No one wants us to end up like Arsenal and Spurs, celebrating CL qualification and the occasional domestic Cup every once in a while. But it's not the same.
Football is still a result-based industry. Even in this age of post-modernism, when opinions seem to be more important than facts, there has to be some point where you draw the line. Solskjaer had 6 whole months to assess the squad. The players who left, they were shipped because it was his decision (even in Herrera's case, it was clear as day that he favoured McT for the role next to Pogba). We're all happy with the players who joined. It was also his decision to trust the academy players instead of opting for stop-gap solutions until "the right player becomes available" (his own words). I'm not trying to remove Woodward from the bigger picture, but let's just not pretend that Solskjaer some kind of a sacrificial lamb. Otherwise, it's not his rebuild but Woodward's. And we know that's not the case.
Now, on a theoretical level, one can argue there's nothing wrong with Solskjaer's decisions over the last 10 months or so: Some of the deadwood is gone, the new players are doing well, we've seen academy players being more involved. Furthermore, Maguire-Lindelof looks like a modern CB partnership, McTominay has risen to prominence under his guidance and Tony/Rashy seem to have finally started developing good chemistry between them. But, despite all of that, the results on the pitch have worsened. We have won 4/12 league games (without having played any of the top-six, including Leicester, away from home), there were games in which we barely registered a decent shot on target and we have been outwitted on the pitch by managers who nobody rates highly and teams that are clearly less talented than ours.
If we are going to be fair (leave aside those who resort to insults or use colourful adjectives to describe someone who has scored nearly 200 goals for us), most of the people who voted "sack" were screaming last summer that the squad was in dire need of strengthening. It wasn't them who were claiming that the kids would suffice. And it was Solskjaer who told the former to shut up. Now, we're talking about the next 3,4,5 transfer windows and the poor state of the squad is used as an excuse for Solskjaer... Something doesn't seem to add up here.
So, my question is: What if the right players don't become available next summer too? What if we can't convince them of a better future with us when all they will see is an unproven manager trying to steer a midtable club? What if the best English talent chooses Liverpool, City or even Lampard's Chelsea? What course of action will we take then? What if a huge salary is our best way to attract the players we want? Will Solskjaer be able to man-manage these, if he deems their quality necessary? Or will he keep waiting until the next Class of '92 emerges from the ranks?
We need to start winning football matches, we must show as a club that it bothers us to be in our current state. We must have targets to reach. And we must be very careful with what message we are trying to send. Why did Bayern Munich sack Kovacs? He could still win them the double, after all. It's to make the point that these type of performances are not acceptable. The United way and all that is attached to it is something that Solskjaer (and the board) can sell to us. The rest of the world, future targets included, simply doesn't give two fecks. They look at the table and the performances. And they'll probably tell you: "Thanks for the offer but i prefer the Pep or the Klopp way".
Solskjaer's best period at United was when he was managing a squad he himself didn't think was good enough. At the start of his rebuilding job, results haven't got better. You can choose to be more patient because you like his general approach. But if we finish 10th, his first season will be a failure. You may still believe that at the end of his contract things will be much better but that's not a fact, it's your opinion. And some others will still be of the opinion that things won't improve in the near future. But United finishing 10th and without something to show for in the EL is bad, no matter how you try to spin it.