They say a week is a long time in football, but it turns out 45 minutes is also an age.
With Manchester United trailing 2-0 to Atalanta in the Champions League on Wednesday night – an injury hit side with around a 1/10th of their wage bill – the knives were out for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
However, the second half saw a stirring comeback - stirring, that is, if you were rooting for Sauron to snatch the One Ring from the flames, behead Frodo and Sam and burn down the Shire. With the assistance of The Terminator.
The T-1000 himself Cristiano Ronaldo bagged one of his classic late headers to win the game, changing the narrative dramatically once again.
During the match though there was vocal criticism of the relatively easy ride Solskjaer gets from former United players in the media.
Some stated it was understandable that they didn't want to slag off a friend – though the rest of us would love to get on live television and slag our mates off to be honest.
With that in mind we've taken five former Manchester United players – kind of – and ranked them in order of Ole opprobrium.
5) Gary Neville
He's a fine analyst on Sky Sports and a strong voice on societal and governmental matters but Neville openly admits he finds it difficult when it comes to Solskjaer.
Speaking on the 4-2 defeat to Leicester City, Jamie Carragher insisted his fellow pundit would never call out the United boss.
Neville admitted: "No, I won't. I won't call Steve Kean out, or Arsene Wenger at Arsenal. I'm not going to come on this show 11 years later and ask for a manager to be sacked. It's never going to happen. He's a club legend. He's my team-mate. I actually like him a lot.
"Manchester United have failed with two previous managers who have been world class. I think they persist until the end of the season.
"If he does win the Europa League and the FA Cup, and they finish in the top four, I would still say that's building a successful team."
Perhaps Neville is just worried Ole would bring up his own managerial record, which amounted to a package holiday in Valencia.
4) Robbie Savage
To be fair to Robbie Savage – a sentence which is not often typed by anyone – he has a vested interest in not getting on Solskjaer's bad side given his son is in the Manchester United youth team, as the Welshman once was himself.
He did offer some mild criticism of the Red Devils boss back in January when he played down his team's title chances but anyone listening to his commentary on that win over Atalanta could hardly label Savage a critic.
The man signed off with "viva Ronaldo, goodnight" for God's sake. Though you expect CR7 makes his kids say the same thing before tucking them in at night.
3) Roy Keane
Unless you're Denis Irwin or a labrador you're never safe from a Roy Keane tongue lashing, but the Irishman has been fairly reserved by his own fiery standards when it comes to his former team-mate.
He certainly doesn't go easy on Solskjaer but the former Celtic man is usually more keen to point the finger of blame at the players.
Keane said in May: "These are the same players that threw Mourinho under the bus and they will do exactly the same to Ole.
"Leopards do no change their spots. There are too many bluffers at this club to get United back to the very top."
Keane and Solskjaer later met up for a cup of tea to discuss things though and his criticism has been more muted in recent months.
It was the Man Utd boss himself who revealed that summit, though he wouldn't be drawn on whether the water was boiled under the sole power of Keane's furious gaze.
2) Rio Ferdinand
The former England centre-back goes both ways on the issue and was certainly giddy after the Atalanta comeback.
However, Ferdinand has given Solskjaer a pasting when he feels it's warranted.
He said this week: "I watched the game against Leicester twice, and I was just shocked at how disoriented the team was, how there was no unity within the team, no compactness.
"The manager's got to be demanding of these players. You can't tell me (Jadon) Sancho doesn't have the capacity to sprint and run to people for 90 minutes. You can't tell me (Mason) Greenwood hasn't got the capacity to do it.
"This season now is Ole's squad... He will be judged on winning things now. He's got to go and win something and show improvement again and if he doesn't, then he's going to be on the chopping (block).
"But I don't think the club will be having a knee-jerk reaction now. He's done enough to warrant finishing this season."
And he was critical enough back in September to warrant a rebuke from Solskjaer.
Footage emerged of Cristiano Ronaldo standing beside his manager and appearing to advise him, with Ferdinand saying he'd have told the Portuguese to "sit down".
Solskjaer hit back: "Rio, again you know, sometimes he comments on things he doesn't really know."
The former centre-back's confident declarations that "it's coming home" all summer may lend credence to that argument.
1) Paul Scholes
And finally to local curmudgeon Paul Scholes who was stinging in his assessment after the Atalanta win.
Though arguably a bit disrespectful to a team which has finished third in Serie A for three seasons in a row and reached two Coppa Italia finals in that spell, much like when tackling in his playing days the pundit went in two-footed.
Scholes fumed: "If we play like that against a proper team, it’ll be disastrous.
"If they play like that (against Liverpool), they’ll get destroyed. There was no connection between the team.
“Fred gets pushed out [for the first goal] and Scott McTominay didn’t know where to go.
“If that happened, could you imagine Kevin De Bruyne playing against that?
"Ole was emotional after the game, but the shape was all wrong in the first-half and I thought they had too many chances.
“To be fair, when a team is getting beaten 2-0 at half-time at home, I wouldn't say the performance could be that good.
“Like I said, Ole was emotional, he’s just won a game, but I didn’t like the first-half and it’s worried me.
"I think probably City and Livepool's players respect the manager a little bit more than United players do.
"When you look at the performance last Saturday against Leicester, you'd have to say so, yeah.
“I think it's down to the manager to get effort and work-rate out of the players.
“I say it's down to him – that should come as a given [from players], but sometimes you can't do it Wednesday-Sunday-Tuesday-Saturday, whatever it is. You need a bit of motivation.
“You need to look at your manager and think 'yeah, I'm going to do it for you today' and I don't think it's always the case.
"I don't think United want to change the manager but, as always with managers, results will dictate that.
"Ole's had a little bad run now, losing four out of seven games, but he always seems to find a way to get a reaction out of them.
"A reaction against Atalanta, I don't really count, because it's a game they should win anyway, I think the reaction now has to come on Sunday, against a proper team."
Solskjaer may well lament that tirade is probably more than Scholes said publicly in his entire United career.
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