Man United can't afford complacency as Solskjaer looks to stretch unbeaten run

Aditya Devavrat 20:24 08/02/2019
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  • Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will hope United don't slip up against Fulham.

    This weekend’s Premier League action kicks off with Manchester United looking to continue Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s unbeaten start to management at the club, as they take on Fulham in Saturday’s lunchtime fixture.

    The caretaker manager has so far won nine and drawn one of his ten games in charge, and a win against Fulham will see United back into the top four for the first time since immediately after the first day of the season, when they had beaten Leicester City and nobody else had played a game.

    For Claudio Ranieri’s Fulham side, the relegation picture is looking increasingly bleak and the odds are against the West London club pulling off a shock result on Saturday.

    Here’s a look at the talking points ahead of the game.

    SOLSKJAER LOOKING TO AVOID TRAP

    United went into their fixture against Burnley last week knowing they could have made Solskjaer the first manager to win his first seven Premier League fixtures. Instead, they nearly slipped to a shock defeat, needing two late goals to salvage a 2-2 draw.

    That game will be on the Norwegian’s mind, for many reasons. Firstly, just to remind his players not to take Fulham lightly, regardless of how far down they are in the league table. United should beat Fulham, yes, but they should have beaten Burnley too.

    Another concern for Solskjaer is that his team’s performance has dipped slightly since the start of his reign. They were sloppy against Leicester last weekend, the fixture that came immediately after the Burnley draw, and in their previous game in the league, they dominated Brighton but failed to kill the game off, riding their luck in a 2-1 win.

    Solskjaer’s first five games ended in wins by at least two goals; the next five have seen only one game with a winning margin of two or more, the 3-1 win over Arsenal. And failing to convert early dominance is becoming a theme. The newly-crowned Premier League manager of the month will want to avoid any sort of hiccup on Saturday.

    UNITED FRINGE PLAYERS NEED TO STEP UP

    Given that United’s Champions League round of 16 first leg against PSG is three days after Saturday’s fixture, the other concern for Solskjaer is rotating his team. The last time he made wholesale changes to his XI – nine, for the FA Cup third round fixture against Reading – the team looked disjointed and short on momentum.

    The manager had charitably suggested that the struggles of midfield duo Fred and Andreas Pereira, in particular, in that game were partly his fault.

    Since then, Fred hasn’t made another United appearance, and Pereira’s last appearance saw him give away the ball in the build-up to Burnley’s first goal in that dramatic draw.

    Solskjaer may take both the Burnley and Reading experiences into account when naming his XI for Saturday. It’s likely that Paul Pogba will start, even with the looming PSG game, and that would make life easier for Fred, Pereira, or both.

    Elsewhere, Diogo Dalot should get the chance to build on his solid start in United colours, while Romelu Lukaku and Juan Mata could also be handed starts. With a tough run of fixtures coming up, this would be a good time for those players to step up.

    ARE FULHAM BEYOND SAVING FOR RANIERI?

    Ranieri has a mixed record in relegation fights; he did an excellent job at Parma in 2007, but when his champion Leicester City team slipped in 2016-17, it was clear he couldn’t do anything to arrest the slide.

    It would be unfair to pin too much of the blame for Fulham’s current predicament on his shoulders, but the fact remains that he hasn’t improved the side during his time in London. It must be galling for a manager who prizes defensive solidity so much to preside over a defence that is continually breached – they have the league’s worst defensive record by far, conceding nine more goals than any other team.

    Things are no better at the other end of the pitch, where Fulham have the fourth-lowest goals scored total in the division.

    Ranieri knew what he was getting into when he took over the Cottagers, but perhaps now he is wondering if this was the right job to take on. Fulham are now seven points from safety, and though he can take heart from how fellow relegation strugglers Burnley, Newcastle, Brighton, and Southampton have all troubled United this season, can he get his team to replicate those performances?

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