Ole Gunnar Solskjaer reveals Cristiano Ronaldo asked him to bench him when he was at Manchester United and then got angry when he did.
While I don’t think Solskjaer can be blamed for wanting to bring Ronaldo back to Old Trafford late in the summer of 2021, it is something that I believe came back to bite the Norwegian since he lost his job as manager just months later.
The former United manager appears on the latest episode of the Stick to Football podcast.
Joined by former team-mates Gary Neville and Roy Keane alongside Ian Wright, Jamie Carragher and Jill Scott, Solskjaer admitted that Ronaldo’s return did not go as planned and spoke about the Portuguese star’s personality.
“Cristiano – when you know him and speak to him, he wanted to play three out of four games, he realised he’s getting older as well,” Solskjaer said. “But when you leave him out once, he’s not happy!”
“Part of signing Cristiano Ronaldo was getting that passion from him, but that did have its complications. You got Mason Greenwood, Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial, who can learn from Cristiano as he’s got the best, the most disciplined and he’s been the best player in the world, and you start him for three games in a row, and then put me on the bench for the fourth game, but he’s so passionate so when I did that, he didn’t like it.”
It all started so well with Ronaldo scoring a brace on his homecoming against Newcastle as well as goals against Villarreal and Atalanta in the Champions League. Then the team’s form dipped following defeats to Leicester City, Liverpool, Man City and Watford. Solskjaer was sent his marching orders in November and replaced by Ralf Rangnick on an interim basis.
Solskjaer added: “With the ball, with him in the team, it was no problem. Without him [pressing], we had to change a little bit the different roles we’d gotten used to. We were one of the highest pressing teams before [Ronaldo joined]. We let Dan James go when Cristiano came in and they’re two different types of players. It was the right decision to make for me – it didn’t turn out to be the right one.”
Despite the complicated side of Ronaldo’s personality, Solskjaer stressed that there is still mutual respect between them.
“I had a good relationship with Cristiano and there’s loads of respect between us,” Solskjaer said. “I think he behaved really well in his disappointments when I was there.”
Sadly, that wasn’t the case after Solskjaer left. Ronaldo didn’t see eye-to-eye with Rangnick and it got even worse after Ten Hag’s appointment.
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