The Liverpool defeat says a lot about where Manchester United currently are as a club

Certainly the club has accelerated off the field, with new commercial deals, but the same cannot be said of on-field results, writes Lawrence Ostlere

Solskjaer saw his side routed by their Merseyside rivals (PA)

The immediate question after Manchester United’s humiliation at the hands of rivals Liverpool was to wonder whether this was the end of the road for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

United’s manager has done well over the past couple of years, up to a point. That point coming somewhere around the end of last season when his team finished second in the Premier League and finished second again in the Europa League final a few days later.

Perhaps Solskjaer will muddle on for a little while longer, or perhaps he will have cleared his desk by the time you’re reading this, but either way his legacy as United’s manager is unlikely to read any different. Even if he were to stay until May it is hard to envisage progress on or even parity with the reasonable achievements of last term.

But zoom out a little and perhaps the more pertinent question is to wonder what the entire episode says about one of the country’s great sporting institutions and how it is run. Here was one historic club in the north of England with an expensively assembled team against another, and the overriding difference was that one had a plan and one did not, a comparison which extends far beyond Solskjaer and his opposite number Jurgen Klopp.

Liverpool’s recruitment has been consistently successful for several years now, from blossoming players right down to the capture of a throw-in coach who increased their possession retention from throws dramatically over the course of one season. Such is the reputation of shrewd sporting director Michael Edwards that his expected exit from Anfield at the end of the season has been a source of genuine worry among fans, like the prospect of losing a star striker.

Under Edwards’s direction, Liverpool began an intelligent transfer policy built around signing under-valued gems. Relegated players like Hull’s Andy Robertson and Newcastle’s Georginio Wijnaldum became fulcrums of a title-winning side, while Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane arrived at reasonable prices and developed into world beaters. Later the big-money signings were not flashy but thoughtful and precise, with defender Virgil van Dijk and goalkeeper Alisson Becker targeted to improve the weakest links in the team.

United’s post-Ferguson era has been more haphazard. From the appointment of wildly different managers in David Moyes, Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and Solskjaer, to the signing of players in positions already cluttered with talent. Donny van de Beek’s arrival last summer was an example of this, a midfielder not dissimilar in position to star players Bruno Fernandes and Paul Pogba.

Certainly the club has accelerated off the field, with a bevvy of new commercial deals over recent years thanks in large part to director Ed Woodward.

Yet running a football club as a financial endeavour rather than a sporting one has consequences. United may well have a new manager in place soon – and you suspect this time they will come armed with the CV worthy of competing with Klopp, Pep Guardiola and Thomas Tuchel at the top of the league. But the club will still need a cohesive plan running from boardroom to dressing room if they are to turn any fleeting upsurge into sustained success. As Solskjaer watched his team crumble, it was another reminder that there simply isn’t one.

Yours,

Lawrence Ostlere

Assistant sports editor