Manchester United look lost under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

Monday’s dismal draw with Arsenal underlined how lost Manchester United look under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

This was a terrible game. There have been many chapters in the Arsenal-Manchester United rivalry over the years. For a while back in the 1990s, it seemed to be a personal battle between Ian Wright and Peter Schmeichel. Then came the Wenger v. Ferguson epoch, when these matches could decide titles.

But the present period is likely to be remembered as the time when neither team was any good.

Arsenal were marginally the better side — less bad would probably be a more apt description — but it was the nature of the two teams’ moments of promise that underscored Manchester United’s problems.

Arsenal’s good play at least tended to look like the product of work on the training ground. It seemed to be repeatable.

In contrast, Manchester United’s better moments mostly appeared to be the result of talented individuals. They seldom looked like a team, or at least not a very good one. Yes, they showed plenty of endeavor and sound defensive positioning. But these things are prerequisites for any professional side, let alone one of United’s stature.

The responsibility for this continuing incoherence must surely lay at the door of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. When the camera cut to him on Monday evening, he looked by turns bewildered, mournful and helpless.

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Even Manchester United’s goal seemed to embody their malaise. They broke quickly from an Arsenal corner, and Marcus Rashford collected an over-hit cross. His pass appeared to be aimed at Paul Pogba, but it instead reached Scott McTominay, whose shot became impossible to save after taking a cruel deflection off Arsenal center-back Sokratis.

McTominay’s strike was well-hit and the pace with which United broke was impressive. But it was a mess of a goal from a mess of a team, and it’s hard to feel that the manager deserved much credit for it.

The uninitiated would never have guessed from the display that this Manchester United squad is one of the most expensively-assembled in the history of soccer — and the same could be said about any of their performances over the past month or so.

In recent weeks Solskjaer’s side have only managed to draw with 10-man Southampton, eked out a one-goal home victory in the Europa League against unfancied Kazakhstan side FC Astana, lost 2-0 to West Ham and needed penalties to get past third-tier Rochdale in the Carabao Cup.

The United manager can’t really point to being the victim of bad luck, either. His team have been given more penalties than any other Premier League side this term, and in United’s first six league games they only played one of the traditional top six.

Even that game seems fortuitously timed in hindsight, coming as it did on the opening day of the season against a Chelsea side that had yet to find its bearings under new coach frank Lampard.

Nonetheless, Solskjaer’s team came into this match still barely averaging more than a point and a goal scored per match, and sitting a mere three points above the relegation zone.

Of the many worrying statistics that were trotted out in the run-up to this game, perhaps the most damning was that Manchester United’s league results since Solskjaer took over are precisely the same as those that led to Jose Mourinho being dismissed.

It was a defeat by Liverpool that eventually did for Mourinho. United have both Juergen Klopp’s side and Chelsea to play before the end of October. Those games could spell the end for Solskjaer, too.