Ole Gunnar Solskjaer reportedly looked “dead inside” and at his lowest point after Manchester United’s Europa League final defeat to Villarreal last season.
That’s according to sources close to the former Red Devils manager, according to The Athletic, who suggest that that big game marked the beginning of the end for the Norwegian tactician at Old Trafford.
It’s certainly easy to imagine that things could have gone very differently for Man Utd if they’d finally got their hands on silverware under Solskjaer that night in Gdansk.
It was a close game against Villarreal, which finished 1-1 after extra time, and was ultimately only decided after an extremely lengthy and nerve-wracking penalty shoot-out.
No wonder Solskjaer was left scarred by that game, and it seems United never really recovered as they made such a poor start to this campaign.
Solskjaer won plenty of trophies during his playing days with MUFC, but his failure to do so after so much money spent during his managerial reign ultimately proved his undoing.