Once upon a time, Sir Alex Ferguson’s iron discipline reigned in the dressing room at Old Trafford. A lot has changed since then. Manchester United is not what it used to be. Nor are today’s kids the same as they used to be. It’s not automatically a bad thing, each generation is normally different from the previous one, but that gap between the two classes can sometimes create a problem. For example, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, three years after leaving the Manchester United bench, does not hide that he did not get along well with some of the younger guys.Of course, he did not talk about specific names – not in this case – but he even admitted that some players refused to wear the captain’s armband, which is normally considered a great privilege in the world of football.”Nobody said ‘I won’t’, but for certain matches… Although, maybe they didn’t say it themselves, but they sent various people to come and say it on their behalf. That was disappointing. But it’s a different generation, Gen Z (people born in the mid-to-late 90s, up until around 2010 of the 21st century). Petty. They show a lack of ambition,” Solskjaer said in an interview with former teammate Gary Neville on Sky’s “Stick to Football” show.New contract is incoming for Mainoo, along with the big decision: England or GhanaHe didn’t like other things about young people either, although he could understand some. Because of comments and social media platforms, they ran away from journalists. Maybe from responsibility after bad games?”Many players did not want to give interviews after the game, they did not want to answer those three questions. Bruno Fernandes always went, Harry Maguire too, Victor Lindelof, David De Gea or Luke Shaw. The others were afraid of the question. Maybe they were afraid of the reaction, but you also have to understand the mental health of the players”.##EDITORS_CHOICE##In particular, media criticism and especially criticism of expert consultants, mostly former aces, bothered young footballers. Social media didn’t help.”You can criticize tactics, a team or a player, but when it goes beyond that… Many people today watch and listen to what is happening on social media and it has an impact. If they don’t read it, friends or managers will. When it gets personal, when it comes to their character, they think more about it than you can imagine.”Solskjaer as a coach, such is the profession, had to think about all this even more and keep all that inflated ego together. It’s not always easy. On the contrary.”I still think that the coaching staff had a good relationship with the players, but you always have one or two who are dissatisfied, so they report some insider information to the media. When you are a coach, you play a game Saturday-Wednesday-Saturday, in that span you fire 14 people, and then the next morning you call them back and tell them they have a new chance. You can’t do that forever. At the end of the day, someone is going to be unhappy. Especially when you have a team with too many players”.Might be the best bit of analysis of the whole show. Solskjaer breaking down how incomparable things are between now and when these guys played. Entire league has just gotten so much better pic.twitter.com/VQJkLvOPCC— Pauly Kwestel (@pkwestel) March 6, 2024 Especially when they are some of the biggest names in modern football. For example, Cristiano Ronaldo was there during Solskjaer’s tenure. It didn’t go as it should have.”It didn’t turn out well for me, it didn’t turn out well for Cristiano, but at that moment it was the right decision. It wasn’t a problem with him when the ball was at his feet. But without him in pressing, we had to adapt a little, to play different roles. Before Ronaldo, we were one of the teams with the highest pressing. I say, it was the right decision. It turned out, not a good decision”, said Solskjaer enigmatically.His decision to give the captain’s armband to Harry Maguire and not to Bruno Fernandes is also interesting. And there Solskjaer has an explanation.”I knew that Bruno Fernandes had the quality to be a captain. He has that personality, he has football quality. But he knows that, I told him, at some moments he is too passionate and loses control. That’s why I adored Harry Maguire as a captain. He was the leader of that team while I was at the club”.Maybe that’s why Solskjaer didn’t win anything in three years in Manchester…?##NAJAVA_MECA_7929925##
