It was a soundbite from Ole Gunnar Solskjær designed to cut through the hysteria that always accompanies a bad Manchester United defeat and, make no mistake, Sunday’s 2-0 reverse at West Ham was as bad as anything on the manager’s nine-month watch – with the exception of the 4-0 drubbing at Everton last April. “I’ve said it many times, this is a rebuilding job and the boys are working as hard as they can,” Solskjær said. There is a fundamental problem with this public admission. It is generally accepted that, if you offer footballers an excuse, they will take it and the notion of a club being in transition fits the description. Rebuilding or transition suggests that things will improve gradually, eventually, at some unspecified point in the future. But as for the here and now, there can be bumps along the road – which is the phrase that Solskjær used after West Ham. They must be tolerated, accepted. And, by that measure, it is no great leap to see the situation as working to lessen competitive edges, to allow for drift. It is not a direct analogy but remember what happened when Sir Alex Ferguson announced at the beginning…