham, and then City, back in December; there had been a sense, at the start of that week, that two defeats might force the club’s board to act. It did not need to. Solskjaer claimed two small victories. United lost at Watford, then adrift at the bottom of the Premier League, not long after, but by then the storm had passed.
This is the cycle United finds itself trapped in; it is, as it happens, one that Liverpool fans will remember. There is always a glimmer of hope: a young player coming through, a system that seems promising, a game in which things seem to click, some small victory to cling to. It is beguiling, and it is appealing, and it is understandable, but it is also a distraction.
You fixate on the glimmer, and lose sight of where you are standing, where you are going, how far you are falling. Solskjaer, as he reviewed the game, felt Manchester United — the biggest club in England, and at the start of the decade a serial winner of trophies at home and abroad — lacked just one thing. “We just didn’t have that quality,” he said, as though that had to be expected, as though it might suddenly reappear, as though that was entirely normal. Perhaps it is, now. Perhaps that is why the smile has gone.
Source: Soccer - nytimes.com
