Hop onto the Ole bandwagon

Manchester United's season had been quite ordinary, if not underwhelming under Jose Mourinho. The Portuguese's turgid style of play had been heavily criticised by fans and pundits alike. He kept moaning about the lack of transfer signings in the summer and the mood in the dressing room had not been that good. Performances had declined and it was only a matter of time before he was relieved of his duties. That's exactly what happened after their defeat to Liverpool.

And now the headlines was drawn towards the future successor of Mourinho.

Many were linked to the job at Old Trafford, including the likes of Zinedine Zidane, Mauricio Pochettino, Eddie Howe and Antonio Conte. The fans wanted 'Zizou' or Pochettino at their club, and many were anxiously waiting for the new interim manager to be announced.

And then came the announcement.....

Ole Gunnar Solksjae: I got Cardiff City relegated and now I'm managing a Norwegian club no one's heard of.

Everyone knew Ole Gunnar Solksjaer from the Ferguson days and most prominently from the 99 treble winning season where he scored an injury time goal to help Manchester United beat Bayern Munich and win the 1999 Champions League. He is held in the highest regards by the players and is considered a club legend.

But his managerial career has not been very convincing. The last time he managed a Premier League club, they got Relegated. They let him keep the job, but it only got worse with Cardiff then at 17th position in the second tier of English football. He was then sacked from his position.

He had been managing a Norwegian club called Molde FK and enjoyed his fair bit of success there, finishing as runners up in the Norwegian league for the past two seasons.

The fans were optimistic as they hoped he'll bring back the good old days.

But still there were some doubters...

It was a big shock to me when his name got mentioned yesterday. He doesn't strike to me as the manager of Manchester United.

-Harry Redknapp

"Solskjaer doesn’t excite me in one little bit and I’m sure he doesn’t excite the fans and it’s not to criticise them and say, 'Don’t do this',"

-Edward Freeman (Former United director of advertising)

Anyway, Solksjaer was appointed as interim manager as the fans hoped for better performances under the Norwegian's tenure.

And boy, did he deliver.

Manchester United hit Cardiff for five, thus ensuring a dream start for Ole.

This didn't stop here.

Manchester United kept on winning, with some impressive performances against Huddersfield, Bournemouth, Tottenham, Newcastle and Arsenal.

The United dressing squad had never looked this happy before.

No one's laughing at you anymore, Phil Jones.

But what exactly did the manager change after Mourinho left?

Here are a few of the changes that he did.

Player Confidence

You all must have heard of the awkward Frank Lampard- Jose Mourinho story, right?

The one where Mourinho approached him in the shower and told him he's the best midfielder in the world?

Anyway, Mourinho seemed to have lost belief in his star players like Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford and Eric Bailly. Openly criticising them in public clearly did not help and the players stopped feeling like themselves anymore. Rashford started missing one on ones. Pogba started putting in sub-standard performances and Bailly forgot how to defend. Hell, even Lukaku didn't have a good first-touch anymore!

Well, That was just dreadful.

Ole Gunnar seemed to have rectified this after taking over the mantle by instilling confidence and trusting his players more. Players like Marcus Rashford seems to have found their confidence back and even Alexis Sanchez has been chipping in with some good performances.

Overall, the dressing room atmosphere had completely changed with the players enjoying themselves more.

Playing style

What was Manchester United's motto again? Oh right, "Attack!Attack!Attack!".

I completely forgot about that since Mourinho took over.

Mourinho is and will always be one of the best managers in the world. But his playing style may not be pleasing to the eye. Mourinho was brought in to wake up the fans who were asleep from Louis Van Gaal's style of football. His antics did wake them up, but his football particularly did not. Despite squeezing in wins and achieving 81 points in the league. The fans still were not impressed with him. They wanted to see an attacking style of football which evidently was not possible under the Portuguese.

But Ole brought that back.

Manchester United seemed to be dominating possession more and wanted to take the game to the opponents, something that was lacking before. The fans clearly liked watching this and the players also wanted to entertain more(No one shall talk about how we parked the bus in the second half against Spurs, ok?).

I personally feel that when Manchester United play bigger teams they do the same thing that Mourinho used to do at Chelsea. Clinical counter-attacking. But no one seems to care as they feel that their team is playing better. Don't believe me? Check the stats for the FA Cup game against Arsenal.

But overall, I can say the players are performing better under him.

Tactical Tweaks

Honestly, this is the region that got me impressed.

Two important games against the London teams, Ole made a couple of changes to his front line and boy was it a tactical mastermind.

Against Spurs, Rashford was played on the right flank of the front-three to take advantage of the left-back Ben Davies who was way too ahead in order to help the attacking play. Rashford would run off Vertonghen, the centre-back and into the space that Ben Davies was leaving due to being too forward. Hence, they were able to take advantage and Rashford scored a good goal which was also the decisive one.

Similarly against Arsenal, he would play Lukaku on the right to take advantage of Sead Kolasinac being too ahead. He does the same for the Belgium national team and Ole implemented the same tactic against Arsenal. The result? Two very incisive and clinical counter attacking goals in a matter of minutes.

These matches show that the Norwegian is tactically well adept and is not just instructing his players to attack and play like the United way.

And finally.......

PAUL 'LABILE' POGBA

The French maverick midfielder has found his rhythm under Solksjaer.

Paul Pogba had been making the headlines for the wrong reasons in the past few months.

His rifts with under-pressure manager Jose and his sub-par performance against Southampton was what everyone were really talking about. He struggled to find the rhythm in his role under Mourinho and did not look like the player that he was in the World Cup.

But under Solksjaer, he's having a rebirth at Old Trafford. He's scoring goals, stitching wonder passes,dancing and enjoying himself at Manchester United. He finally looks like a €90 million signing and a world beater.

His stats under Solksjaer speak for themselves.

Overall, the Manchester United family is currently a happy family.

Manchester United face Burnley in their next fixture and Ole will hope that he can make it 9 out of 9.