He said both things. Judging from our lineup of the 4-0 loss against Everton, could've been expected for us to get rid of Jones, Smalling, Young, Matic and Lukaku..
- 1de Gea
- 2Lindelöf
- 12Smalling
- 4Jones (Young)
- 20Dalot
- 6Pogba
- 31Matic
- 17Fred (McTominay)
- 10Rashford (Pereira)
- 9Lukaku
- 11Martial
Where did he say that he ‘would be shipping out loads of players’ at the first opportunity? I have no recollection of that.
Or are you guessing, based on the line-up against Everton?
It’s clear he targeted right back (Young), central defence (Smalling/Jones) and probably also defensive midfielder (Matic) and forward (Lukaku) as needing reinforcements hence Wan-Bissaka, MacGyver (bid), Longstaff (bid or obvious interest) and Lukaku negotiations with Inter (and Ole saying: If we sell, we must replace, when asked about Lukaku and Pogba). If not most of these recruitments have happened by window close, it’s a stick to beat Woodward with.
Muppets will expect every incoming to be an established star reading to walk into the team and hit the ground running. That’s nothing new, but Solskjær never said that’s what he wanted.
Witchhunters will expect Young, Smalling, Jones, Matic and Lukaku to be sold (or executed), but Solskjær never said that, and neither is it necessarily smart (Young, Smalling/Jones) nor urgent (Matic). I would say with a player like Lukaku, if you just half like him, it’s better to sell early - his high price will drop after a year in the margins, wages are high for a bench option, he’s expecting to start and may get cranky, and the money could be spent on other things. Matic, however, is likely a good safety net for less established options to progress along with (Fred, McTom, Longstaff?).
What Solskjær did say, interestingly enough, is that it’s important that some of the players will need to understand that they are not part of the long term plans. Probably alluding to that there are players that refuse to be sold or are difficult to sell because they refuse to lower their wages. We can only speculate as to whom that goes for (Sanchez, Darmian, Rojo?). This is part of modern player power.