Jamie Jackson - Ole Gunnar Solskjaer: The Making of Manchester Uniteds Great Hope

For Sonny, Martha and Gaynor always XXX

Elvis.

O LE G UNNAR S OLSKJR WHEN ASKED WHO HED LIKE TO MEET

Football can be hyper-real. Events occur in fast-forward, games are executed at lightning speed, judgements are breathless, romantic, knee-jerk and reflexive. Here is a galaxy of short-termism, a universe of the instant. A zillion experts making a zillion declarations. The first and last verdict on players, teams, matches and managers zooming at all angles on a 24/7, 365-days-a-year loop.

On 19 December 2018 Ole Gunnar Solskjrs appointment as Manchester United interim manager is announced. The verdict: wow, really??

After a record start of eight consecutive wins in all competitions and OGSs subsequent appointment as full-time manager the verdict: inspirational.

And, after a run of only two wins in the seasons final 14 matches and no Champions League qualification the verdict: told you so; the jury is out; the 2019-20 season will tell all.

Crystal clear is this: the tale of how Ole Gunnar Solskjr, the goalscoring hero of Manchester Uniteds 1999 Champions League triumph, came to return to the club as manager would read as syrupy clich if not true. Because here is the real-life story of a boy from a Norwegian fishing village on the shores of the Atlantic with a sparkly persona, who bounced through the tribal world of football to take the ultimate job. This is a tale of joy and reversal, revival and determination. Of a man with boundless belief, smart enough to understand his accusers and their accusations that he was callow and inexperienced. That he lacked the requisite gravitas and footballing imagination to lead the global behemoth that is Manchester United. Who despite or because of this remains at centre a man with an innocent love of the sport. Who touched the lives of his boyhood friends when managing their street team and who has touched the lives of the players and staff of all the clubs he has managed as well as people beyond the football cabaret.

Ole Gunnar Solskjr became a Manchester United immortal when he scored the dying-seconds winner in the 1999 Champions League final against Bayern Munich to earn the club a second European Cup. He became the stuff of fairytale, the man who entered a dream of his own making, followed by team-mates and fans and anyone else tuned in to sports poetry. Its ability to synthesise glitz and glory into the glamour of folklore.

After losing virtually three of his last four seasons as a player to a knee injury and fading into the background as United reserve-team manager, Ole Gunnar became the most successful number one in Molde FKs history. Yet, after bombing as Cardiff City manager to then return to Old Trafford as caretaker boss was characteristic of his ability to rewrite the narrative of his personal movie.

Occasionally, a story occurs that is a reminder of why, in essence, sport is sport, and draws us back to its spectacle. When Jos Mourinho was sacked by Manchester United on 18 December 2018, he left a club listing in a funk of backbiting and negativity. Morale was sub-zero, players disaffected and treading water. There were 11 points between the team and Champions League qualification the absolute minimum demand for any season. Manchester United was an unhappy, dismal place. The staff, football and non-football, were struggling to enjoy life in what should have been a vibrant environment.

This was the Mourinho effect. The cheesed-off ones mood pervaded all areas of the club: the field of play, the training ground, the locker room, media department, the clubs administrative and financial arms and its hierarchy, all the way to executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward. Solskjr reversed this instantaneously. He made Manchester United buoyant again. He was the kid-faced assassin as a striker. He was the still kid-faced caretaker who reminded players that football should be fun. For a two-month, eight-win streak in all competitions, Old Trafford became a place of joy for supporters once more; watching their team invigorating. Solskjr closed the gap to a top-four place to three points. He reversed a 2-0 home deficit to Paris Saint-Germain to progress to the Champions League quarter-final.

Then, after a run of just one defeat in 17 matches, the road became bumpier a rollercoaster, as Solskjr said. Defeats came against Wolverhampton Wanderers in the FA Cup and in the Premier League, to Barcelona in the Champions League. More losses followed, at Everton a 4-0 nadir that left OGS despairing and to Manchester City: part of a run which, following the 2-1 win over West Ham United on 13 April, meant the team went winless in the league for a month, until the end of the campaign. The tilt at a top-four berth lasted until the penultimate game, then failed. We just fell short of what would be a miraculous target of fourth back in December, Ole Gunnar said.

The old frailties that have plagued Manchester United since the genius Sir Alex Ferguson stepped away in May 2013 resurfaced. The defence required an overhaul. The midfield lacked subtlety and options. The attack needed two or more prolific goalscorers. Away from the field United had to advance, re-tailor its recruitment and scouting, build a bespoke operation for the 21st century in which Liverpool, their fiercest rivals, have been exemplars of what a world-class club, from bottom to top, stadium to boardroom, should look and perform like.

This is Ole Gunnars challenge. He signed a three-year deal when made permanent manager in March 2019 and may need all of this (and more) to achieve what David Moyes, Louis van Gaal and Jos Mourinho failed to do: make Manchester United formidable again.

Can he do it? How smart is he? How able to husband the disparate forces that swirl around the club into a unified mass of irresistible energy? This is what The Red Apprentice examines. Who Ole Gunnar Solskjr is. What formed him. How he thinks and acts. What moves him.

This is his story; this is the book before you.

He couldve gone to Spurs no Manchester United fairytale.

J OHN M ONCUR , T OTTENHAM H OTSPUR CHIEF SCOUT

This is the cold winter evening when fate and romance began tangoing. Norway Under-21s v England Under-21s in south-west Norway on 10 October 1995. When Ole Gunnar Solskjr diced with an alternative reality.

This is the night when the 22-year-old Molde FK centre-forward could have been rubber-stamped as perfect for Tottenham Hotspur. Two of the 2,640 crowd in the stands at Viking FK Stadion were Gerry Francis, manager of Tottenham Hotspur, and John Moncur, his chief scout. They were watching Solskjr: Francis for the first time, Moncur for what was to be the last of many times. Scouting the young, goal-glutton striker.

Moncur, whose son John (junior) was a Tottenham and West Ham United midfielder, was impressed whenever watching Ole Gunnar. He stood out, Moncur says. I thought he had the potential to be a top player. And had a chance to go straight into our first team, to be honest. We were looking for players. It began because Steve Perryman rang me from Norway and told me about Ole.

Steve Perryman, who remains Tottenham Hotspurs record appearance maker, had become IK Starts manager in late August 1995 and had spotted OGS on