Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is fighting to save his job as Manchester United manager, with sources telling ESPN that the 48-year-old had already lost the faith of a sizable number of his squad even before Sunday’s 5-0 defeat against Liverpool.
ESPN has also been told that the United hierarchy is aware that former Juventus, Chelsea, and Inter Milan coach Antonio Conte is prepared to return to management at Old Trafford.
Solskjaer, initially appointed as interim manager following the sacking of Jose Mourinho in December 2018, has now lost five of his last nine games, and sources said that his support in the dressing room is largely limited to the core of United’s British players and a small number of the team’s overseas players.
Although sources have said the atmosphere around the club is nowhere close to being, in the words of one source, “as toxic as it was under Mourinho,” the defeat to Liverpool has cast an air of resignation around Old Trafford about Solskjaer’s future as manager.
ESPN has been told that Solskjaer’s inability to solve the team’s defensive problems, his apparent “favoritism” of underperforming players, and his reluctance to hand opportunities to Jesse Lingard, Donny van de Beek, and Nemanja Matic have led to some players openly criticizing the manager to teammates while on international duty.
