Have they figured out Manchester United’s Ole Gunnar Solskjaer? In American football, most new coaches have flashes of brilliance. Give them 10 more games and the trajectory will evolve: the yo-yo coaches will fade while the legends will emerge. The fact is this: by the time game strategists watch 10-15 tapes, they can deconstruct any manager’s strategy on the pitch.
Manchester United lost to Arsenal in Premiership last week, and just added another loss to Wolves in the FA Cup. Sure, this should not cause any panic to ManU fans. And it must not diminish the transformation that Mr. Solskjaer had engineered since he replaced the chosen one – José Mourinho. Yet, the fans and the club owners should hope that the man has deep “strategy reserves”.
He needs those reserves to keep confusing and outsmarting opponents to win games. But if they have figured him out and he has no extra reserve to draw from, he is done. Modern soccer (yes, our football) is nothing but strategy executed by 11 men under the guidance of coaches. The quality of coaching is statistically significant to win championships irrespective of the quality of players.
Simply, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer needs a bigger strategy book, as Wole Soyinka will write in The Lion and the Jewel when Lakunle told Sidi: “ I have ordered / The Longer One [dictionary] – you wait”. The nation of Red Devils should send him a bigger book for his strategy!
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