Man United dream XI under Solskjaer: Kane, Bellingham, more

As a former Manchester United manager, Ole Gunnar Solksjaer has expressed his sympathies toward with Erik ten Hag as the Dutchman continues to oversee a particularly rocky start to the 2023-24 season.

United have lost three of their opening five Premier League games — their worst league start since 1989-90 — and the misery continued in Europe this week as their Champions League campaign began with a 4-3 defeat against Bayern Munich.

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No doubt even more galling for Solskjaer was the sight of Harry Kane on the scoresheet for Bayern, and the England captain was a player the Norwegian coach was extremely keen to sign for United long before he opted to move to the Bundesliga.

Speaking in an interview with The Athletic, Solksjaer begrudgingly admitted that due to emerging competition from a new wave of Premier League big spenders, United are no longer in a position to automatically attract the best players in the world. He also listed a number of high-profile targets he attempted but ultimately failed to sign during his managerial tenure at Old Trafford, including the likes of Kane, Jude Bellingham and Declan Rice.

Indeed, it was reported at the time that United failed to recruit any of Solskjaer’s marquee transfer targets in the summer window of 2020 and instead signed off on a series of slightly underwhelming deals for Donny van de Beek, Edinson Cavani, Alex Telles, Amad Diallo and Facundo Pellistri.

It’s all hypothetical of course — and staunch United fans might want to look away now — but here we have assembled what could well have been the Red Devils’ current starting XI were Ole still at the wheel, and all of his potential transfer targets had been successfully landed.