From December 2018 to November 2021, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer managed the Manchester United first team. Former player of the club with whom he notably won the Champions League in 1999, the Norwegian has had good and bad times. During his first two seasons, he still finished in 3rd then 2nd place in the Premier League but the start of the third year got the better of him. There was a certain Cristiano Ronaldo under his command. Returning to Old Trafford during the summer, the Portuguese did not really make a success of his return. Despite the goals, he ended up leaving a year and a half later by terminating his contract. Solskjaer had already been gone for a year. The story was not easy between the two men. In the podcast Stick to Football co-hosted by his former teammate, Gary Neville, he claims that the arrival of the five-time Ballon d’Or has completely unbalanced the club, both on and off the pitch. “Cristiano is different from Anthony Martial who started up front, or even from Mason (Greenwood) or Marcus (Rashford). Edinson Cavani was the one who suffered the most when Cristiano arrived. We played a certain way and got Edinson to understand the way we played.” begins the 51-year-old before tackling the tactical side.
“With the ball and Ronaldo in the team, it wasn’t a problem. But without him in the pressing phase, we had to change the roles we had become accustomed to. We were one of the teams that pressed the most before Ronaldo joined us. We let Daniel James go when Cristiano arrived, and they are two different types of players. Solskjaer believes that the arrival of the Portuguese had taken precedence over rationality. He was not a compatible player for Manchester United at that time. “Part of his signing was due to his passion, but there were complications. You have Greenwood, Martial and Rashford who can learn from Cristiano because he is the best, the most disciplined and he has been the best player in the world, and you think he will help them. Finally, the star’s character is not easy to manage either, as evidenced by one episode. “When he arrived at the club he told me to start him three games in a row and then put him on the bench for the fourth game, but he is so passionate that when I did that he didn’t not liked.”
