Firstly, this is not a thread championing Mourinho. He lost the dressing room and had to go.
The timing of Mourinho's departure was surprising. However, not so, if you were aware that you would not be investing in the January transfer window, and know that the Portuguese manager would implode after our failure in the summer.
When Solskjaer came in to not just steady the ship but turn it into a speed boat, my first thoughts were, right that shows we are not going to do anything in the January window, and he has been put in to do the best with what he has got. And lo and behold, no activity other than outgoings in January.
Martial and Jones putting pen to paper is good news, but is masking the fact that we are not investing enough on the pitch to properly challenge at the top level this season, and if Solskjaer gets the job on a full time basis, will that herald a period where he is expected to continue to work with what he has got, with no significant strengthening?
That is my concern.
What we have right now is a squad that is only good enough to be Top 4. Mourinho, for all his miriad of faults knew this. After all, he built some of this.
But that does not mean that he was wrong in terms of needing investment for this season, especially if we have any ambitions to even challenge for the Premier League or do anything significant in the Champions League.
He is right that our central defenders are not good enough at the top level. They are exposed when we play top sides. Against Spurs they were all over the shop and for the Mbappe goal, especially just embarrassing. How Bailly can let that ball get across him is concerning. He has to block it.
We also lack in central midfield and this has been a long-time mantra. While the performances of Herrera and Matic have undoubtedly been a revelation since Solskjaer invited them to pass forward instead of sideways and back, at the very top level, they don't compare. And that is the engine room.
And with Pogba out, who is there? Fred? McTominay? MCTOMINAY? Against even against a weakened PSG?
My concern has been throughout this season, that to compete at the top level we had to invest in at least one top central midfielder and at least one top level central defender. That has not happened.
Sanchez and Lukaku perhaps need to leave to be replaced, so that we have more options in terms of squad. Martial, especially, needs competition to keep him on his toes, because he occasionally goes missing in the big games.
So where we are now, is just about our level.
Ole has brought the spirit of Manchester United back, no question. But the PSG game reminds me of our defeat to Juventus in Turin, nearly 23 years ago, when it was men against boys, a real learning curve for a young, promising but inexperienced United side. It was 1-0, but as Gary Neville once said it could have been 10-0.
I think we, as a team, on and off the pitch, can learn from this. As we learnt from that Juventus game.
However, we never won the Champions League three years later without adding investment to vital Champions League guile. Between then and what had to be the most memorable United victories of my lifetime, we made some vital changes. We had Stam instead of Pallister. Poborsky, McClair and Jordi Cruyff were gone. We had added quality in Dwight Yorke, Blomqvist and Sheringham.
We now have to rely on the Glazers and Ed Woodward. And that sentence fills me with a certain amount of dread.
The timing of Mourinho's departure was surprising. However, not so, if you were aware that you would not be investing in the January transfer window, and know that the Portuguese manager would implode after our failure in the summer.
When Solskjaer came in to not just steady the ship but turn it into a speed boat, my first thoughts were, right that shows we are not going to do anything in the January window, and he has been put in to do the best with what he has got. And lo and behold, no activity other than outgoings in January.
Martial and Jones putting pen to paper is good news, but is masking the fact that we are not investing enough on the pitch to properly challenge at the top level this season, and if Solskjaer gets the job on a full time basis, will that herald a period where he is expected to continue to work with what he has got, with no significant strengthening?
That is my concern.
What we have right now is a squad that is only good enough to be Top 4. Mourinho, for all his miriad of faults knew this. After all, he built some of this.
But that does not mean that he was wrong in terms of needing investment for this season, especially if we have any ambitions to even challenge for the Premier League or do anything significant in the Champions League.
He is right that our central defenders are not good enough at the top level. They are exposed when we play top sides. Against Spurs they were all over the shop and for the Mbappe goal, especially just embarrassing. How Bailly can let that ball get across him is concerning. He has to block it.
We also lack in central midfield and this has been a long-time mantra. While the performances of Herrera and Matic have undoubtedly been a revelation since Solskjaer invited them to pass forward instead of sideways and back, at the very top level, they don't compare. And that is the engine room.
And with Pogba out, who is there? Fred? McTominay? MCTOMINAY? Against even against a weakened PSG?
My concern has been throughout this season, that to compete at the top level we had to invest in at least one top central midfielder and at least one top level central defender. That has not happened.
Sanchez and Lukaku perhaps need to leave to be replaced, so that we have more options in terms of squad. Martial, especially, needs competition to keep him on his toes, because he occasionally goes missing in the big games.
So where we are now, is just about our level.
Ole has brought the spirit of Manchester United back, no question. But the PSG game reminds me of our defeat to Juventus in Turin, nearly 23 years ago, when it was men against boys, a real learning curve for a young, promising but inexperienced United side. It was 1-0, but as Gary Neville once said it could have been 10-0.
I think we, as a team, on and off the pitch, can learn from this. As we learnt from that Juventus game.
However, we never won the Champions League three years later without adding investment to vital Champions League guile. Between then and what had to be the most memorable United victories of my lifetime, we made some vital changes. We had Stam instead of Pallister. Poborsky, McClair and Jordi Cruyff were gone. We had added quality in Dwight Yorke, Blomqvist and Sheringham.
We now have to rely on the Glazers and Ed Woodward. And that sentence fills me with a certain amount of dread.