You can't blame anyone for thinking that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was going to be our next manager. He said himself that if an offer was made he was coming. Maybe the offer should have been made and maybe someone is angry that they didn't make an offer, but it did, for a time look a nailed on certainty.
But, Solskjaer was convinced to stay by the Kjell Inge Rokke and that could be because of a vision he had for the club or any other number of reasons. Solskjaer is saying family reasons and well, I guess we just have to respect that.
But the club showed some balls going for him. They thought outside of the Premier League box. Okay, they failed, but I have the feeling that Kjell Inge Rokke is quite a convincing person. You do not become a self made billionaire without having some ability to convince.
Time to move on
Lerner now has to go back to his list of names and while we could all take guesses about who is on it and some of those I have no doubt are going to be very good guesses, you have to ask if whoever they talk to now is going to feel like they were second choice.
The club can rightly say they never made an offer to Solskjaer but it isn't just about the club. We ran a poll the other day with Martinez, Lambert and Solskjaer on it and over 80% wanted the Norwegian. However the club want to spin this, Solskjaer was first choice for the supporters and quite possibly Lerner and those managers in that poll will know that.
But, Lambert could be an inspired appointment. I have my doubts but I'm quite literally on the fence; I don't know one way or the other. I was on the fence with Solskjaer but my feet were well and truly dangling in the water and I was all for the appointment. I'm not sure with any of the other names above and you can add one or two more and it wouldn't really matter to me which one actually got the job.
So now we wait
But it is done. I can't see Solskjaer changing his mind again now, so Lerner has to move on as do we. We have to wait until the next man is confirmed by secret agents on Twitter and then wait to see what happens.
I will say this; I do hope they continue to think outside of the Premier League box. There has only ever been one manager that has won the Premier League that has had previous experience in this country and I know you can position that however you want, but my point is, you don't have to have managed in this league to be a successful in this league.