Roma supporters have put up posters of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer ahead of this week’s Europa League clash with Manchester United.
They apparently feel that Solskjaer has dismissed them as opponents after comments he made after the quarter-final win over Granada.
But what did the United boss actually say?
As per BBC, when asked about Roma, Solskjaer said: “I’ve not seen too much of them.
“I knew they played two good games against Ajax. They defend well, as Italian teams always do. We all know Edin Dzeko so every ball into the box is a dangerous one.
“We are looking forward to it. We’re in the semis. It feels like a proper European tie because Roma is a club with lots of history.
“We’ve done well against Italian sides before. If we can finish the season with a trophy that’d be great.”
In short, Solskjaer’s comments are being taken completely out of context.
He was asked about them minutes after their clash with United was confirmed.
Why would he have scouted them to any great extent before that?
Since that night, you’d expect that Solskjaer and his coaching team have watched Roma matches and clips to prepare for a huge European clash.
Solskjaer mentioned in more than one press conference that had watched plenty of Granada matches, including when they played Real Madrid and Barcelona.
With their status as relative minnows, if Solskjaer was going to take a European opponent lightly, it would have been them and he clearly didn’t.
He’s hardly going to fail to prepare for Roma or write them off as an easy night’s work.
It’s just a case of his comments being stripped of context and exaggerated to give Thursday’s opponents some extra motivation.
United need just to ignore it and Solskjaer will likely diffuse the situation at his pre-match press conference tomorrow. It’s much ado about nothing.
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