Ole Gunnar Solskjaer: Nemanja Matic claims club made major mistake

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·24 December 2025

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer: Nemanja Matic claims club made major mistake

Former Manchester United midfielder Nemanja Matic has claimed the club made a big mistake in 2021.

Matic’s time at the club

Matic was signed by Jose Mourinho from Chelsea in the summer of 2017.

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The Serbian spent five seasons at Old Trafford and left the club in 2022.

He has since had stints at AS Roma, Rennes, Olympique Lyonnais and now Sassuolo in Italy.

Time with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

Most of Matic’s time at Old Trafford was under the management of Norwegian Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Solskjaer’s United did fail to win a trophy but they did lose a Europa League final in 2021 to Villarreal.

What’s more, they also finished third in the table in 2020 and second in 2021.

Nonetheless, a poor run of form in the Autumn of 2021 including a chastening 0-5 loss to Liverpool and a 1-4 defeat to Watford, finally sealed the manager’s fate.

Speaking on their time at the club together in an interview with FourFourTwo (via Footmercato) , Matic claimed the Norwegian was very unlucky to lose his job in November 2021.

Defence of Solskjaer

The midfielder claimed, “”he didn’t deserve to be fired. We finished second and third under him. When you look at the current results, you can say we did a fantastic job.”

The former Serbia international also stated that the quality of the coaching was excellent at the club at the time under Michael Carrick and Kieran McKenna.

He stated, “Ole deserved more time. He and his team were on the right track to bring United back to the top. The training sessions were perfect, everything was prepared down to the last detail.”

Finally, Matic also had kind words for his character asserting, “he was a fantastic person, he knew the club and the fans adored him.”