One Manchester United player questioned Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s decision to hand Harry Maguire the captaincy during a recent clear-the-air meeting.
This is according to a report by The Times’ Paul Hirst, who has provided eye-opening details about the extent of the disharmony within the Red Devils’ squad.
Two days after United’s 4-2 defeat away at Leicester City on October 16, a meeting was held between the players and coaching staff.
Solskjaer, the report claims, asked his players to speak up and say what could be done to improve the team’s poor form.
Man Utd player questions Harry Maguire captaincy
Hirst says ‘some of them did not hold back, with one player questioning Solskjaer’s decision to give Maguire the captain’s armband just six months after his £80 million move from Leicester in August 2019.
Maguire, who replaced Ashley Young as the club’s permanent skipper in January 2020, has divided opinion among fans and pundits alike over the past two years.
Excellent for England in the summer as the Three Lions reached the Euro 2020 final, Maguire’s form for his club this season has left a lot to be desired.
The 28-year-old was particularly poor during Sunday’s 5-0 defeat to Liverpool, receiving a disastrous 0/10 rating from the Manchester Evening News.
"As a player, I know myself, I will be looking at myself as an individual and the performance of the team, I'm the captain and I lead the boys. We have to come together and stick together,” Maguire said after United suffered one of the most embarrassing defeats in their history.
"We have to look at each other and look at yourself in the mirror and think, what can you do better? It's not about looking elsewhere and blaming others.
"To lose to Liverpool, to lose in any game of football hurts this club. No matter who you are playing.
"Liverpool are our rivals and the way we lost the game, to be 4-0 down in front of your own fans is not good enough."
What else was said during the Man Utd meeting?
The Times’ report adds that another member of the United squad criticised some of his teammates for lacking motivation in training.
While another player is understood to have turned on Solskjaer over his team selection, directly ‘grilling’ the under-fire Norwegian over his reluctance to drop under-performing first-team stars.
The same player believes that Solskjaer and his staff are too resistant to putting those on the fringes of the first XI who have trained well into his starting line-up on match days.
Solskjaer has reportedly been given three games to save his job - starting against Tottenham this Saturday - as Italian coach Antonio Conte waits in the wings.
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