This archive report was first published on 29 October 2021.
Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is facing a daunting task to turn around his team's fortunes after a 5-0 thrashing by Liverpool left him under intense scrutiny.
Speaking ahead of Saturday's trip to Tottenham, Solskjaer revealed that he had spoken to former manager Alex Ferguson since the Liverpool loss, and that he believed he could emerge from the current predicament and be as successful as his old boss.
“Yes, on both accounts. We had a commercial day, and Alex came to do some commercial stuff. I met him and spoke to him, just for a brief moment,” Solskjaer said.
He also dismissed a report that Paul Pogba, who was sent off in the Liverpool match, did not speak to him afterwards and had put contract talks on hold as “blatant lies”.
“We expect to be criticised, because hands up, the performance wasn’t good enough, you expect to hear it from right, left and centre,” Solskjaer said. “But we can’t accept when lies are being made up, and Paul came to me and told me what he had put out on his social media account.”
Defender Harry Maguire, who apologised to supporters immediately after Sunday’s defeat, told United’s official website that the players had let the club and fans down but the squad could bounce back.
“We have a lot of experience in our dressing room and a lot of leaders,” he said. “We’re open, we’re men and we can take someone pointing the finger at us, but one thing is for sure and that’s that we all know we’re in this together, there’s no blame game.”
