How Good Was Ole Gunnar Solskjaer as a Player?

When you picture an assassin in your mind, what do you see? If you went out to random people on the street and posed that question, the answers you get might vary somewhat.

However, if you asked the same question to a Premier League goalkeeper in the late 90s that’s just seen this guy come off the bench, you might get a more specific answer.

If you haven’t guessed by now, the answer that I’m referring to is none other than the one and only baby-faced assassin, Ole Gunnar Solskajer.

Seeing that he’s not only a Manchester United legend, but he’s also currently at the wheel, I thought it would be fun and completely necessary to take a deeper look into what made him so special and earned him legendary status amongst the Old Trafford faithful

With that being said, how good was Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Table of Contents

Early Beginnings

Born in Norway in 1973, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was born as the son of Øyvind and Brita Solskjaer. So here’s a fun fact, his father was a very successful wrestler in the 60s, so athleticism definitely runs in the family.

Unsurprisingly, his old man actually wanted him to follow in his footsteps to be a wrestler, but it just wasn’t for him. The main problem was that Ole was just too small and would thus be thrown around a lot. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be.

Just imagine, in a parallel universe, we could’ve gotten Macho Man Ole. I’m gonna leave you all to ponder the possibilities.

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Anyway, he took up football from a young age and joined the Clausenengen youth Academy at seven years of age.

Although this is common knowledge, it may surprise some of you to know that Solskjaer was actually a Liverpool fan growing up. But if you’re a United fan, nobody would blame you if you conveniently chose to forget that fact.

Youth football

Moving along, he went on to spend 10 years in the Clausenengen youth academy, where he mostly developed in the striker position. During this time, he was slowly honing his skills and nurturing the killer instinct that we all grew to know later in his career.

Even from a young age, he was technical, really quick and had a very good shot on him. The only issue was something I’ve already mentioned.

He was still too small.

Therefore, even when it came to football, Ole was being pushed around a lot. By Solskjaer’s own account, he was a incredibly late bloomer, and only grew into his body in his early 20s.

However, as soon as that happened, everyone began to truly recognise him for the talent he was.

Early career

He made his senior debut in the Clausenengen first team at 17 years of age In 1990. At the time of his debut, the club were in the fourth division of Norwegian football. Although they did achieve promotion during his five year stay at the club, it was clear that he was playing far below his level. Before he left them, during his time there he scored 115 goals in 109 matches.

Not too bad.

Fast forward to 1994, and Molde was his next destination, at 21 years of age. Being a club in the Tippeligaen, the first division of Norwegian football, this seemed like a natural step forward. But, I mean, not much changes. He continued to improve and score more and more goals.

His quick feet and reaction time were amongst his most impressive characteristics. Understandably, this wouldn’t change throughout his entire career.

After spending 2 years at Molde, he scored 42 goals in 54 matches in all competitions.

So, here’s where we currently stand. The year is 1996 and it’s clear to Åge Hareide, the Molde coach at the time, that Solskjaer was eventually going to leave. He was simply just too good.

Being a former Manchester City player, Hareide informed them of the talent that Solskjaer possessed in an attempt to get him on their radar. However, they showed no interest. He did the same with Everton, and similarly, no deal.

Both teams were unwilling to role the dice on essentially a completely unknown player from one of the weaker leagues in Europe. Completely understandable.

Manchester United

On the other hand, Manchester United were in the middle of an uphill battle with Blackburn Rovers as they were unsuccessfully attempting to sign Alan Shearer from them.

And when all hope was lost on the Shearer front, they came in for the Norweigian, signing him for £1.5 million pounds at the beginning of the 1996/1997 season.

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Now to give a little context as to what was going on at Old Trafford at this point in time, the team was pretty much built around Eric Cantona at the time that Solskjaer arrived. In addition to that, United also had another Elite striker in the form of Andy Cole.

Therefore, when it came to expectations, they were pretty much non-existent in the beginning. Realistically, he was meant to act as backup to Cole and Cantona. Further to that, Sir Alex Ferguson even intended for him to play with the reserves for the fist six months of his time with United, to get used to the English game.

However, how does that classic saying go? One man’s injury can potentially make another man’s career. Okay, I might’ve made up that saying, but that’s essentially what happened here.

Andy Cole suffered a very nasty injury early on in the season. Yeah, I’m talking two broken legs. Not ideal in the slightest.

Manchester United regular

As a result of this, Solskjaer was called up to first team. And, if at any point there were doubts about his ability to make the step up to English football, they were all surely gone when Solskjaer scored only 6 minutes into his debut for United.

In his first season with the club, he played far more than anyone could’ve imagined and firmly cemented himself as top-class player. All in all, he made 33 appearances, scoring 18 goals in the process. He also picked up his first Premier League title.

Not too bad for a future PE teacher. This season also saw the birth of the Baby faced assassin nickname from the British media. And it’s not hard to see where the nickname stems from.

His ruthlessness in front of goal, speed and his fantastic positional awareness were amongst his key traits in England. These characteristics amongst many more gained him critical acclaim across the footballing world.

100% Commitment

Despite this, his second season was much less eventful. The return to form of Andy Cole and the signing of Teddy Sheringham saw Solskjaer lose his goalscoring form as well as his once solidified starting spot. Although he did make 22 appearances, 7 of them were from the bench. Adding on to that, he only scored 6 goals.

You know, I was actually considering not covering this season in this video. But then I realised I wouldn’t be able to mention one of the most memorable moment in Solskjaer’s entire career.

Picture this, United and Arsenal are neck in neck with about 4 matches of the season left to play. At the run in, United are matched up against an out of form Newcastle.

Ideally, they needed a win to stay in the title race and considering Newcastle’s form and the fact that Arsenal had two games in hand, nothing less was expected.

Despite this, the game was stuck at 1-1 having played about 79 minutes. Naturally, in attempt to tip the balance, Fergie decided to bring on Solskjaer to do the business.

In the dying minutes of the game, Newcastle’s Rob Lee was through on goal and about to end United’s title hopes altogether.

However, Solskjaer? He had other ideas.

He sprinted across the field, clearly got the ball in an incredible tackle, and was unfairly sent off. No, I’m joking, it was a horrendous tackle. But it undoubtedly did save United from losing the game. Despite this, Sir Alex Ferguson scolded Solskjaer for resorting to dirty tactics and to add insult to injury, this sacrifice pretty much meant nothing, as Arsenal still ended up winning the league.

With that being said, this act showed Solskjaer’s true colors. It revealed that he was a man willing to sacrifice himself for the benefit of his team. If there were any United fans unsure of his love and commitment to the club before, they were all but gone at this point.

Champions league Winner

Going into the 1998/99 season, United had just purchased Dwight Yorke from Aston Villa. This saw the birth of one of the greatest striking partnerships in the history European football between Andy Cole and the newly signed Dwight Yorke.

Unfortunately for Solskjaer, this very much limited his game time. he was forced to settle for yet another season mostly on the bench. Despite this, this season he established himself as a deadly super sub, scoring several goals in the late minutes of the game. These included a winner against Liverpool in the FA Cup and 4 against Nottingham Forrest in an 8-1 win.

But none those come close to the most important winning goal of his career in the 1999 Champions League final. You know which one I’m talking about.

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Now we’ve all heard the story of what happened this night, so I’m not going to bore you with the details. United won it, with Solskjaer scoring the winning goals in the 93^rd minute of extra time. Iconic stuff, I know.

Although, what I will say is that there was a point in this match where United were losing. And it looked as though they had an impossible mountain to climb if they wanted to taste glory. And, well; in the words of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer himself, “Mountains are there to be climbed, aren’t they?”

This Champions league win capped off a remarkable season where United went on to win an unprecedented treble. A Champions league, an FA Cup and a Premier League all in the same season.

Although Solskjaer may not have played as much as he would’ve wanted to, he quite literally had the final say this season.

Early 2000s

Moving along, over the next few seasons, nothing much changed. United kept on winning, and unfortunately for Solskjaer, Cole and Yorke maintained their form, keeping him on the bench.

That is of course until the 2001/2002 season.

The decline of both Cole and Yorke, as well as the arrival of Ruud van Nistelrooy saw Solskjaer once again become a starter. He also enjoyed one of his best goal scoring seasons of his career in this campaign, scoring 18 goals in 33 appearances.

By the time the 2002/2003 season came along, Sir Alex Ferguson preferred to play van Nistelrooy up top with Paul Scholes as a supporting striker.

This left no room for the Norwegian up front. However, Solskjaer successfully made his claim to the right-wing position after David Beckham was forced on the side-lined due to injury.

In fact, Solskjaer was so good in this position that he completely displaced Beckham even after he returned from injury.

Although, Beckham’s absence was also due to another um incident with Sir Alex Ferguson. Anyway, that’s a story for another day.

Knee Injury/ Retirement

Unfortunately, from 2003/2004 season on wards, Solskjaer’s career truly entered it’s backend. Although, it was injury that spelled the end for his career rather than old age. I mean, I guess it was a combination of the two.

Between 2003 and 2007, he struggled through a persistent knee injury, as well as multiple knee surgeries.

This, coupled with the fact that United had massively bolstered their attack while he was on the side-lines, made it very difficult for him to ever find a way back.

Due to the reasons above, Solskjaer finally announced his retirement from football on the 27^th of August 2007. He was 34 years of age at the time.

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Closing Thoughts

In closing, Perhaps Solskjaer wasn’t the best or most talented player to walk through doors at Man United. As a forward, he scored 91 goals in 235 games in the league and provided 37 assists. At the time of his retirement, he also held the Premier League record for most goals as a substitute, with 17 overall.

In comparison to several other elite strikers that have entered the Prem over the years; admittedly, these figures aren’t too eye catching. However, what Solskjaer brought to the table was much more than stats.

He was a consummate professional, a man devoted to the cause and a player almost always playing with a smile on his face.

Over his Illustrious career, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer won a multitude of trophies and accolades, most notably 6 Premier League titles, 2 FA Cups, a Champions League, and most importantly: the hearts of millions.

Too cheesy? Fair enough.