At the second international break, Manchester United are truly in dire straits. Sitting in twelfth place, just two points ahead of the relegation zone, you have to wonder about the job security of manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Yes, he deserves to be given adequate time, but the results speak for themselves, and these awful results are nowhere near the standard for Manchester United. They have not won a road game, of any sort since the UCL triumph at Paris Saint-Germain in March.
It’s worth noting that a managerial switch certainly won’t solve all the clubs woes, as the real rot is at the overall head of the organization, but the seat of OGS is warming.
In fact, there is a report out there already stating that Solskjaer will be sacked if the Norwich City fixture doesn’t go their way. It’s from the Scottish Sun, so please take it all with a grain of salt, but the narrative goes like this- United are already resigned to defeat against their arch-rivals, Liverpool next Sunday, and it’s the following fixture, against newly promoted Norwich City that will ultimately determine his fate.
If it is Ole out, then what’s the plan? It’s pretty clear that OGS didn’t have the resume for this job to begin with and ever since his job status went from interim to permanent, he’s looked every part a man in over his head.
However, you need a credible replacement, and that could be Julian Nagelsmann, the 32-year-old RB Leipzig head man. That’s according to the Daily Mail, who write that Nagelsmann “is already on his second top-flight job in Germany and earning admirers at struggling Premier League giants United.”
Nagelsmann, who got his first top flight job with Hoffenheim at age 28, is in his first season in charge of Leipzig and is contracted to the Bundesliga side until 2023.
Turning to another big, rich high profile club that is struggling massively right now, manager Mauricio Pochettino is seeing his seat scorching hot right now. It’s certainly not all his fault, and a lot of what ails Spurs is something Pochettino warned them was coming, but the Argentine may pay the price and get canned nonetheless.
So if he does get the axe, who is next? Quite possibly his good friend, and former United manager, Jose Mourinho.
Mourinho, who was sacked by United last December, is looking for a way back in to the managerial game and biding his time until the right opportunity comes along. He’s been doing the broadcast thing, and excelling at it, in the mean time.
According to the Daily Mail, the Special One is eying the gig in north London as his next potential move.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
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