Manchester United vs West Ham: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, David Moyes and the importance of context

Solskjaer could still finish with fewer points than Moyes's disastrous 2013-14 season but context is everything

If Manchester United lose to David Moyes’s West Ham tonight, they will not only need to beat Leicester City on Sunday in order to qualify for next season’s Champions League, but also to better Moyes’s disastrous season in charge and avoid their lowest-ever Premier League points tally.

United ended the 2013-14 season with 64 points. With two games remaining of the 2019-20 campaign, they have 62. It is a remarkable statistic, given how different the mood is at Old Trafford now compared to six years ago, and a reminder that in football perception is reality.

Context is vital too. Moyes took over the reigning champions but spent much of the season outside even the Europa League places and was sacked as soon as a top-four finish became impossible. Caretaker Ryan Giggs was in charge for United’s final four league games, taking seven points of United’s 64 in total and finishing seventh. There’s little reason to believe that Moyes would have picked up as many had he held out until the bitter end.

Solskjaer, meanwhile, can realistically finish no lower than fifth and Champions League qualification is not only a possibility but in United’s hands. Though currently behind fourth-place Leicester on goals scored, they have played one game less than Brendan Rodgers’s side and travel to the King Power on the final day. Four points from these final two games will be enough.

There are other factors in Solskjaer’s favour too. The relatively low points total compared to United’s previous Premier League campaigns can be partly explained by a more competitive landscape outside the top two. Only 10 points separate third-placed Chelsea from tenth-place Arsenal. In Moyes’s season, that same gap was 33 points wide and were comfortably the weakest of all the European contenders.

This season, the rise of the middle classes has seen not only Leicester but also Wolverhampton Wanderers and Sheffield United mount serious challenges for European qualification late into the campaign. The positions that United have typically occupied since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement are congested now, with a lot of teams at a similar competitive level, though Solskjaer has fought most the contenders off.

Whether United should be scrapping it out in fourth, fifth and sixth is another question, of course, but most important of all is the sense of progress and the confidence that United will be a better side next season. That simply did not exist at almost any point under Moyes, whereas Solskjaer’s recent 19-game unbeaten run – spurred on by the signing of Bruno Fernandes in January – has brought a genuine belief that United are heading in the right direction.

The optimism generated by that run means questions regarding Solskjaer’s suitability for the job have not been asked for months now. The positive vibes have also withstood Sunday’s dismal FA Cup semi-final performance in defeat to Chelsea at Wembley. United should return to winning ways against West Ham and, in doing so, surpass their 2013-14 points total. Only champions Liverpool have lost fewer games at home this season.

Nevertheless, the raw numbers between now and six years ago are remarkably similar. If they were both in the same league table, Solskjaer’s United would have only overtaken Moyes’s side two weeks ago with the 3-0 win at Aston Villa. Before then, the 2020 United had trailed the 2014 side after every round of fixtures except for two weekends back in September. The gap was as wide as seven points in Moyes’s favour at one stage.

With that in mind, the West Ham manager may say he has a right to feel hard done by. It was no surprise that he was asked about his Old Trafford experiences at his pre-match press conference on Tuesday, or that he drew comparison between himself and Solskjaer. “Ole had a difficult start, but the difference between Ole and me is that he’s being given time,” Moyes claimed.

He is right. Solskjaer has been given more time and underwhelming results have been tolerated, but only for all the legitimate reasons outlined above. If he returns United to the Champions League this week – or by winning the Europa League next month – the difficulties of this season will be forgotten and excitement will build for a new campaign.

But if not – and if United somehow still register their lowest-ever Premier League points total – the Moyes comparisons will become much harder to ignore.