Van Gaal and Mourinho failed because they were elite mangers passing through Manchester United, but for Solskjaer, this is the one

THE timing was fitting in many ways.

During an international break in which an England boss who began life as an accidental caretaker continued to revive a comatose footballing institution, Manchester United upgraded their own accidental caretaker to do the same.

And also the news that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has his assassin’s eyes trained on two of England’s most impressive baby-faced stars, Jadon Sancho and Declan Rice, to be at the forefront of his summer spending plans.

That seemed fitting too.

The thrilling Sancho, who walked out on Manchester City, is exactly what United fans will want.

And Rice, a top-class young holding midfield player capable of moving the ball swiftly and decisively, is exactly what United currently need, along with a right-back and a centre half.

TIMING

It also felt significant that United’s hierarchy should confirm Solskjaer’s permanent appointment after back-to-back defeats and especially after comfortably the worst performance of the Norwegian’s reign, the FA Cup defeat at Wolves.

Even though the deal had been pretty much done and dusted for weeks, another defeat or two in the near future - and United must go to Molineux again on Tuesday - could have brought the perception of uncertainty back to the club.

So this was a show of faith which Solskjaer deserves for having transformed the mood of a club which, before Christmas, had become a sad reflection of its misery-guts manager Jose Mourinho.

Many of us made the mistake of trying to use cold-hard logic and assumed that, however joyous the short-term uplift from Solskjaer, he could not be the right man for the long haul.

After all, precisely no one thought of him as a permanent boss when he stepped in to replace Mourinho in December, especially after a fairly disastrous spell as Cardiff manager.

But football has a lot to do with feeling, rather than just logic. And Solskjaer possessed a deep feeling for United.

RETURN TO NORMALITY

Since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement, it had seemed as though United had become just another football club.

Louis Van Gaal and Mourinho were jobbing elite-level managers passing through. United was nothing special to them. For Solskjaer, this is the one.

And of course as a disciple of Ferguson, he isn’t going to be a pushover.

However much he smiles in press conferences - something Ferguson was rarely seen doing - he is also capable of imposing discipline and standards on his players.

From doing up the top buttons of their shirts and wearing old-school blazers, to a demand that they become the fittest and hardest-working team in the league, Solskjaer is determined to adopt most of Ferguson’s ethos.

Why not? Ferguson’s ethos won United 13 Premier League titles. Since it was abandoned, United haven’t come close to a 14th.

Competition for that title is at its hottest since the Premier League began, so no one is suggesting that Solskjaer strolls in, smiles a lot, talks about the good old days and wins it in his first full season. But their chances have certainly improved.

And while Ferguson began his own monumental spell as United boss by vowing to ‘knock Liverpool off their f***ing perch’, Solskjaer is at least going to turf Liverpool’s best player out of his f****ing house.

Virgil Van Dijk had been renting Solkjaer’s Cheshire pile and must soon now vacate to make way for the Norwegian’s family.

ALWAYS AN OPTIMIST

At Thursday’s press conference, Solskjaer said that, as a striker, he was always an optimist.

He then spoke of going back into his memory banks and recalling how good it felt to be a winner. Nostalgia is everything it used to be in football.

For the vast majority of fans, for the vast majority of the time, when their team’s form is poor to middling, nostalgia is what keeps them going.

When a club’s form is poor, you’ll notice how they keep churning out old footage of former glories on their social media accounts.

This is what your club has been, can be, will be again, they are telling you. This is why you keep turning up.

Well, as they approach the 20th anniversary of their greatest achievement - the Treble - Solskjaer’s appointment is nostalgia made flesh.

In a fascinating, if occasionally delusional BBC interview last week, Van Gaal said that United were a ‘commercial club, not a football club’.

USE YOUR ED

It was a dig at Ed Woodward, the man who sacked him, but it hit the sweet spot.

United need a footballing technical director to dictate transfer policy, not a businessman like Woodward.

For too long United have been more about commercial partnerships and social-media reach rather than trophies and glory.

Yet while Van Gaal was predictably sniffy about Solskjaer, this appointment reverses that trend and restores pure footballing values to Old Trafford.

And it is not as though there are no parallels. Pep Guardiola at Barcelona and Zinedine Zidane at Real Madrid, the first time around, were former playing heroes without top-level managerial experience.

Those two appointments yielded five European Cups in seven seasons.

And then there is Southgate - who, like Solskjaer, had a CV scarred by one Premier League appointment and one relegation, at Middlesbrough. Yet we’re too easy to write people off after one failure.

Southgate gets it with England. He is a quietly effective man-manager with an empathy for his players and supporters.

Solskjaer has the same qualities and he undoubtedly gets this club.

With Ole at the wheel, United’s coming home again.