But don't you think that's a really messed up way of judging the situation? Why is Ole continuing to be doubted when he's probably the single biggest factor of us being in the position to challenge? Why is it that one draw (let alone a defeat) can somehow eradicate all that progress that we've made? The process and progress has never been linear and there will bumps along the way, but if every negative outweighs the multiple positives before it, then it just seems that nothing will ever be good enough unless we win the title or CL. Why is it that a loss in a semi or a final somehow means that everything before it has been reduced to nought? Do people not remember how close we were to spiralling in the same way that Arsenal are? In fact, Arsenal had a much better league record than we had since Fergie left and finished ahead of us in 18/19. Ole coming in arrested that decline and now he's in a position to push further on, but there are still gaps (and one in particular) that need to be filled especially when you compare it to City and Chelsea who had a headstart. He's done the hard part in building us back up to the extent that top level players like Varane and Sancho want to be here. He just needs two more big additions (which should be coming in next year) and the team will be set for the immediate and long-term. Even with the draw yesterday, I'd still back us to finish 3rd this year at a minimum.
Now don't get me wrong, I understand that he'll always be criticised, that's just the nature of the job and culture in the English sporting press, but even so, surely he has done enough to be given some benefit of the doubt?
Regarding the bits in bold:
1) You could very easily argue the improvement is mostly is down to better recruitment on our part. And while Solskjaer plays a part in that, he certainly isn't responsible for it entirely as quite a lot of changes have occurred in the background as well. The whole point of those improvements is that they can outlast any given manager.
2) I don't think one draw does eradicate the progress he's made, nor does it mean he shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt. I certainly don't think people should be throwing their toys out of the pram over two dropped points. We saw City struggle
a lot at the start of last season before going on to win the league, for example.
But equally it shouldn't take the progress we've made being eradicated to to conclude he isn't a manager on the level of Klopp, Guardiola, Tuchel, etc if our season doesn't go as well as hoped. And (for the first season since he's arrived) he's actually expected to hit the levels of those managers as we're now cast as title competitors against them rather than a club slowly rebuilding. So with those heightened expectations reactions are going to be more extreme.
3) He does need new additions, but the fans of all the teams we're competing with would say they need additions too. The expectation for a manager at this level is that you're able to be competitive without your squad being the finished article. Taking City as an example, they had to rely on Ilkay Gundogan being their top scorer in the league last season and are in desperate need of a CF this season too, yet they won the league last year and will be criticised if they don't compete for the league again this season.
I'm not saying we should be winning the league but having some flaws in what is a generally excellent squad shouldn't absolve Solskjaer of blame if/when things go wrong given part of his job is to organise us so we can perform beyond our weaknesses. And it's important that we don't need to wait for the team to completely implode again before we contemplate the quality of our manager, else the last several years of rebuilding will have been for nothing.