In Beckham's final and fitful campaign in 2002-03, he started on the bench in the April run-in encounters against Liverpool and Arsenal and was there again for the Champions League quarter-final second leg with Real Madrid. Beckham was magnanimous about Solskjaer ousting him after the Norwegian excelled in the 6-2 evisceration of Newcastle four days before the pivotal Arsena tussle.
"If I stepped back from my own disappointment for a moment, I could understand the gaffer picking him ahead of me," Beckham said in 2003's My Side. "Which of us would be the best choice to start wide right against Madrid came down to a matter of opinion and it would be a manager's job to make the judgement.
"I could see, after how he'd been playing, it would be hard to leave Ole out. No one could say Ole hadn't earned his chance." Beckham's wife, Victoria, joked he was spending so much time sat down he would get Piles. Ferguson saw things differently.
"The team picks itself," he said in the wake of Beckham's summer move to Real Madrid. "Solskjaer will play wide right, as he did in every big game last season." Ferguson let that sentence hang.
At the turn of his 30th birthday in 2003, Solskjaer showed just how adept he was at playing on the flank. "Who crossed it Beckham-like?" Andy Gray, on co-commentary at Highbury, chuckled rhetorically. Solskjaer created Louis Saha's equaliser from an identical area of the Highbury turf 11 months later.
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"Ole’s adapted to the right because he reads the game so well," Ferguson said on United's pre-season tour of the United States in 2003. "I think he’s one of the most intelligent players in the game.
"He’s a student. He reads the game, sizes it up really well. Talks the game well. He’ll make a great coach if he wants to do that." How prophetic.
Solskjaer first got chalk on his boots towards the end of 1996-97, amid Andy Cole's resurgence. Solskjaer lined up with Cole and Eric Cantona in the captivating 4-0 victory over Porto and the 3-1 success against Blackburn at Ewood Park. The trio lined up twice more in the Champions League semi-final loss to Borussia Dortmund and the enthralling 3-3 draw with Middlesbrough.
Ferguson accommodated Solskjaer and Cole with new striker signing Teddy Sheringham, a trial that yielded a spectacular 6-1 shellacking of Sheffield Wednesday at the start of November '97. The three strikers ended November by starting in the 4-0 stroll over Blackburn. The season-turning defeat in late December at Coventry, who scored twice in the last five minutes, burst their bubble. Solskjaer, Cole and Sheringham started in the 2-0 reverse at Hillsborough and European ejection by Monaco.
The signing of Dwight Yorke in 1998 and Beckham's development into a world-class wide player ensured Solskjaer stayed central whenever called upon until the striker overhaul across 12 months. Sheringham returned to Tottenham in May 2001 as Ruud van Nistelrooy arrived, Cole joined Blackburn in December, Diego Forlan arrived in January 2002 and Yorke left that summer. The irony of Solskjaer's positional change was it came off the back of his most prolific season for United; he plundered 25 goals in 2001-02.
Beckham's injury against Bayer Lverkusen in November 2002 paved the way for his replacement that night to forge a fleeting career on the right. Ferguson's distrust of the lanky Luke Chadwick convinced him to entrust Solskjaer, who was available for all but one match in the entire season.
There had been flickers of Solskjaer's wing play against Necaxa in the Club World Cup and in the memorable 5-3 comeback at Tottenham - where he came on to play on the left. His transition was as remarkable as his consistency.
United regained their league form with a blistering run of results with wins over Newcastle, Liverpool and Arsenal in November and December, and the burst began with Solskjaer's exceptional touch, dart and cross for Paul Scholes in the opening triumph.
Beckham recovered to make the matchday squad on Boxing Day at Middlesbrough, where Solskjaer's curler was prodded in by Ryan Giggs. Solskjaer started in all three reverse fixtures against United's top four rivals. In the high-profile matches Beckham was dropped in, Solskjaer contributed an assist or a goal.
Those contributions cemented Solskjaer's first-team status as a winger. He was enough of a persistent pest that Ashley Cole booted him in an off-the-ball incident at the 2007 Community Shield and, even after his knee became troublesome, Solskjaer perfectly pinged the ball for Wayne Rooney to half-volley in that invaluable away goal at Roma in 2007. The euphoric Rooney immediately charged at Solskjaer.
Marcus Rashford has already benefited from Solskjaer's unique coaching cachet of playing with Cantona and Van Nistelrooy and tutoring Rooney and Ronaldo. Jesse Lingard and Juan Mata are also unnatural choices for the wide right position and pose a unique challenge for the interim manager as he uses senior stop-gaps to offset United's lack of a natural right-sided option. Wilfried Zaha remains the last specialist right winger United signed.
Mata was first shifted to the right by Louis van Gaal nearly four years ago. Lingard is more familiar with it, having played there for United's junior sides, but is more threatening in the centre. Full-backs' remits are as demanding as wingers and Diogo Dalot might particularly profit from Solskjaer tutelage. The Norwegian's appointment is a blessing for Tahith Chong, but maybe not for the ambling Antonio Valencia.
Solskjaer might be about to end another right winger's United career.