"We started off straight away thinking how we are going to press and change the little tweaks," said Ole Gunnar Solskjaer about the aftermath of Cristiano Ronaldo's arrival during an interview on Sky Sports' podcast, quoted by the Daily Star.
"Cristiano is different to Anthony Martial who was up front, or whether we would play Mason [Greenwood] or Marcus [Rashford] up front.
"Edinson Cavani was the one that suffered the most when Cristiano came in – we’d played and got Edinson into a certain way of understanding the way we played.
"Cristiano – when you know him and speak to him, he wanted to play three out of four games, he realised he’s getting older as well. But when you leave him out once, he’s not happy!"
The former Manchester United boss, who was also teammates with Ronaldo, added: "With the ball, with him in the team, it was no problem.
"Without him [pressing], we had to change a little bit the different roles we’d gotten used to.
"We were one of the highest pressing teams before [Ronaldo joined]. We let Dan James go when Cristiano came in, and they’re two different types of players.
"It was the right decision to make for me – it didn’t turn out to be the right one."
Solskjaer's promising reign showed signs of decline after Ronaldo arrived. The exciting, attacking football turned bland and the Portuguese forward's goals dried up as well.
Even after Ole was sacked, Ronaldo's situation didn't improve. He scored merely once in 10 Premier League appearances in 2022/23 before leaving on the back of an explosive Piers Morgan interview.
