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It is the old adage in football of winning, but not playing too well, that defines a champion.

We witnessed Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United teams win Premier League titles by doing just that; playing the fine stuff when opportunities allowed, but still managing to pick up the three points on days where they looked unlikely to do so.

The bottom line was to win. Ferguson wanted to win at all costs, and was willing to sacrifice the aesthetic side of things when required.

Impressively, the 20-time Premier League winning boss would be able to strangle the life out of a game where his side had obtained the lead they needed, in an act of game management that was of the highest order.

Similarly, the same can be said of one of his students in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who has bravely taken the reigns at Old Trafford after Jose Mourinho’s abysmal stint in the dugout – in that particular case, the team was certainly not playing well, and definitely not representative of champions as they also struggled to find a way to win.

Against one of Mourinho’s old clubs on Monday night, Solskjaer showed that he has learnt a lot from his 11 years under Ferguson at Old Trafford, leading his side to a professional 2-0 win over Chelsea in eye-catching fashion, but not for the reasons you’d think.

Admittedly, there were glimpses in the first half that did catch the eye, such as Paul Pogba’s one-man show in which he scored and got an assist, but the contrast in United’s play once they had raced into a 2-0 lead was evident and wholly impressive for an interim manager whose biggest job in football has been at Cardiff City.

The Red Devils went to Stamford Bridge and executed the game plan perfectly. Solskjaer set his team up to stay strong at the back, play safe in midfield, and work to Pogba and Marcus Rashford’s strengths – both men were involved in each of the goals, so it is safe to say it worked.

However, after Kevin Friend had blown his whistle to kick off the second half, it was a case of stifling the life out of the game and ensuring that the Blues had no chance of getting back into it. Yes, it was boring to watch, but football is a results game and boy is Solskjaer getting them right now – he has lost just once since stepping into the hot seat.

It wasn’t even a case of parking the bus, either. The manner in which United went about their play in the second period would have been a joy to watch for Ferguson, as the side in red simply set up to annoy Chelsea but also posed a threat by leaving the pacey Rashford and Romelu Lukaku on the shoulder to keep Maurizio Sarri’s men from piling pressure on.

There has been far too much talk of Mauricio Pochettino arriving at Old Trafford, but after appointing failures such as David Moyes, Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho, maybe it is time for the second coming of Sir Alex Ferguson in one of his former pupils.