Eva Olid's Brave Vision for Manchester United Women

Eva Olid wants no fear at Manchester United. No half-measures. No hiding.

The new Manchester United manager has walked into the Women’s Super League with a clear demand for her players: be brave, think forward, attack.

The Spaniard, appointed from Hearts after Marc Skinner stepped down in the summer, takes charge of her first WSL game on Friday night when United travel to London City Lionesses for the season opener (19:00 BST). It is a gentle fixture on paper. The mood around the club is anything but.

A relatively quiet transfer window, short of what many supporters had hoped for, has fuelled doubts that United can seriously push for a top-three finish this season. The noise outside has been sceptical, sometimes scathing.

Olid has heard it all. She is not flinching.

"It's normal, no? It's normal to have people doubting. I have felt the support a lot too," she said, addressing those already writing United off.

"People that followed me in the last years with Hearts know I made something impossible possible, so I believe in what we are going to do.

"It's not something you get in weeks but I believe with a little time you get impossible things."

That belief underpins everything she is trying to build. Results in pre-season have been underwhelming, performances uneven, but Olid has not softened her message to the squad.

"My ambition is attacking football. I focus the gameplans on how we can hurt the teams. All teams have weaknesses we can exploit," she said.

This is not a tweak. It is a shift.

"This team will play the first match in the league and I want it to be as close [as possible] to what I want. The style of play is different to what we had last year.

"You can imagine it's not an easy task. What I did was put aside the principles of play that I thought was easier to change for the first match so we can compete."

In other words: evolution, not chaos. The bigger ideas will come, but the first priority is to compete, to show the new identity without losing grip on the basics.

The club, Olid insists, is fully behind her vision.

"The club wanted to play attractive football and be brave. We know that can have risks but the club support me in that. They signed me for that."

The questions about United’s ceiling this season will not stop on Friday night. But under Eva Olid, one thing is already non-negotiable: they will go after teams, not wait for the league to come to them.