Manchester United risk more drift if they stick with Ole Gunnar Solskjær | Jonathan Liew

At a club only ever two matches from a crisis, there is a decision to be made over the manager’s future after the latest debacle

For Ole Gunnar Solskjær, perhaps space will be the final frontier. Specifically, the 70 yards of clear space Manchester United left behind them as they trotted forward for a corner in Istanbul that would in vanishingly swift order end up in their own net.

“We forget about the man up top,” Solskjær said by way of explaining how Demba Ba was left with half a football pitch all to himself. When put like that it sounds like a fairly innocuous mistake and maybe in the grand scheme of things it was. Yet the manner of United’s 2-1 defeat by Istanbul Basaksehir on Wednesday felt emblematic of something deeper: a team desperately out of balance, walking the tightrope between heroism and comedy, often in the same week, occasionally even in the same game.

Related: 'You don't see those goals at this level': Solskjær reflects on defensive disaster

Related: Demba Ba sets up Istanbul Basaksehir's victory in comedy of errors from United

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