Increased Intensity In Our Play Might Be The Cause Of Injuries – Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has come out to say life as a United player is now “survival of the fittest” as his team is currently battling a massive injury crisis with ten of his key player out of football with one injury or the other.

Manchester are set to play away at Crystal Palace tonight and Ole believes the increased intensity in the team’s style of play might have contributed to the players picking up injuries.

His words, “It’s probably linked, yes, because when do you make that change? Do you wait until pre-season and think you will change results by just not asking them to run, or do we start now and show them what the demands of intensity are and how we want to play?” he told reporters

“Well you have seen what I have chosen, I have chosen that we need to play as a Man United team and if you want to be a part of Man United, it’s survival of the fittest isn’t it?”

“They are getting older aren’t they, Juan, Nemanja, Ander? So it’s about the preparation, the standards that you have to live up to on and off the pitch as a Man United player, and as a professional player in the Premier League, it’s not just turning up playing and training and then going home and doing all these little out-of-football activities that we have all seen too many footballers doing.

“That was a big part of my career, as long as you are a footballer and you play in the Premier League, make the most of it because suddenly you get these injuries and you are done. And that wasn’t a nice feeling, that is when I decided I wanted to stay in football and start coaching, but I tried to make the most of it by living the life as I should have been.”

“If you look at it, we’ve had five or six days between most of the games, so it’s not been the amount of games or the lack of days in between. It’s tougher now until the international break, and we’ve got Sunday, Wednesday, Saturday, then midweek again, now we will go into tough games and then it’s a tougher period physically.

“Maybe it’s mental, the way we prepare before training sessions. You can see Manchester City have a couple of muscle injuries, it’s not just us. It’s this time of year in England really.”