When Manchester United were at their inconsistent worse, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer followed in suit.
Throughout their up and down start to the season, guessing a Solskjaer starting XI was akin to predicting the week’s lottery numbers.
“I think Manchester United need to have a plan, a strategy of playing consistently, so that players can start to build relationships based off memory and knowing where people are going to be on the pitch,” Rio Ferdinand said after United’s Champions League exit to RB Leipzig.
“I don’t think Ole has come in and said, ‘This is the way we’re going to play, this is my style of football’,” Ferdinand added. “He’s just saying, ‘Right, I’m going to try to find something that suits the players I have here on a game by game situation’ and that’s not the answer.”
And the stats backed up the Red Devils legend. In their opening 16 games, Solskjaer had played seven different defensive combinations, 11 midfield combos and nine attacking solutions.
It led many to believe that under the Norwegian, United struggled to find an identity that would see them achieve success.
But in recent months, a more coherent plan appears to have emerged.
In defence, there is little debate that Luke Shaw, Victor Lindelof, Harry Maguire and Aaron Wan-Bissaka is his first choice quartet.
That consistency has brought reward along with it. After shipping goals left, right and centre at the start of the campaign, United have become a miserly operation, keeping six clean sheets in their last seven.
When results eluded him earlier this season, there were reports that some of Man United’s ‘core’ players were concerned with inconsistent selections and feared he didn’t know his best team.
But in the aftermath of the 1-0 Europa League win over AC Milan, Solskjaer hinted that the duo of Scott McTominay and Fred is now his go-to pairing.
He said: “You give yourself a chance to win a game of football [with clean sheets]. Dean had a fantastic save towards the end from the big lad [Zlatan Ibrahimovic] and I’m very pleased with everyone’s defending.
“From the front you see Dan James, Mason [Greenwood], Marcus [Rashford] and Bruno [Fernandes] – the front four all pressing like they did. We always know that the back six, with Scott and Fred and the back four, always give everything.”
Bruno Fernandes is of course, the first name on the team sheet, while the return of Paul Pogba is another selection headache he will need to solve.
But with every passing week, it feels Solskjaer is edging closer and closer to finally knowing his best team. And United are all the better for it.
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