Ole Gunnar Solskjaer shows he has an eye for fine margins in Manchester United’s push back to the top
- Solskjaer followed in Alex Ferguson’s footsteps by rectifying a sight issue United players had complained about
- The Norwegian has previously spoken about gaining fine margins
Alex Ferguson had never thought much about footballers’ eyesight until he received a letter from Dr Gail Stephenson in 1996. Gail was a big United fan who went to games with her daughter Rebecca. Gail was also the vision expert at Liverpool University and had noted that United lost four of the five away games in a grey strip in the 1995-96 season. She explained to Ferguson that the drab colour made it much harder for the players to pick out their teammates than the regular kit. United didn’t wear grey again and started to win.
Gail had Ferguson’s attention and he invited her for a meeting. He was impressed and she became a trusted member of the back room staff. She made the case that players’ performances could be enhanced if their peripheral vision was improved. Ferguson had assumed that peripheral vision was a natural trait, like hair colour or height. He came to think that he was wrong.
“Players who spend most of their time roaming one side of the field (a left-back or right winger) will have good peripheral vision in one direction and poor in the other,” he wrote after learning of Gail’s research based on ice hockey players who were recovering from concussion. Ferguson felt that his players benefited from her insight – though not every player or member of Ferguson’s staff was so convinced. Some thought it valid, others less so. And that’s how it is now. Opinions have been sought among Manchester United players and staff about passing to a player wearing red while playing against a backdrop of red banners covering the seats at Old Trafford during this pandemic after a few of the players raised the issue.
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Maybe I asked it because I’d spoken to Solskjaer in Granada last week in a casual conversation and said: “One defeat in 24 league games ...” and he replied: “If it wasn’t for that bad start at home it’d be even more.” United had won 54 per cent of home games in all competitions this season against 65 per cent away. It would usually be the other way around.
When asked this week about the disparity between home and away form, his reply went viral even before I’d had chance to transcribe his words. He smiled and said: “If you look at all the banners around the edge they are not red any more. We’ve looked into this, and there shouldn’t be any reason [why home form is worse] but some of the players have mentioned that, when making that split-second decision, to look to see if your teammate is there or not, and the red shirt, on a red background, with red seats ... we have, of course, tried to change that, along with the anti-racism campaign, that was important that wasn’t red too.
“Then again,” he went on, “there shouldn’t be any reason. When you have a 4-0 win away against Sociedad you don’t have to win at home, and the first game against Milan, we conceded in the last minute. I still think we have played some good football at home. We started off badly with three defeats: Palace, Tottenham and Arsenal early on. But we have improved,” ending by repeating the point made in the tunnel in Granada.
None of this is a big deal. United are not desperate to change the home form which has been good since October, but it’s the type of story which piques interest, just as the grey shirts did 25 years ago this week or when Jurgen Klopp changed the colour of the Anfield nets from red to white to make them more visible. In 1950, when my great uncle Charlie managed Newcastle United, he introduced edging on the bottom of the shorts – an idea he copied from Moscow Dynamo – so players could glimpse each other more easily.
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With Solskjaer, it sounds like an excuse when it isn’t. It leads to memes – United fans joked that City have been playing fantastic football for years in front of empty seats.
To some players, fans or a lack of them are a factor, to others they switch into “game zone” and get rid of outside noise and barely notice fans. And fans can be a negative as much as a positive.
“There is nothing worse in professional football than hearing your own fans jeer you or you feel like you’ve lost their confidence,” one Premier League striker told me. Yet at Old Trafford in normal times, the fans are supportive – far more supportive than what you see online.
Games can be decided by the smallest of margins so United are constantly looking at anything which might give them an edge
United’s view is that the only measurement that matters is a few testaments from players who feel like it potentially impacts their performance. For United to change a few banners, it’s a small deal.
Games can be decided by the smallest of margins so United are constantly looking at anything which might give them an edge. Also, because the team is becoming more consistent, there’s now the mental space to start thinking about where to make those marginal gains.
There are many ways of doing this. United were concerned that their team being leaked online was giving opponents an advantage, for example – and that’s not something most people would argue with.
United won their first game with the new banners against Brighton and won again against Granada on Thursday. Maybe there is something in those red backgrounds
