Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has told former teammate Rio Ferdinand to stick to what he ‘knows’ after he criticised the Manchester United boss’s management of Cristiano Ronaldo.
Both Solskjaer and Ronaldo were taken to task this week over what happened in the latter moments of their 2-1 Champions League loss to Young Boys in Switzerland.
United gave up a one goal lead, courtesy of Ronaldo, to lose their European opener thanks to a dramatic stoppage time goal from the hosts.
Ronaldo was removed from the action in the 72nd minute, and replaced by Jesse Lingard – whose mistake led to the Swiss side’s winning strike.
Following his substitution, Ronaldo was seen in the technical area alongside Solskjaer, remonstrating at his teammates in scenes reminiscent of his antics during the final of Euro 2016.
Solskjaer was criticised by the likes of talkSPORT’s Martin Keown for his handling of the situation, while his former United teammate, Ferdinand, joined in on the action.
“If I’m the manager, I’ve got to be honest, I’m telling him to sit down,” Ferdinand told BT Sport.
Keown agreed, saying: “He needs to know his place. He needs to take his seat.”
However, Solskjaer has now offered an explanation for the situation, saying it was nothing more than a ‘brief spell’ where Ronaldo joined him in the technical area.
“Rio again, you know, sometimes he comments on things he doesn’t really know,” Solskjaer said.
“It should have been a yellow card for the boy when he brought down Nemanja [Matic].
“Both Bruno and Cristiano, as competitive as they are, suddenly I had them on my shoulder.
“They were there for a brief spell and shouted to the referee.”
The Norwegian manager, in his third full season at Old Trafford, went on to explain the technical area is only for him and his assistants, outside of the brief interjection from his Portuguese stars.
“That was the aggravation of getting a few bad decisions against us,” Solskjaer said. “But then Cristiano sat down, Bruno sat down.
“We know that there is only one man allowed in that technical area and that’s either me or Carras (Michael Carrick) or Mick (Phelan) or Kieran (McKenna) who is up there.”
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