Solskjær: I asked who didn’t want to play, so I replaced Rashford and McTominay

Ole Gunnar Solskjær spoke to SkyBet about what the half-time interview was like in his final game as Manchester United manager. Watford won 4-1, ending the Norwegian manager’s tenure at his beloved club, where he enjoyed the best years of his playing career.

Solskjær as manager

He took over the club in a crumbling state in 2018 following the departure of José Mourinho. After the Portuguese, the cabin was not in ideal shape, the players were disgruntled and things were not looking good with United. However, the very first game showed that it was the players themselves rather than poor coaching decisions that were behind the famous coach’s departure.

The 1:5 win at Cardiff was a livewire for Red Devils fans. After Boxing Day, United went down 3-1 to Cardiff and the team looked very promising. Moreover, during the spring part of the season Manchester knocked out PSG despite losing 1: 2 in the opening game. The experience at Princes’ Park is one that the fans will never forget.

The next season, the Old Trafford club played the semi-finals of the Europa League. Above all, Solskjær brought Bruno Fernandes, still a key player of the team. In the Premier League came an improvement of 3 places and a final 3rd place, the fans whistled that the next season their team would be on top and in contention for the title again.

The 20/21 season was an incredible one from a Manchester United perspective, certainly in recent years. A Europa League final where a loss came only after penalties and also a 2nd place finish in the Premier League. Ahead of next season came star signings, Jadon Sancho, Raphael Varane, and most importantly Cristiano Ronaldo.

After a promising start came the game’s decline and if it wasn’t for Ronaldo’s goals in the last minutes in the Champions League group stage, Solskjær would have packed up a month or 2 earlier. The nail in the coffin was the 4-1 loss at Watford. The Norwegian manager talked about the aforementioned game and told us how his last half-time interview as Manchester United manager went.

The Watford game

After the first half, when the players did not give a good performance at all, United were down 0: 2. Sarr and King scored for the home side. It was clear that this could be Solskjær’s last game as manager. Fans of the club were waiting to see if another comeback would come or just another league defeat.

“I knew very well that it could be my last game. It was just a case of whoever wanted to play would play and whoever didn’t want to play could sign up. And I would replace them. So Rashford and McTominay went out of the game,” Solskjær began. In Rashford’s case it was not a very good game or season overall. So substituting him would have made sense even if he wanted to keep playing.

“During the last half the players seemed to stop running and didn’t really care. Some were trying but most weren’t,” added the Old Trafford club’s player icon. Donny van de Beek dramatized the game after half-time. But that was all the players could do, and they scored twice during the set-up, making it a high-scoring defeat.

Source: Premier League, OneFootball