Mike Phelan praises Ole Gunnar Solskjaer for trying to change the culture of the club – Man United News And Transfer News

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Manchester United have started the new season rather poorly, both in terms of results and even more worryingly in terms of the performance put in by their star players.

Their away form against the big sides remains abysmal while, despite the money put in, the midfield remains imbalanced while the attack and defence are also showing signs of vulnerability.

But the biggest gripe manager Erik ten Hag will have with the squad is the fact that player power still remains rampant and quite a few stars show their tendency to down tools when the going gets tough.

The game against Tottenham Hotspur was the perfect example as the players almost gave up and allowed the opposition to take home all three points.

In little over two seasons, the former Ajax boss has had to deal with tiffs with the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Marcus Rashford, Harry Maguire, and now Jadon Sancho.

How the Solskjaer era unfolded

The current scenario, despite Ten Hag’s strong management, bears resemblance to former manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s time at the club.

The club legend enjoyed a fantastic first couple of seasons, albeit without silverware to show for his efforts, but as soon as the team was under pressure to close the gap between them and Manchester City, the team crumbled.

So many of the overpaid stars put in anonymous displays and the Norwegian was also at fault for almost being too soft with this entitled bunch of stars.

Despite finishing third and second and coming close to a European crown, the Treble winner was ultimately shown the door after a poor run of results in his second season.

His last season was characterised by stories of power struggles, tussles in training and generally everything was leaked to the media, something Ten Hag is trying hard to fix.

Fans of the club were devastated and former member of Solskjaer’s coaching staff, Mike Phelan addressed where it all went wrong, especially towards the end of his tenure.

“There were issues going on in that time that weren’t going on the first time round. There was a lot more attention to things in the background, within the club and the atmosphere.

“You were dealing with these things a lot more than the bits you wanted to focus on which was the football. But when you’re the manager of a massive club, the results get you,” he told Sky Sports.

Despite the sad end to the story, Phelan had words of praise for Solskjaer and how he tried to change the culture from the failed Jose Mourinho era to trying to emulate things as it was under the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson.

Phelan praised Ole’s style of working

“The club was different from the first time round. From the inside, working with Ole, it was refreshing. He had a different way of doing things, a different mentality but the same standards as when he was a player.

“He worked very hard to try to achieve what he could achieve. There was turmoil there, but there was turmoil in all different areas of the club. But he was the manager and we had a job to do.

“We hit the ground running, we changed the atmosphere, the standards. We changed a lot of small things that made it feel like a Manchester United that I and Ole knew. The players responded really well and we got off to a flyer. I think we had 10 wins out of 12 and we were starting to think: ‘this is crazy’.

“We tried to push it on and to Ole’s credit, he was a good thinker. He allowed people to work – he was similar in his ideas to Sir Alex. It was quite refreshing.”

All these point to the fact that Ten Hag will need to carefully deal with this group of players as they can easily throw the current manager under the bus if things do not work in their favour.

So far, Ten Hag has handled things immaculately and hopefully, it will continue in the same vein moving forward.