This article is part of Football FanCast’s Pundit View series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent quotes from journalists, pundits, players and managers…
Speaking to Sky Sports, Manchester United legend Paul Scholes has slammed the club’s current form, and insisted that there “won’t be an acceptance from the fans”.
What did he say?
The Red Devils have endured a miserable start to the campaign, collecting just 18 points from their opening 14 Premier League games of the season. That has left them languishing in ninth place, and already eight points off the top four.
And with just eight wins in 21 games across all competitions, Scholes has lambasted the current state of the club, and questioned whether they were genuinely seeing any progress.
He said: “There won’t be an acceptance from the fans, Ole, his staff or people at the club. They know it’s not good enough. If Ole’s going to build he needs to get results along the way. You can’t be dropping points every game and finishing 10th in the league. He needs to show progression in his team.
“When Jurgen Klopp came in at Liverpool, for the first year or two you felt that they were building something. They look like they’re going to win the league this year. There needs to be some enthusiasm for the fans that they’re going to see a team that’s going to challenge for the league in a year or two. We haven’t seen that at the minute. But with three or four transfer windows who knows – hopefully Ole can turn it round.”
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Regression more than progression
The fact that Solskjaer’s win percentage since being confirmed as the club’s permanent manager stands at a woeful 27.3%, proves there has been relatively little sign of progress. Instead, there is a real argument to be made that the club have been moving backwards in these past few months of the Norwegian’s rein.
They have scored the same amount of goals as 15th-placed Aston Villa (21), and conceded just one less than 11th-placed Crystal Palace (17). There are issues at both ends of the pitch, and their lack of significant transfer activity in terms of signings further forward has severely hampered how dangerous they could potentially be.
Mauricio Pochettino’s sacking from Tottenham has only served to ratchet up the pressure on Solskjaer even more, and the longer the club goes without being in real touching distance of the top four, the less likely it becomes the Norwegian will be kept in charge.