Man Utd dressing room ‘split’ as concerns grow over Solskjaer

Manchester United stars are said to be divided in their perception of manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s coaching style.

That’s according to journalist Duncan Castles, who claims there is a ‘split’ between the club’s foreign and British players over Solskjaer’s training and management methods.

Gone are the days footballers will just accept who their manager is and try their best regardless. Nowadays it seems like the gaffer is expected to be liked by all of his players, and that has never been the case in any dressing room!

READ MORE: BBC journalist provides update on two reported Man Utd transfer targets

Solskjaer has a huge job on his hands this season after missing out on Champions League qualification last term.

He needs to bring in better players, get rid of deadwood and resolve the futures of Romelu Lukaku, Paul Pogba and David de Gea. The three biggest names at the club have been linked with moves away from Old Trafford this summer.

But Castles has allegedly heard about doubts over Solskjaer’s coaching techniques.

“It’s right that there appears to be a split between the foreign players and the British players in the perception of Solskjaer,” he said on The Transfer Window podcast, as quoted by the Daily Star.

“There have been grumblings about the style of training, that it’s not very modern and that it’s a British style of training and management.

“And grumblings about the quality of the coaching. Again, not very modern, not particularly inspired were the words coming out of the camp.

“I think Solskjaer faces a very difficult challenge in turning that squad around and getting them to perform in the way he wants, because he obviously did an exceptional job coming in of getting a huge step-up and improvement of their performances and the results, a record sequence of wins, by telling the players how good he thought they were and changing the atmosphere for what had become a very negative atmosphere and a dissatisfied group of players working for Jose Mourinho 

“But the word you get from within Manchester United was that only lasted for so long. There came a point where the results kind of returned to the mean, and games that Manchester United were winning when they probably didn’t deserve to win were being lost or drawn. 

“The players started to lose a bit of faith and Solskjaer started to come down harder on the players in terms of their performances, as most managers do when things don’t go right, and then hit the wall – which is fairly typical in modern Premier League football. 

“Once you start criticising the players, you’ve got to do some other things to get them to respond.

“So we’ll see how he does this summer and we’ll see which of those players are left, ‘cos the other problem here is he’s gone on a pre-season tour with just two new additions to the squad.

“Only two players shifted out, only one of those voluntarily shifted out.

“Ander Herrera was a player that Solskjaer would like to have retained in his squad but chose to go elsewhere because of the low-level offer Manchester United made to him to take a pay-cut to stay at the club.

“There’s a lot of work to be done in that squad yet, so he’s gone out to Australia with players that are definitely expecting to leave, some of them who want to leave, made it quite clear that they want to leave, such as Romelu Lukaku and Paul Pogba, a goalkeeper and his best player, who is yet to sign a new contract and has been dissatisfied with his treatment at Manchester United, and other players who are unsure of their future.”

Imagine signing for an English club and complaining about the style of training being too British?

Whatever is meant by that, it’s a load of rubbish and probably comes down to Solskjaer putting a lot of emphasis on fitness, like he said he would at the end of last season.

It was clear to see last season that our players weren’t up to scratch with their fitness. That’s unacceptable at United where players are paid a premium.

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