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Have United finally found Alex Ferguson’s replacement in Gunnar Solskjaer?

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Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

There’s no need dwelling on the level of success enjoyed by Manchester United during Alex Ferguson’s reign at Old Trafford because many things have happened after his retirement that needed to be talked about.

For the sake of those who didn’t know the reason why the Scottish manager is rated as one of the best managers in the history of the game, let me quickly go through some of his achievements during his 27 years at Old Trafford.

The former Aberdeen’s manager was appointed as United manager in 1986 and went on to win many major trophies before his retirement in 2013-14 season.

His achievements include 13 Premier League trophies, 5 FA Cup, 4 EFL Cup, 9 community shields, 2 Champions League, 1 FIFA Club World Cup.

In case you don’t know, most of the players — including Steve Bruce, Mark Hughes, Roy Keane, Paul Ince, Chris Casper , Darren Ferguson, Ole Gunnar Solskjær, Henning Berg, Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville — who featured under the former Scotland international are now managers at different clubs.

The 11-time Premier League manager of the season is no doubt the best manager the Red Devils have ever had and that’s the main reason it’s been so hard to find his perfect replacement after five years.

David Moyes couldn’t last beyond one year before he was sacked by the team.

Louis Van Gaal, despite all his achievements with the Dutch national team, couldn’t stay beyond one-and-a-half year before being shown the exit door.

José Mourinho, the special one, was brought to the helm of affair in 2016 hoping to emulate Fergie’s successful spell with the team.

He came closest to bringing Fergie’s memories back to Old Trafford as he won two trophies in his first season and he equally finished second in his second season.

But he was eventually sacked by the Red Devils hierarchy on Tuesday after running of poor results.

Can Gunnar Solskjaer emulate his former boss at Old Trafford?

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was one of the players who were tutored by Ferguson during his active days as United player. The 45-year-old Norwegian was Molde’s head coach before he was confirmed as United interim manager yesterday.

He has promised to follow Ferguson’s style of play during the time he will spend at Old Trafford, if that is the case, we should be expecting to see a United team with more attacking fluidity right?

We should be expecting a team who are capable of challenging for this year’s Champions League trophy because that’s what United were known to be during Ferguson’s regime.

However, we shouldn’t be too hopeful about what the new inexperienced manager would bring to the team.

Solskjaer shouldn’t put much pressure on himself by promising too much as well. His first mission is to secure a fourth-place finish by the end the season — that’s a difficult task to achieve if you ask me.

Manchester City, Liverpool, Tottenham, and Chelsea, are all looking like the team for the four Champions League’s qualifying slots.

Should he get the job done by finishing this season in the fourth position, then, we can be thinking whether United have found the next Alex Ferguson or they still need to search further.

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