Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Jim Solbakken

bludsucker

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Solskjær isn't a lawyer, nor qualified to make moral judgments on an open legal case he has no idea about, and he was employed by a club whose CEO made a public statement stating the player would be "relevant for the team going forward".

Some of you have utterly unrealistic expectations for football managers and seriously overrate the power they hold.
THe fact that some are targeting ole for playing a player who was accused of rape goes to show how deep seated their bias is against him. They either have no notion of the concept of being innocent until proven guilty or are aware of it and are willfully ignoring it as it doesn’t serve their purpose here. I would say ole would have been remiss in his duty to the club of not choosing his best team in the basis of an accusation which haven’t been proven true even after he left his job.
 

devilish

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And so you'd rather go back two decades in time and change history, rather than removing the man who appointed him. Top red.
I prefer the latter of course but Ed has nothing to do with this topic
 

Gasolin

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I prefer the latter of course but Ed has nothing to do with this topic
You're a bit ridiculous to try that hard. Leave Ole alone, I have the feeling that players listen to him because he has something interesting to say. The fact that he was able to play 2 different styles of football during his 2 periods at Molde tells me that he must be quite adaptable and astute.
 

devilish

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You're a bit ridiculous to try that hard. Leave Ole alone, I have the feeling that players listen to him because he has something interesting to say. The fact that he was able to play 2 different styles of football during his 2 periods at Molde tells me that he must be quite adaptable and astute.
Is he? We had the worst start since 1989 and we look clueless on the pitch. I'd love to see him succeed as we will finally end this manager's merry go round. Unfortunately I can't see it happen. The guy is league 1 level

Also I said it from day 1. The root of all evil is Ed. He has an endless list of mistakes in his name one of which was appointing ole
 

Wolfmother

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I must say. This thread is a tribute to the fine gathering of intellectuals on this site. And a fine example of the highly professional moderation on here. I was thinking of watching Poirot later, but this thread will do just fine!
 

NotThatSoph

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Solskjær isn't a lawyer, nor qualified to make moral judgments on an open legal case he has no idea about, and he was employed by a club whose CEO made a public statement stating the player would be "relevant for the team going forward".

Some of you have utterly unrealistic expectations for football managers and seriously overrate the power they hold.

My unrealistic expectations are that the manager picks the team and the words that leave the manager's mouth.
 

Gasolin

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My unrealistic expectations are that the manager picks the team and the words that leave the manager's mouth.
So when the club says: this player is an important player of the squad, the expectation for you about Ole is that he does not pick him up, based on the fact that there is a trial going on?
 

NotThatSoph

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So when the club says: this player is an important player of the squad, the expectation for you about Ole is that he does not pick him up, based on the fact that there is a trial going on?
My expectation is that Solskjær is a grown man capable of making his own decisions. He could have played Sarr, and he could have not played Sarr. He chose to play him.
 

MackRobinson

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My unrealistic expectations are that the manager picks the team and the words that leave the manager's mouth.
So your realistic expectations are he should have ignored the CEOs wishes, read all the legal proceedings and conduct interviews while managing his team, found Sarr to be guilty before an ongoing investigation was completed, defied the CEO, made a public statement against Sarr and the CEO, lost his job and perhaps risk a lawsuit by the player (given he was not convicted and has every right to continue making a living).

Yep. Seems realistic to me. I would love to live in the utopia you live in where due process is ignored and authority is undermined on a whim.
 

Laphroaig

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I think all it really shows is that Solskjaer is such a poor draw for players that in desperate times his only sources are these two agents.
What are you on about? He's not tried to sign a single Solbakken player for us.

The admins should just delete all posts in this thread except for Tom Cato's.

Six players were signed by Ole from Solbaaken by Cardiff who made 6 appearances before Cardiff were relegated. Mates from 1991. Nah, not dodgy at all.
Wtf! Who are the six?

By the way, Molde and Solskjær didn't handle this well, but I think we must accept that it was a difficult case. What do you do when a player of yours is accused of a crime, and you don't know the truth? Do you trust or support your employee? Do you ostracize him? And it should be added that the way we, or the press rather, handle these things in Norway, is that the we rarely expose the accused. But we had loads of articles about "Molde player accused of". If Solskjær dropped him, he would basically have told the nation who it was that was accused of rape. (Yet in a way all Molde players were subjected to rumours since most didn't know who the accused player was. So how do you handle this?) However - making him captain was a shite decision. And Solbakken going to great lengths to get him to Saudi Arabia to avoid being brought to justice is terrible. Solbakken is a questionable character, and Solbakken and Solskjær are close friends. But the conspiracy theories are so daft. And you should also know that in Norway there's a kind of weird animosity to Molde, so quite a lot of things said and written about them come from a silly place.
 

NotThatSoph

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So your realistic expectations are he should have ignored the CEOs wishes, read all the legal proceedings and conduct interviews while managing his team, found Sarr to be guilty before an ongoing investigation was completed, defied the CEO, made a public statement against Sarr and the CEO, lost his job and perhaps risk a lawsuit by the player (given he was not convicted and has every right to continue making a living).

Yep. Seems realistic to me. I would love to live in the utopia you live in where due process is ignored and authority is undermined on a whim.
He would not have ignored the the CEO's wishes. The club chose to make him available, like all the other players, to not suspend him and to back him publicly. Solskjær was 100 % free to either use him or not use him, to say anything either positive or negative against him. He chose to play him and to support him. Solskjær is a big boy, and he was the big boss. He did what he wanted to do.

He would not have risked any lawsuit, it would have nothing at all to do with due process pr authority. People are benched for thousands of reasons, including looking at the manager wrong or not signing a new contract. Getting benched for being on trial for rape is 100 % unproblematic, and it's actually baffling that you think otherwise. Due process would have been ignored if he was punished criminally without a trial. Innocent until proved guilty would have been broken if he was punished by the state without a guilty verdict. None of this happened. You are free to support what all of Molde FK, Jim Solbakken and Ole Gunnar Solskjær did if you want. You can support Solskjær but not the others. But all of them did what they wanted to do, not what they had to do. They were under no risk for repercussions in any possible way.

What happened was that Sarr was on trial for rape, and that he already had four other allegations against him. That's five in total. Four of them as a Molde player, which they knew. He played for Molde the rest of the season, and after the last game they went out partying. There he raped again.
 
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Paxi

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What are you on about? He's not tried to sign a single Solbakken player for us.

The admins should just delete all posts in this thread except for Tom Cato's.

Wtf! Who are the six?

By the way, Molde and Solskjær didn't handle this well, but I think we must accept that it was a difficult case. What do you do when a player of yours is accused of a crime, and you don't know the truth? Do you trust or support your employee? Do you ostracize him? And it should be added that the way we, or the press rather, handle these things in Norway, is that the we rarely expose the accused. But we had loads of articles about "Molde player accused of". If Solskjær dropped him, he would basically have told the nation who it was that was accused of rape. (Yet in a way all Molde players were subjected to rumours since most didn't know who the accused player was. So how do you handle this?) However - making him captain was a shite decision. And Solbakken going to great lengths to get him to Saudi Arabia to avoid being brought to justice is terrible. Solbakken is a questionable character, and Solbakken and Solskjær are close friends. But the conspiracy theories are so daft. And you should also know that in Norway there's a kind of weird animosity to Molde, so quite a lot of things said and written about them come from a silly place.
I don't know who they are but Duncan castles confirmed as such on his podcast.
 

Sad Chris

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What happened was that Sarr was on trial for rape, and that he already had four other allegations against him. That's five in total. Four of them as a Molde player, which they knew. He played for Molde the rest of the season, and after the last game they went out partying. There he raped again.
Would you mind backing up your claims in detail? The thread is already full of hearsay, opinions and fiction.
 

NewGlory

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I'd prefer you'd provide more details and sources if you are to make a thread to alludes to corruption.
This is the only legit source I was able to find: https://www.fourfourtwo.com/news/manchester-united-odion-ighalo-agent-inside-story-quotes

I don't doubt there's any nepotism at stake, I just want proof when people assume maliciousness. Already comments have assumed the worst because of the ambiguity in OP which is something I assumed would happen.
Indeed, there doesn't seem anything beyond nepotism here. That "tax fraud" blog post is pure bullshit. However FourFortyTwo article seems legit and while in no way it indicates any corruption, it did explain to me how the feck did some dude in China come on our radar all of the sudden :) So that was interesting is all.

Ironic how Ole haters are trying to find inspiration in everything. "Lock him up"! Sad, really
 
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NotThatSoph

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Would you mind backing up your claims in detail? The thread is already full of hearsay, opinions and fiction.
You can just read any of the hundreds of articles about it, it's not a secret. This article describes four of the cases.
 

Paxi

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alexthelion

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I must say. This thread is a tribute to the fine gathering of intellectuals on this site. And a fine example of the highly professional moderation on here. I was thinking of watching Poirot later, but this thread will do just fine!
Just shows how low some United "fans" have fallen.

You do have to wonder why the thread is still open though.
 
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Sad Chris

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You can just read any of the hundreds of articles about it, it's not a secret. This article describes four of the cases.
Well, sure I could go out of my way to search for confirmation of your claims, but I thought that should be your job, backing your own claims with legit sources.
 

Asger

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Is he? We had the worst start since 1989 and we look clueless on the pitch. I'd love to see him succeed as we will finally end this manager's merry go round. Unfortunately I can't see it happen. The guy is league 1 level

Also I said it from day 1. The root of all evil is Ed. He has an endless list of mistakes in his name one of which was appointing ole
Along with Lingard, McT and few other players.
 

momo83

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Should be noted that criticism and suspicion of Ole’s relationship with his agent goes back before the rape case. A lot of eyebrows were raised in Norway when the training camp that they developed ended up being used simply for his agent to sign young players and sell them off abroad as early as possible.. something that had never been heard of before in Norway. Where previously players would stay there until 23/24 and then move when they were ready.
 

Andycoleno9

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Duncan is really attacking Ole from all weapons. I don't remember that he was like this towards Mourinho
 

roonster09

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Duncan is really attacking Ole from all weapons. I don't remember that he was like this towards Mourinho
That's obvious. He attacks every manager who replaces Mourinho or rival for Mourinho. He is Jose's mouthpiece or Mendes mouthpiece.
 

Andycoleno9

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That's obvious. He attacks every manager who replaces Mourinho or rival for Mourinho. He is Jose's mouthpiece or Mendes mouthpiece.
Really? If my memory is good, he was ok when LVG was here. And i didn't know that he follows other clubs business. And i thought that he has good relationship with club's hierachy so it is strange that he is attacking( no matter is he right or wrong) club's manager.
 

roonster09

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Really? I my memory is good, he was ok when LVG was here. And i didn't know that he follows other clubs business. And i thought that he has good relationship with club's hierachy so it is strange that he is attacking( no matter is he right or wrong) club's manager.
He is ridiculed by other journalists too for this, he doesn't have any relationship with club hierarchy. He always shat on Manutd as apparently he is Leeds fan, only time he started to tweet good about club when we had Jose.

One of the interview where he was asked about Jose thing.

https://www.football365.com/news/asking-duncan-castles-about-being-mourinhos-pr

Chelsea fans calling him Jose's Mouthpiece

I mean it's very much a known thing. He is Mendes/Jose's PR guy.
 

Andycoleno9

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He is ridiculed by other journalists too for this, he doesn't have any relationship with club hierarchy. He always shat on Manutd as apparently he is Leeds fan, only time he started to tweet good about club when we had Jose.

One of the interview where he was asked about Jose thing.

https://www.football365.com/news/asking-duncan-castles-about-being-mourinhos-pr

Chelsea fans calling him Jose's Mouthpiece

I mean it's very much a known thing. He is Mendes/Jose's PR guy.
Wow, thanks. I always thought that he is our guy( no1 Man Utd journo who has access for everything regarding the club).
 

roonster09

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Wow, thanks. I always thought that he is our guy( no1 Man Utd journo who has access for everything regarding the club).
Maybe because from 2016 he started to post good things about the club thanks to Jose and was also ahead in few news.

I'm assuming you didn't follow him before 2016, used to hate the cnut.
 

Andycoleno9

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Maybe because from 2016 he started to post good things about the club thanks to Jose and was also ahead in few news.

I'm assuming you didn't follow him before 2016, used to hate the cnut.
Loves Mourinho, wants Ole gone...what is to hate here? Ha ha
 

hobbers

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Thought Castles was a turd for so long but I'm starting to warm to him now. He did call it on Ole and Solbakken.
 

roonster09

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The problem is that the people he knows only know crap players.
They were good enough for Norwegian league and that's where he signed majority of players.

For us, he signed 0 players from that agent.
 

Andycoleno9

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They were good enough for Norwegian league and that's where he signed majority of players.

For us, he signed 0 players from that agent.
I am confused here. Are we talking about Ole and Solbakken in general or just in Man Utd era( which suits you more)? In Cardiff he bought shit players from that agent. And again and again; we loaned Ighalo. Part of that transfer goes to Solbakkens partner. Do you all think that agents don't get a cut if transfer is loan?

This all is not some bs from journos but hey, lets ignore all that because it happened somewhere else.
 

roonster09

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I am confused here. Are we talking about Ole and Solbakken in general or just in Man Utd era( which suits you more)? In Cardiff he bought shit players from that agent. And ahain and again; we loaned Ighalo. Part of that transfer goes to Solbakkens partner. Do you all think that agents don't get a cut if transfer is loan?

This all is not some bs from journos but hey, lets ignore all that because it happened somewhere else.
You should just stop replying when you can't look past that, as simple as that.

Which all players did he sign from that agent for Cardiff? 2 from Molde and 1 from other team, that player was Eikrem, so he relied on players he knew.

Again how many players did we try before loaning Ighalo? How is his agent making money when the player is taking pay cut? We tried to sign Haaland (Had we signed, you would have blamed Ole saying he is making deal because he knew Haaland's father and as a favor), Rondon, Ings, Murray and bunch of strikers and Ighalo was a last min signing when we couldn't find any. He is taking pay cut to join. If this was all part of conspiracy, we would have signed him at the start of window, not when we couldn't find any other striker on loan.

I'm yet to see list of players Ole signed for Cardiff who are part of this agency and I don't believe Duncan Castles btw who knowingly clubbed Josh King to this and people followed that like sheep.

Btw why shouldn't Ole sign players from his agent for Molde when apparently he has all the good players and it was worked in Molde favor?
 

Runaway Sue

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I am confused here. Are we talking about Ole and Solbakken in general or just in Man Utd era( which suits you more)? In Cardiff he bought shit players from that agent. And again and again; we loaned Ighalo. Part of that transfer goes to Solbakkens partner. Do you all think that agents don't get a cut if transfer is loan?

This all is not some bs from journos but hey, lets ignore all that because it happened somewhere else.
He also took Joshua King here when he was u23 manager in a very strange deal.
Read the article @Adnan (http://josimarfootball.com/the-double-agent/) linked to, written by Lars Johnsen. It's a long read but both Ole and Jim come across as shady af. They've built themselves a small empire over there in Norway in a very suspicious way. I hope we cut ties with both of them asap.
 

bonothom

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He can sign Messi and Ronaldo and this coaching setup will have them playing like Vinnie Jones and Carlton Palmer within a couple of weeks.