Ole Gunnar Solskjaer can only hope Manchester United put up as good a defensive performance against Atalanta on Wednesday night as he himself did on the eve of this Group F tie at Old Trafford.

A few days after leaking four goals at Leicester

Man United must pick themselves up for the next test in a crucial run of games

That could quite easily plunge the club from their early-season funk into a full-blown crisis.

After four defeats in seven games and criticism from all quarters that this is a United team

Still woefully short of being the sum of its parts

Ole seized the opportunity to defend his record since succeeding Jose Mourinho in December 2018.

‘We’ve progressed over the years,’ he insisted.

‘Sixth when I was here for half a season then third and second”

“You can see the progress, improvement and development, and this season we still want to improve”

‘Conceding four goals is a big eye-opener for us that we need to improve on different levels on loads of details”

‘Every team will go through a patchy period and we’re in one now of poor form”

“We know that and we hold our hands up that we need to improve. I’m just looking forward to the response”.

Solskjaer certainly needs one from his players on Wednesday night.

The defeat at Leicester exposed worrying deficiencies in United

From a porous defence and midfield to an attack that is unable or unwilling to back up ability with hard graft.

He had to defend Cristiano Ronaldo’s work-rate on Tuesday after seeing the Portugal star come under scrutiny in the three weeks

Since his dramatic stoppage-time winner at home to Villarreal revived United’s Champions League campaign.

The addition of Ronaldo, Jadon Sancho and Raphael Varane — currently out injured

Has left Solskjaer with a better squad but fewer excuses, and he knows it.

United may have progressed under him, but it still feels as though they are well behind their rivals.