How I have been managing the lockdown – Solskjaer
Manchester United boss, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, has said been managing to keep in touch with his squad during the current nationwide lockdown.
Despite UK residents being urged to stay at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, and sport and normal life on hold, he is still able to focus on elements of his job, in addition to spending time with his family.
In many respects, Ole is similar to lots of people in this situation, as he has been playing with his children in the garden and watching a lot of television.
In an exclusive ‘United Hangout’ interview with Stewart Gardner for us, the manager said: “I’m good. The family is good. One of the downsides of football is you don’t get too much time with your family and the flipside now is you get loads of time with them. It’s been nice to spend some time with them.
“For the actual job, I keep in touch and communicate with the staff and the players. Of course, I’m used to seeing them every day for hours and hours, so it’s different. I just keep in touch with them on WhatsApp groups and messages, and we plan for whenever we get back and what kind of sessions for when we do start. But it’s such an unknown and we don’t really have an idea and are not 100 percent about when we’ll start.
“That’s the good thing now with technology and we’re lucky in that sense. We can keep in touch and see each other. We can send messages and get a reply quickly, and we can do the old-fashioned phone call sometimes and speak just on the phone. So we keep in touch regularly.”
The players should be sharpening up their skills at home – something one of the most predatory strikers in our history is still doing, with a bit of help from the family!
“Yeah, the players have got individual programmes and they’ve got their own diets, of course, and this period could be used to work on something special, something specific for them and their roles and tasks,” he added. “I’ve been in the garden, with the kids, working on finishing and the strikers should be working on finishing or their movement. Most of the players have got good facilities and decent gardens so, hopefully, their wives and girlfriends will be able to put some passes and crosses in.
“So I’m in the garden, of course, as we’ve had time with the kids now. So I have to keep on top of it, you know.“
“We did that [home-schooling] last week when it started and that’s a bit different,” he said. “Homework is one thing but doing the actual teaching! We managed to get through last week but you never know how long this is going to last. But the kids have been very good.
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“I think I’m the same as everyone else. There are some Peaky Blinders and the whole series to go through, with the different episodes and all the old ones like The Sopranos, just classics. I watched The Joker the other night, which was a bit of a wake-up call but, then again, we’re thinking about people now, as well, with mental-health issues, when you’re isolating on your own.”