Manchester United continue to struggle for consistency

Manchester United cannot play to the level they’re capable of playing against lesser teams

This is an issue that shows up time and time again and which I have written about seemingly time and time again. Manchester United are too good and have too much talent to play with such massive swings.

One minute they can play against the best of the best, and the next they are losing to Young Boys  in a UCL group gtage match and West Ham United in a Carabao Cup third round match.

A team that has just signed Cristiano Ronaldo, still considered one of the best players in the world despite his age, should not be losing matches to less impressive outfits so consistently.

Ole Gunnar Solskjær, the famous former Manchester United striker and current manager, must find some recourse and he must find it fast. I have said this before of him but there is still so much time. United sits in the hunt for the top of the table, just a point behind Liverpool, and grouped with a bevy of other clubs that may or may not have the juice to make the top four at the end of the year.

Does United have that juice, however?

It is not easy to tell because while they have as much as talent as any of those clubs, if not more, they are missing something — although it is difficult to describe exactly what that is. Whatever it is, they better make sure that they find it fast or else a whole bunch of players and fans will be as disgruntled as they were under when Louis van Gaal or Jose Mourinho were in charge.

Manchester United: Better than what some of their performances suggest

There is a real disconnect between the likes of Ronaldo, Marcus Rashford, Edison Cavani, Bruno Fernandes, Scott McTominay, Harry McGuire and the whole lot of famous, expensive players on the team and the results on the pitch. This is not to say players and teams are not allowed to slip up on occasion, but the best teams beat the teams they’re supposed to more often than not. Why can’t Manchester United?

Is it the boss, the players? It is likely a mixture of both.

While world class players like Ronaldo and his old Real Madrid buddy Raphaël Varane understand how to win and perform as professionals, they cannot singlehandedly remodel the psyches of so many individuals on a whim. It will take time for this mentality, of which Solskjær has surely been trying to intertwine into his players as well, can be accepted as habit and not something foreign.

There will be many chances to correct these early season stumbles, not in the Carabao Cup, but elsewhere, like in the Premier League and the Champions League. There is definitely still time to change the narrative regarding this United side.

Every team is a work in progress and none is ever finished, even when that team wins a trophy, or trophies. Yet for the Red Devils, the wait has to generate some rewards sooner than later.

They should have won something under Solskjær at this point, and while he says that building a winning culture is about more than just trophies, he would not argue trophies are a part of the whole thing as well.

Another chance for silverware slipped through their fingers in a legendary match and ensuing penalty shootout against Unai Emery’s Villarreal in the Europa League final last season. This year, the expectations are higher given the signing of Ronaldo and others during the summer transfer window.

That doesn’t mean Solskjær should, or will, be fired if he fails to win anything this season, only there is an expectation that something will finally be won. Ole is a good coach and needs time to get better and feel himself out. But he has a talented team and must start to win trophies. United must first right the ship before they can think about trophies. That will be the short term priority in both England and Europe.