Manchester United handing the title to Manchester City: Richard Buxton
Solskjaer's Red Devils should relish title challenge, instead of shying away from it
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is intent on handing the English Premier League title to Manchester City on a platter.
Irrespective of what happens in this morning's (Singapore time) clash with Liverpool, Pep Guardiola will continue to hold all the cards after sussing out the mental frailties of his closest challengers.
The Catalan accused Juergen Klopp of fumbling for excuses to mask the champions' ailing title defence, but he is not the only one thumbing through that same playbook.
Guardiola's title rivals have reached for the default tool of the weak and incompetent.
Solskjaer's dismissal of Manchester United as true contenders, however, is a self-fulfilling prophecy following a 3-3 draw with Everton yesterday morning.
Each downcast proclamation from Old Trafford's latest incumbent carries a sense of foreboding. Little wonder his players are starting to crack under the pressure in their efforts to unseat City when it is emanating from the man occupying their own dugout.
United hit a record-equalling nine goals past Southampton before lazily surrendering their lead against the Toffees twice, including during the dying embers of added time.
The contrast between their last two matches could not be any more striking.
Solskjaer's complaints about the length of added time are particularly rich, too, given he has successfully fashioned both a playing and managerial career largely on the back of it.
The Norwegian also refused to throw United's squad under the bus for conceding three second-half goals, despite there being no shortage of scapegoats, with Harry Maguire and David de Gea equally culpable in gifting Dominic Calvert-Lewin a priceless last-gasp equaliser.
Problems run far deeper than those individual errors, as Solskjaer knows all too well.
Since kicking off a 13-game unbeaten run in the league at Everton last November, the Red Devils have now dropped seven points in their last four outings.
TALISMAN
The stars aligned for the 20-time English champions when they acquired the nearest equivalent to Eric Cantona in his pomp in Bruno Fernandes, whose strike to double their first-half advantage would have left even The King beaming with pride.
But United cannot drive into the box seat of this season's title race on the Portugal international's mercurial talent and swagger alone.
Others, not least Solskjaer himself, must begin to stand up and be counted instead of coasting off that individual brilliance.
United are unlikely to have a better chance of taking the fight to a reinvigorated City at the summit with this season proving to be the most wide-open and unpredictable of recent memory.
Keeping pace with City is already difficult enough.
The gap between Guardiola's men and United would stretch to eight points if the Citizens win their two games in hand.
Continually dismissing their title credentials is no longer a psychological ploy designed to draw the best out a United team which has yet to reach its full potential; it is an act of self-sabotage which exposes their manager's crisis of confidence at the highest level.
If his boyhood allegiances weren't already well-documented, some could be forgiven for wondering whether Solskjaer had actually grown up idolising City rather than Liverpool.
He is doing everything to ensure the title will be heading to the Etihad Stadium in May.
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