Former Manchester United legendary coach Sir Alex Ferguson has said that Ole Gunnar Solsjkaer should have started with Cristiano Ronaldo in Saturday’s Premier League match against Everton at Old Trafford. The current Manchester United boss decided to leave out Ronaldo on the bench and as expected the talisman was not pleased.
Solskjaer also revealed after the 1-1 draw against the Toffees that it is imperative to manage the workload of his players and thus he decided not to start with players like Ronaldo, Paul Pogba and Jadon Sancho. However, the former manager Sir Alex Ferguson added that one should always start with the best players and Ronaldo is among them for United.
Ferguson said while interacting with mixed martial arts great Khabib Nurmagomedov that Everton must have received a boost when they came to know that Ronaldo wasn’t playing.
When Nurmagomedov said that Ronaldo came on in the second half, Ferguson added: “Yeah, I know … but you should always start with your best players.”
Meanwhile, Ronaldo was introduced after 10 minutes into the second half and he was obviously frustrated after his team had to share the spoils.
On the other hand, Solskjaer had defended his decision of not starting with Ronaldo.
“You make decisions throughout a long, long season, and you’ve got to manage the players’ workload, and the decision was, for me, the correct one today.”
“Anthony Martial did well, scored a good goal; [Edinson] Cavani needed minutes, he got an hour, could have had a goal, a great cross, and a great chance for him,” Solskjaer said. “We have to make those decisions sometimes.”
Ronaldo has made a great impact on Manchester United as he has scored five goals in the six matches he has played thus far for the club. However, United have managed to win only two games out of their last six across all competitions and they will look to turn the tide.