Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
£6M OLE PAY DAY
SOLSKJAER: EVER SINCE I PLAYED COMPUTER GAMES WITH MY MATES, I’VE ALWAYS SECRETLY WANTED TO BE A BOSS
MANCHESTER UNITED will hand a £6million compensation package to Norwegian club Molde for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Solskjaer will be confirmed as United’s permanent manager at
just once, as they have also moved into the Premier League’s top four and the FA Cup quarter-finals.
United visit the Emirates today – and Solskjaer is demanding even more. He said: “The distance we ran against PSG was the highest we’ve ever had and that has to continue. There’s no reason why Man United shouldn’t be the hardest-working team in the league.
“When I was a player, Giggsy and Becks used to do the graveyard shift, running up and down that line. They didn’t just stand there waiting for the ball, they worked their socks off.
“When you play for Manchester United, you can’t just think, ‘I’m talented, I’ll just do my magic when I get the ball’. At the moment, the teams above us work harder than we do – and that is unacceptable.
“So we need to keep working on the fitness – and next season the players know that they will be asked
if they want to challenge the
top.
“We’ve got to go step by step because we won’t close the gap on the top two in one big gulp. But we’re making progress.
“I’ve had a couple of comments from some of the younger lads, saying, ‘This is how it must have been for you because we’re going into big games feeling very confident’. They’ve never had that before.
“We were used to winning – and it’s what we want to get back to.”
OLE GUNNAR SOLSKJAER scored the greatest goal in Manchester United’s history.
But, almost 20 years on, he insists that only now is he realising his true destiny.
Solskjaer is awaiting confirmation that his incredible impact as interim manager at Old Trafford has landed him the job permanently.
And the Norwegian has revealed how he always sensed that life on the bench would bring him much more than a reputation as Sir Alex Ferguson’s supersub striker.
“I think I’ve prepared all my life for this,” said Solskjaer. “Ever since I was a kid, when I played computer games with my mates, we would write out all the teams.
“They were good old times, when I used to sign Zico and Maradona and Van Basten.
“Looking back, I have secretly always wanted to do the job I am doing right now. I probably believe more that I can be a football coach than I ever did a football player.
“I just feel so honoured and privileged to be the one making all the decisions. I absolutely love coaching, managing and just helping players to improve themselves.
“And when you’re in a club like this, that’s exactly what you have to do.
“It’s what the gaffer (Sir Alex Ferguson) did, it’s what Sir Matt Busby did, as well as Louis (van Gaal) and Jose (Mourinho).”
It was Solskjaer’s instinctive finish in the Nou Camp in 1999 that enabled the Class of ’92 to realise immortality as the only team to complete the Treble of the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup.
United fans have been forced to rely on treasured memories of David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and others in the five seasons since Ferguson retired in the aftermath of the club’s last title success.
Solskjaer made it his mission to bring back the glory days when he was asked to take over until the end of the season after Mourinho was sacked in December.
The miraculous midweek Champions League victory at Paris Saint-Germain, which took United into the quarter-finals, has made the Norwegian’s case to be given the job permanently irresistible.
Especially as it is part of a 17-game sequence that has seen United lose