After the departure of tyrannical manager Jose Mourinho last week, new interim boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer could be poised for a busy winter transfer market.

The Red Devils are currently sixth in the Premier League, eight points behind Chelsea in fourth and an astounding 19 behind Liverpool at the top of the table, after just 18 matches of the 2018-19 campaign.

The final few months of Mourinho’s reign at Old Trafford were miserable, to say the least, and the team seems to have completely lost its identity during that period, struggling to produce fluid, attacking football while conceding far too many goals at the back.

Solskjaer was drafted in to replace the Portuguese until the end of the season and he now has the unenviable task of galvanising a group which has lost all confidence.

He got off to a flyer in his first game in charge, securing a 5-1 win at Cardiff City which highlighted the fact that this United team is still full of quality and perhaps wasn’t giving everything to the cause during the last few months of Mourinho’s tenure, for whatever reason.

The Christmas period will end with two more important games against Bournemouth and Newcastle, which gives the new United manager ample opportunity to assess his new squad, before potentially bringing in some new faces in January.

Mourinho had complained during the summer that due to the club’s lack of investment prior to the new season they would struggle to compete with their rivals at the top of the table. His prediction turned out to be correct and although he pushed the self-destruct button spectacularly, it is obvious that the team could do with a few fresh reinforcements.