‘Trophies not the be-all and end-all’ Departing manager given easiest of rides in United’s exit interview
Nice man, shame about the whole management thing. Such was the only reasonable response to a soft soap exit interview posted by Manchester United last night in which Ole Gunnar Solskjaer talked about his tenure and exit from the club that, as he may have mentioned once or twice, he really, really loves.
You should not kick a man when he’s down; although it is not clear from the video published on the United website, and disseminated everywhere online, whether Ole thinks he is down or not. Tucking away softballs with the same baby-faced assurance he once brought from the substitutes’ bench to the six-yard box, he told United’s in-house Pravda: “It’s not always the trophies all the time that is the be-all and end-all.” Just as well, you might say.
Interviewed by a man from the club’s social media team, this made Oprah meets Prince Harry look like Jeremy
Paxman monstering Michael Howard. Set up in a “fireside chat” style, the departing manager’s message was that he had done his best, everybody had a nice time, and that we will always have Paris. Judging from the video, it suits him and the club to portray his tenure as a good-faith attempt that was a partial success rather than, as others see it, a fiasco.
Ole, rather like many children’s characters, reckons the real treasure is the friends you make along the way. “The other staff that was here, we’re good friends and we have connected and that’s what it’s about at a club like this.”
The video is doing great business in likes and messages of support, and if that is what people want from their managers then fair enough, but some United fans surely expect something more. Wins, a defence, a plan, that sort of thing.
The unchallenged Ole message is: do not be sad, because this was not the tale of a highly paid professional being basically hopeless at managing the world’s biggest club, but in fact the story of a little boy fulfilling his dreams.
“When you’ve been a player, when you’ve been a reserve-team coach, the next job then, the only dream and the only thing you haven’t done is to manage the club, and I have now,” the proud competition winner said.
He leaves with good wishes and a skip full of money, promising to return and support the side whenever he can.
Alas for Ole, other teams failed to join in the whole kumbaya vibe, and kept kicking the ball in the Man U net in a most unfriendly way. He was brought in as a four-month stopgap and got three years living the dream, the jammy multimillionaire so-and-so. Maybe he is a lot more canny than he makes out.