Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has admitted to borrowing some team talks from legendary Red Devils boss Sir Alex Ferguson.
The Norwegian tactician was recently named permanent Man Utd manager after a hugely impressive stint as interim boss, and is now preparing for a big Champions League quarter-final against Barcelona this week.
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And unlike his predecessors Jose Mourinho, Louis van Gaal and David Moyes, Solskjaer played under Ferguson so knows the Scot’s best techniques and how he deployed them.
“Towards the end of my career I was more focused on what the manager said. You learn that there was a pattern to what he was saying. There’s a pattern to how he builds his team up to believe: ‘We are going to make this,'” Solskjaer told ESPN.
“I’ve used some of his team talks. You’ve got to plan; you can’t just act on emotion. As I got to know him, I realised it’s not just emotion. When he went on one of his hairdryers or when he was hammering people, there was a reason behind what he did. He was maybe pointing at one player so that the 10 others would help him out.
“He would put his arm around someone or really go hard on someone to really get the best out of them. That’s what I learned from him the most — how he managed to get the best out of every single player.”
It remains to be seen if simply re-using team talks from Fergie will be enough for Solskjaer to replicate his success, but it’s clearly working pretty well for him so far, and seems to have generally created the feeling inside Old Trafford again that those glory days are back.
Of course, the new manager is yet to win anything and will face a real uphill task to do so this season, but there can be no doubting the mood at United has improved and looks like putting them in good shape for the future.