ImagesPAday didn’t stop. The Red Devils embarked on
a club-record nine away victories on the
spin, also winning at Newcastle, Tottenham,
Arsenal, Leicester, Fulham, Chelsea, Crystal
Palace and Paris Saint-Germain.
But will he be able to cut it when things are
not quite so rosy?
“He had a tough side as a player, he was
very determined, and he’ll need it to make
some big decisions as a manager,” says
Neville. “When you get sacked as he did at
Cardiff, he knows that it’s him or them.”
“He can be determined and stubborn,”
adds Fjortoft. “He would be really straight
with the media in Norway and refused
anything which went close to his private life.”
Neville felt Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino
should have been the next Manchester
United manager, “because of his track
record at the top level, but Ole has done so
well that it has to be him. He’s thrown a
huge spanner in the works. There will be
mutiny among fans if it’s not Solskjaer now.”
Neville and Solskjaer sat next to each other
in the dressing room at Carrington, and
former training ground The Cliff, for years.
“And I did my A licence with him – and
Ryan Giggs. He had a willingness to learn
and do his badges before he’d stopped
playing, which is always a good sign. He
was willing to start at the very bottom
and learn the ropes with the reserve teams
at United.
“He had his own ideas. I can remember him
telling me that he wanted to play 4-2-2-2 and
I said, ‘What the fuck are you on about – you
mean 4-4-2 with wingers tucked in?’ Yet a lot
of clubs now play that system or similar to it.
“Ole thought about the game all the time,
and because the game has evolved away
from the dictator manager who barks and
shouts, you have to be more of a thinker and
someone who manages players.”
“He’s a quiet assassin,” smiles Wes Brown.
“You saw him with Rob Lee [when Ole
hacked down the Newcastle midfielder who
was clean through on goal and got sent off].
If he needed to do something for the team,
he would do it. He was a tough player. Being
a great sub also helps him to manage playerswho don’t start every game. No one wants to
be on the bench.”
Solskjaer came off the bench a record 150
times for United from 1996-2007. He started
216 games and scored 126 goals, with Ole’s
Treble-winning strike in Barcelona, 20 years
ago next month, the greatest in the club’s
history. The Norwegian’s stock couldn’t be
higher, but expectations are huge.
In a short time, Solskjaer has united the
team and the club but there’s still much
work to do, on the personal as well as
professional side, that the world will judge.
The Solskjaers will need to give serious
thought about moving back to Manchester,
somewhere where their children were born
and enjoyed a happy family life. At present,
they fly over to see Ole and sometimes
watch a game.
It’s implausible that Ole won’t be at
United’s wheel come the start of next season,
though. And it’s remarkable that everyone at
the club and in the stands now want that.
He may have started out as stop-gap, a sop
to supporters who were starting to get bored
and demoralised away from attending
games, but Solskjaer has gone about his
business with a keen intelligence and steely
determination few who didn’t know him
would have foreseen.“GETTIn G SACKED AT CARDIFF WAS
THE BEST THIn G THAT COULD HAVE
HAPPEn ED TO HIM” – GARY n EVILLE
FourFourTwo.com The Managers 107OLE GUnnA R
SOLSKJAER