Harry Diamond
Robin van Persie has questioned whether ‘struggling’ Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is the right man to revive Manchester United’s fortunes.
The club’s difficult start to the new season continued with a 1-0 defeat at Newcastle on Sunday, debutant Matty Longstaff scoring the only goal of the game as Steve Bruce’s side earned a vital victory at St James’ Park.
Defeat means Manchester United have won just two of their opening eight Premier League fixtures, whilst the clubs winless run away from home has now stretched to an 11th game in all competitions.
Following the defeat, United boss Solskjaer said his side are ‘lacking confidence’ and admitted he ‘needs to sort their heads out’ as they bid to turn their fortunes around, with the club languishing in 12th position following their poor run of results.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær admitted that it is his responsibility to help the young players and "sort their heads out" after Manchester United's loss to Newcastle.#PL pic.twitter.com/sjLukWX6T6
— SuperSport 🏆 (@SuperSportTV) October 6, 2019
United were once again short of creativity and imagination as they failed to score for the third time in their last four fixtures, and Robin van Persie has now questioned whether Solskjaer is the right man to arrest their decline, with the Norwegian’s comments causing concern for the former Red Devils striker.
“You can see he’s struggling there, if I’m really honest, during that interview,” Van Persie told Optus Sport.
“And I get it if you’re manager of Manchester United during this period of time.
“So he’s searching for words, maybe he chose a few wrong ones there.
“Because as a player, what does that mean? ‘Sorting the players’ heads out’, what does that mean?
“If you’re a player you’re a little bit like, ‘my head is fine’.
17 – Since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was appointed permanently on March 28th, Manchester United have won just 17 points in 16 @premierleague matches (W4 D5 L7), the fourth-worst tally among the 17 ever-present teams in that time. Wheel. pic.twitter.com/cbd1OYGNv6
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) October 6, 2019
“Even though you can see the players are low in confidence, he needs to find a way to reconnect again and to get their confidence high.
“As a manager, when your team is low in confidence, get them up. When your team is too high in confidence, when they are becoming a little bit too much, you have to get them back to the middle again.
“At the moment, based on this interview, and based on what I’ve seen in the game, I’m not sure if he really knows how to find the buttons there.”
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