Manchester United chiefs Joel Glazer, Ed Woodward and Richard Arnold are all involved in the process when it comes to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s future, reports say. The Norwegian has overseen a turbulent season at Old Trafford so far. And, consequently, talk of the sack has arisen in recent weeks.
United’s season promised so much during the early embers of the campaign, especially after the big signings of Jadon Sancho, Raphael Varane and Cristiano Ronaldo.
However, Solskjaer’s side have stuttered this term and go into Saturday’s clash with Watford on a run of six defeats from their last 12 matches.
As a result, there’s been plenty of chatter about United potentially sacking Solskjaer over the past two weeks.
Humblings to Leicester, Liverpool and Manchester City have increased the doom and gloom mood around the place, while also leading to links to the likes of Zinedine Zidane, Erik ten Hag, Brendan Rodgers and Mauricio Pochettino.
And The Athletic say that, when it comes to potentially relieving Solskjaer of his duties, three people are involved.
Glazer will supposedly have the final say, with the American one of the club’s owners.
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He, rather than brother Avram, is particularly close to the club and spends most of his day running the operation from afar.
Glazer has previously sacked David Moyes and Louis van Gaal when Champions League football is impossible to achieve, while Jose Mourinho was axed due to the fact he’d sucked the life out of the place.
Woodward has been involved in the exits of all three managers and he will provide an ‘input’, as well as Arnold.
Arnold is expected to soon replace Woodward as the club’s vice-executive chairman, which may explain why he’s part of the decision as well.
John Murtough and Darren Fletcher, meanwhile, will only ‘offer opinions’ on the matter.
And Matt Judge, who is head of negotiations, will merely pass information on rather than provide his verdict.
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For now, Solskjaer’s fate rests in the hands of Glazer, Woodward and Arnold.
And with United wary of sacking the 48-year-old just yet, it’ll be interesting to see if he can get his players firing sooner, rather than later.
The publication adds some within the club have dismissed links to Zidane, who remains out of work following his departure from Real Madrid earlier in the summer.
And Paris Saint-Germain insiders are said to be stressing that Pochettino won’t be allowed to leave the Parc des Princes for Old Trafford.
Jamie O’Hara, meanwhile, recently branded the Red Devils a ‘shambles’ for sticking with Solskjaer.
“I’ve been saying this for weeks, months – Manchester United are a shambles keeping hold of the manager,” he said.
“They’ve got a world-class squad of players with a basic manager who wouldn’t even get another job in the Premier League. I can’t believe they’re not being ruthless enough to say, ‘right, now’s the time to do it’.
“They’ve kept hanging on and hanging on. This season, he [Solskjaer] even said no more excuses with the squad of players they’ve got. Everyone said that.
“And straight away they’re out of the title race, they’re not going to win the title this season, so they’ve wasted another season.
“These players like Paul Pogba and Cristiano Ronaldo will be looking at it thinking, ‘for Christ’s sake, there are so many good players we’ve got and we should be doing so much better’, but they are all over the place!
“They are painful to watch. It’s actually painful to watch such a good group of players play so badly.
“Any other manager, if it was Mourinho or Van Gaal, if anyone else was going on this run they’d be slaughtered.
“For some reason, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer seems to get a free ride. They have got a world class group of players but a bang average manager who’s out of his depth.
“I don’t know why they’re clinging on to something that’s never going to work and never going to last.
“Even Pogba’s coming out and basically said the manager isn’t good enough.
“It’s desperation. Every time I watch Man United, it’s desperation.
“You watch Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea and you know exactly what you’re getting because their managers have them set up a certain way.
“With Man United, the only reason they get results is because they have great players, they don’t have a philosophy or style, they don’t know what they’re doing!”
