Years later, we can say without fear of contradiction that the choice to bring Cristiano Ronaldo back to Manchester United was not a winning one. The former Red Devils coach Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has now revealed that he was warned by current Ipswich Town manager McKenna, who was part of the Norwegian’s coaching staff at Manchester United, not to sign the Lusitanian.
Speaking on the Norwegian Media podcast NRKSolskjaer spoke about McKenna’s doubts about integrating Ronaldo into the team, after analyzing the Portugal captain’s matches when he was at Juventus. “He said to me ‘How are we going to defend ourselves?’ That’s the first thing McKenna said. It was probably the wrong choice for all of us to feel like it was the right decision at the time.”
Since being sacked by Manchester United almost three years ago, Solskjaer has not accepted coaching roles, waiting for the right opportunity: “I’m proud of what I’ve done. I have to say I think there’s been a lot of good, and we were heading towards something very positive. We finished third and second, we reached several semi-finals and unfortunately we lost that final against Villarreal. That’s my thought, if we had won it, it could have been a completely different outcome.”