Festive fixture pile-up is unfair on players: Ole
MANCHESTER United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer believes the festive fixture schedule needs changing due to the unfair physical and mental toll on players.
Just 48 hours and 25 minutes after wrapping up a 4-1 comeback win against Newcastle, the Red Devils will kick-off their final Premier League match of 2019 at Burnley.
Those matches are part of a run of seven United games in 21 days over a period that may be traditional but seems outdated given the focus on physical and mental well-being.
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp recently said it is “a crime” for teams to have to play on both December 26 and 28, with Solskjaer similarly irked by the continuation of such scheduling.
“I don’t think it is fair on the boys at all,” Solskjaer said.
“I don’t think it is fair to be expected to perform at the best of your level, both mentally and physically, 48 hours after you have played.
“But I think we are in the best position to perform on Saturday. One — the game was over after 45 minutes. Two — we are young.
“We have a great chance against Burnley to perform at the best level because our boys, when you are 23, which is the average age of the outfield starting players today, that will make it easier for us to recover than Burnley, for example. I think.
“But it is not fair, especially when a game at Watford has just gone and there will be a game New Years’ Day.
“I am impressed by everyone in the dressing room because they are so professional, looking after themselves.
“That is why they could stay at home last night. There was no point them being in a hotel. I trust them.”
Asked if he ever sees English football changing, Solskjaer said: “You are a traditionalist country. You like your traditions. I can’t see it being changed, no. But it should be.”
The Norwegian tasted the hectic scheduling first-hand during his playing days at United, although he did not have it quite as tough.
“It was easy for me,” Solskjaer said. “I was on the bench all the time!
“You have to look after yourself. You have to eat the right things, drink the right things, sleep well.
“I know everything is going to be done for the players and by the players to be prepared.”
Not only will the players be prepared this weekend but aware of the expectations.
“The boys know what I expect on Saturday,” Solskjaer said when last Sunday’s chastening 2-0 loss at Watford was broached.
That was one of several times that United have stumbled against one of the Premier League’s lesser lights.
“I think it has been told in certain terms what kind of team we are,” Solskjaer said. “They know when we are at our best.
“We can’t play tippy-tappy football. We can’t, at this moment in time, play like (Manchester) City.
“We have to show more energy, drive, urgency and selflessness in every single game. That is the way we have to play.”
SIR Alex Ferguson has been variously portrayed as a dictator, an ogre, a bully, aggressive, abrasive and a confrontational man who could fly off the handle in an instant with a player or a journalist.
But these were mostly the perceptions of people in the media who don’t really know the man I came to admire so much.
In 1997, I was absolutely honoured when the then Manchester United manager asked my good friend John Dempsey and I to become the Northern Ireland co-ordinators and fundraisers of a charity he had just established in memory of his late mother, Elizabeth Ferguson (née Hardie).
The purpose of The Elizabeth Hardie Ferguson Charitable Trust Fund (1997-2013) was to bring young people all over the UK together through sport and the crest embodied a Scottish thistle, English rose, Welsh daffodil and Irish shamrock.
Sir Alex may have been born in Scotland but his mother came from Northern Ireland and because of her roots he had a close affinity with the people of the province. His father, Alexander Beaton Ferguson, worked for a brief period in the Harland & Wolff Shipyard as a plater’s helper. When he was living in Belfast, he played for Glentoran under the pseudonym Alex Miller, as he was already signed to a club in Scotland and it was here that he met his future wife.
I found the man the press loved to berate a warm, fun loving, charming and down-to-earth character whose biggest attribute in my eyes was his generosity.
No matter how many functions I attended with him, he always made time for the fans and I never once saw him refuse to sign an autograph or pose for a photograph. For me, his unselfish acts of generosity and numerous acts of personal kindness are legion, but very few people know of them.
I recall a number of such moments where he placed the interests of others before those of himself, including speaking to the families of the victims of the Omagh bomb when he brought his treble-winning side over to the province on August 3, 1999 to play Omagh Town in a friendly in aid of the Omagh Bomb Fund.
When Alex Ferguson succeeded Ron Atkinson as manager of Manchester United on November 6, 1986, he had four players from north and south at his disposal who are all Irish football legends in their own right — Kevin Moran, Norman Whiteside, Frank Stapleton and Paul McGrath.
❝ I’ll forever be grateful to him for how he treated me when I was a kid at United – David Healy
He arrived fully aware of United’s long association with Ireland as the club included an Irish player in their squad every season going back to Belfast-born Walter McMillen’s debut versus Brentford away in an English Second Division fixture on September 16, 1933.
Fergie continued this history during his reign and in October 1988, he bought his first Irish player when he paid Luton Town £650,000 for Belfast-born Mal Donaghy, now a coach at the Irish FA.
He also handed the following internationals their debut for Manchester United: Pat McGibbon, Keith Gillespie, Phil Mulryne, Roy Carroll, David Healy, and Jonny Evans of Northern Ireland; Denis Irwin, Roy Keane, John O’Shea, the late Liam Miller, Darron Gibson and Robbie Brady of the Republic.
It was during Sir Alex’s time in charge of United that the club first sent teams over to Northern Ireland to participate in the Milk
Cup with his first set of juniors competing in the 1989 tournament.
Future United stars including Ryan Giggs, Wes Brown, David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Gary Neville, Paul Scholes, Evans, Danny Welbeck, Jesse Lingard, Andreas Pereira (Player of the Tournament in 2013) and Marcus Rashford all experienced their first taste of tournament football on our north coast at the Milk Cup. Beckham, Butt, Neville and Gillespie all played in United’s 1991 Under-16 winning team.
I recall sitting in his office at Carrington training ground one afternoon when I was researching my book, ‘Irish Devils: The Official Story of Manchester United and the Irish’. I asked him why the club was so successful recruiting young players, particularly young Irish players.
He told me: “Since the club’s inception in 1878 as Newton Heath Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Club, many players have crossed the Irish Sea to play for