Solskjaer Out at Manchester United After a Loss Too Far

Lopsided defeats against Liverpool and Manchester City had the one-time fan favorite teetering. A humbling loss at lowly Watford finished him off.

Manchester United had not done it after a humiliation by Liverpool. The club’s executives had somehow managed to tolerate the sight of Manchester City’s cruising to victory at Old Trafford while barely breaking a sweat. After each defeat, somehow, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the manager who had overseen both calamities, remained in his post.

He could not, though, survive a third. Solskjaer had promised, two weeks on since that defeat against Manchester City, that his team would react, that it would use the embarrassment as fuel for the rest of the season. Instead, his squad, one of the most expensively assembled in soccer’s long and lavish history, went to Watford — struggling at the foot of the Premier League, the sort of team United used to swat aside, unthinking — and contrived to lose, 4-1.

That was the end. A board meeting was called. A decision was made. Solskjaer, a favorite son finally out of rope, was out.