By Daily Sports on March 11, 2020

Big congrats to Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer on recording a hat trick of wins over one of the finest ever football managers Pep Guardiola and bitter rivals Manchester City this season.

There are only a very few number of coaches who have managed to outwit Guardiola as regularly as Solskjaer has done this season, beating the Spaniard twice in the league and defeating him in the Carabao cup. Although there was q game in the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final when Guardiola’s Manchester City tore Solskjaer’s Manchester United apart at the latter’s Old Trafford home 3-1, Solskjaer has proved his ability to mix it and even better a high profile manager as Guardiola by beating him three times, yes three times, within a few months in very competitive settings.

So far, Solskjaer has remained a calming presence at United since he took over as manager from the combustible Jose Mourinho. He has weathered some storms of poor results and faced some harsh criticisms from some quarters of the Red Devils’ fan base as well as from some pundits but he never allowed that to significantly derail him from his focus to get United back on track. Seeing his team in a good position to qualify for the Champions League, and beating Guardiola THREE TIMES in a season is a good evidence that he is focused on the saddle and could help ride the club back to greatness.

Every human being has a little flaw here and there though and, while being ungentlemanly and ungraceful in victory has not generally been a character flaw of the Norwegian, Solskjaer showed traces of them in the aftermath of United’s 2-0 home win over Manchester City on Sunday and it came by the way he responded to the clash between his newly acquired mercurial midfielder Fernandez and Manchester City’s manager Guardiola in the late stages of the game which saw Fernandez shushing Guardiola following a disagreement at the touchline.

Fernandez, who set up the opening goal for Anthony Martial, put his fingers to his lips after arguing with Guardiola a few minutes prior to Scott McTominay sealing victory in injury time for United.

Per Footba365.com: ‘Asked specifically about the incident involving Guardiola, Solskjaer said: “You need character at this club but this team they have got that. They have learned through some hard times this season. We have started something we believe in and Bruno has helped that”.’

Now what is wrong about this response is that it shows a clear lack of sympathy and disrespect to a manager who had just lost a game and who had an argument with a player.

The incident was a small incident which involved the City manager throwing the ball beyond Fernandez to his teammate Luke Shaw so the throw-in is not taken nearer to the City goal. A little argument ensured between Fernandez and Guardiola leading to the former to shush the City manager.

What is not cool about Solskjaer’s response is that it could set a precedence where players would see standing up to and embarrassing opponents’ managers during games as a proof of possessing the right character to play for their team.

A better response would have been to downplay the incident as a heat of the moment thing and move on and not to talk up shushing a rival manager as a sign of proper character of a player.

Though no one wants to see managers harassing opponents’ players in the pitch, no one wants to watch matches where players would be all too eager to engage in cursing, arguing with, or shushing a rival manager out of the slightest provocation all in a bid to prove his leadership qualities.

Ole is a fine manager and man and maybe in his moments of reflection, he would acknowledge his response to Guardiola and Fernandez incident was improper.

Source Daily Sports

Posted March 11, 2020

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