How Ole Gunnar Solskjaer poured his life into coaching

"There are people who will say: 'Oh, Gary Neville is a bit moany, a bit narky these days…' - but nobody at United has a bad word to say about Ole"

Gary Neville gives a fascinating insight into how Ole Gunnar Solskjaer devoted his life to coaching even before his retirement in 2007

The dust has settled on Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's appointment as Manchester United manager as he prepares for his toughest test yet against Barcelona. But how did the journey begin? Gary Neville gives a fascinating insight into how the Norwegian devoted his life to coaching even before his retirement in 2007.

There is no doubt Ole Gunnar Solskjaer wasn't cut out for punditry, and he never wanted to do punditry. The same with Michael Carrick. They're desperate to be the best coach that they can be.

I sat next to Solskjaer and thought: 'Coach. He thinks like a coach.' He was always thinking about the game, and he spoke about watching the game on the bench intently, so he knew where the spaces were when he came on.

When you've got somebody thinking about the game in such a deep way, their mindset is such that they want to then put those things into practice on the training pitch.

When Ole retired he became a coach of the youth and reserve teams at United. It was while I was still playing and he sometimes coached the players who were injured or coming back from injury. He always wanted to talk.

Solskjaer's route to United manager

2007            Retired from playing
2008-2011   Man Utd reserve coach
2011-2014   Molde manager
2014           Cardiff manager
2015-2018  Molde Manager

 remember he wanted to play the 4-2-2-2 system - I thought: "This sounds like a posh 4-4-2" - but actually when you see the wide players nowadays coming into narrow pockets, you can see that system has developed in the game over seven or eight years. That was the first I'd ever really heard anybody introduce that system, and this was probably 11 years ago.

At the time, him and Rene Meulensteen were pally, and did a lot of work together. They were always jotting things down with a tactics board around them. I think when you've got that mindset, you deserve to be on the training pitch. He belongs there. He's poured his life into it over this last 10 years.