Look at any wanna be prima donnas (Or as it’s very often unintentionally hilariously misspelled “pre madonnas”), Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has no use for you in his side. The Manchester United manager will not stand for footballers who take the priorities of the individual and make them supersede the needs of the teams.
It almost sounds he’s speaking, in an abstract sense about Michael Jordan, widely considered to be the greatest basketball player of all time. A company owned by Jordan produced a film series about him, and for some reason the project got mislabeled “a documentary.”
It was off-the-charts popular, worldwide, and United right back Aaron Wan-Bissaka has spoken publicly about how much he had been watching it and how much it inspired him.
The series itself was very overrated, with the only one true, consistent theme emerging- Michael Jordan was ambitious as any human being could possibly be, and he would do anything to win, including abusing his own teammates.
Jordan’s egomaniacal, tough love, course and harsh style of leadership worked for him, but it’s really hard to see this approach working in football. OGS will definitely not be giving this method a try.
“I’d rather have a hole in the squad than an arsehole,” he said to United Fanzine ‘United We Stand.’
“Personality is so important. We’re a team in a team environment. You want players to have a bit of ego and edge, but they have to be able to adapt.”
“In March 2019, players were physically tired, mentally tired and we had injuries. The players started with negative thinking, whereas now it’s positive thinking. There were other things I didn’t like last year, some personal agendas which couldn’t be sorted out until the summer.”
There will always be players who want to play more in football, but if a team is to be successful then players have to be available at different times. I feel in this group we don’t have one bad apple.”
“When you win, everything is easy. It’s when you hit difficult times that you can see who you want and who has the right mentality. We didn’t see that until after Paris, when we went into a bad run. That’s when I saw who I could build a long-term, successful squad around. I could see more and more at the end of the season what needed improving.”
It’s easy to see where Solskjaer is coming from, even if there are no players currently on the United side with Michael Jordan level egocentrism.
United, in recent years, have adopted a transfer policy of buying the biggest names they could in the market. It’s had disastrous results, making Old Trafford as wasteful in spending as any club could be. They have now shifted to a buy young, on potential and shop domestically approach.
Solskjaer also added this comment, which probably says a lot about who is still on the team right now and who got shipped out: “You need some egos in football, but it has to be team first.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly contributes to WGN TV, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Now and SB Nation.
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