Say what you want about Ole Gunnar Solskajer (and a lot of people are saying harsh things about his job performance), but he’s sticking to his guns on his controversial Cristiano Ronaldo decision. Just before this past international break, Solskjaer decided to drop his superstar, for no apparent reason, in the 1-1 draw with Everton.
Club patriarch Sir Alex Ferguson was caught on camera, while talking to a MMA superstar, saying he felt that was the wrong call to make in that situation.
“I’m quite relaxed about it but of course it’s not really fair on the gaffer that something like this gets broadcast,” Solskjaer said to a news conference on Friday, the day before his team suffered a very ugly 4-2 loss at Leicester City.
“You always have opinions and you speak to people, you speak to people in confidence. I disagreed with the gaffer quite a few times and I told my wife quite a few times that I disagreed with him but that never made headlines as a player.
“I’m sure Sir Alex knows that it doesn’t bother me. We all want to see Cristiano.
“We all want to, because he’s unique, he’s different, he’s had a career and everyone wants to come and watch him. But the plain fact of it is he cannot play every single game that we play, that’s just physical nature, human nature. But he knows how difficult this job is anyway, the gaffer.
“He didn’t always play the same XI. He took some risks at times to rest Ryan Giggs, Wayne Rooney or David Beckham, the best players that we had. Sometimes it works, sometimes it didn’t.”
United surpassed even Arsene Wenger’s “Invincibles” on their way to setting a new record for unbeaten Premier League away matches (29), but it’s over now. And with that, United have now slumped to sixth place in the table, and the pressure on the Norwegian to somehow right the ship has to be rising.
Calls for his sacking are only increasing, as they should be. Ronaldo did come off the bench in the second half against Everton, but could not stop the Red Devils from dropping points.
Reports indicated that the superstar was pretty upset about not starting the game.
After the loss at Leicester left United with only one win in their last five, Solskjaer told a news conference”
“We all need to do better, we have to do better. Every game in the Premier League and Champions League, they’re big games, all of them. Leicester is just as big a game as Atalanta.
“We’ve got to dust ourselves off and make sure we come in again and look ourselves in the mirror. That’s the nature of football, you’ve got to respond to setbacks.”
After this latest set back, defensive midfielder Nemanja Matic apologized to fans, and expressed just how low the morale is within the team right now.
“Everyone is sad, everyone is with their head down at the moment,” Matic told the club’s official website on Sunday.
“It’s time to stick together, to analyse this game as soon as possible, then to think about the next one, which is in three or four days against a very good side, Atalanta.
“It’s also going to be hard. We are very disappointed, but I think that, in the future, we will show we are much better than this.
“Every next game is the most important, every next game is a new challenge, an opportunity to show your qualities. We’re going to take responsibility. We’re going to step up and see what we can do. I’m sure that we can do a lot.”
C’mon Glazers, do the right thing! Replace the Gaffer who has already been given way more than enough time. He’s already shown he’s unfit for the gig.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune.
He co-hosts the After Extra Time podcast. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.