Double Helix Derby

What do Frank Lampard, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and the mysterious bounty hunter from the Mandalorian all have in common?

An obsession with ‘the way’.

And it turns out that ‘way’ - something to truly encapsulate the DNA of Manchester United and Chelsea - is an incredibly boring and toothless 0-0 draw.

Now, in fairness to Lampard and Solskjaer, they may well have been taking some precedent from that iconic 2007 FA Cup final - the first at the new Wembley which saw Didier Drogba’s late extra time winner settle a drag of a game.

But that doesn’t look to be what the two managers have really been angling towards. That in turn raises the question, what are they really angling towards with their misty eyed throwbacks to the glory days?

In a general sense, it’s attacking and exciting football which has victory as an afterthought due to its sheer inevitability as the opposition trembles under the mighty weight of these two super clubs.

But despite a large outlay of cash on some high quality players, it is something that entirely eludes Lampard and Solskjaer.

Instead, they find themselves getting beaten by smarter managers with weaker squads, and beaten by smarter mangers with equal or better squads.

In United’s case, Solskjaer has proven to be adept at producing clinical counter-attacking performances. It was this kind of triumph that he replicated in Paris last week, marking the spot where he sealed the deal as permanent manager back in March 2019.

But these performances are a false dawn. A broken indicator appearing to be signalling a return to the upper echelons of world football, when in fact all it is was a good counter-attacking performance to get a result in a certain game against a certain team.

Unless Sir Alex Ferguson scabbed and tripped his way to victory off the back of stellar players for 25 years while occasionally producing good counter-attacking performances, this is not a return to the United ‘way’.

At the other end of the scale, Lampard looks proudly on a team with bolstered with great attacking talents that can sometimes score a lot of goals. This for the simple reason that they’re very good players.

He also has a good bunch of midfielders and defenders, but they struggle with build up play and ship a monumental amount of goals.

So unless Jose Mourinho was blitzing teams 6-4 every week and standing around in disbelief at why his team don’t sometimes do good things and conceded goals, this is not a return to the Chelsea ‘way’.

And it’s not like these poor managers are being left without adequate resources. They have been equipped with some top level players (albeit a tad overpriced) but, ultimately, are not getting the best out of them.

And that’s because neither are particularly good managers.

Solskjaer has won titles in Norway’s top flight, a division which footballing insight company 21st Club rank as roughly League One level. Maybe United would have been better off going with Simon Grayson?

Lampard stumbled his way to the Championship play-offs with Derby County with help from loan players who were generally too good for the division.

Both were picked for their current jobs on nostalgia, despite having little managerial credentials.

A belief that having someone to really ‘get’ the club would somehow lift them to new heights among Premier League and Champions League teams managed by highly astute managers.

And barring United’s happy labrador bounce post Mourinho-misery, this has largely been proven to be a complete falsehood.

United and Chelsea, in particular, have very good squads. Squads that really should be competing and playing far better. Squads that would likely be doing so under better management.

But instead, we have games like on Saturday, where the tactical ineptitude of each side managed to cancel each other out.

A mitigating circumstance was Lampard’s desperation to keep a clean sheet, but this was only the case due to his side having shipped so many goals over the course of his campaign. And while Chelsea were relatively sound defensively, they did it while basically neutering themselves in attack.

And just to cap it all off, Solskjaer was found post-match throwing a wistful reference to his side being better inspired had they been attacking a full Stretford End.

Unfortunately, though, nostalgia and looking back on the good times probably isn’t going to cut it in professional sport.