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Football

14th Mar 2019

Mike Phelan has an Alex Ferguson-inspired nickname for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

Wayne Farry

Sir Alex Ferguson remains the ‘boss’ at Manchester United

During the post-match interviews Ole Gunnar Solakjer conducted after his Manchester United side’s shock 3-1 Champions League comeback against Paris Saint-Germain, the Norwegian manager revealed that he still refers to Sir Alex Ferguson as “boss”.

Ferguson left United and retired from management in 2013 but that hasn’t stopped his former player continuing to call him “boss” whenever he sees him or gets the chance to speak about him.

Solskjaer joined United as interim boss, replacing Jose Mourinho, in December and one of his best decisions, aside from not following in his predecessor’s tradition of publicly criticising his players at every turn, was to bring Mike Phelan back to Old Trafford.

Previously assistant manager under Ferguson, Phelan was exiled from the club when David Moyes took over, and well, we all know how that went.

Subsequent managers didn’t see fit to bring Phelan back to the club, but Solskjaer was evidently aware of the positive impact that figures from a club’s history can have on its current squad, and this has been proven with the results experienced by the side since the new management team came in.

Now, Solskjaer may not like his players calling him ‘boss’, and that’s alright, because Phelan has instead taken to calling him “gaffer”, if the coach’s most recent tweet is anything to go by.

https://twitter.com/Mike_Phelan_1/status/1106246758215176195

In the tweet, posted on Thursday, Phelan says: “Great to be in the hat eh gaffer? Yep it’s cold Mike, pretty cold, no tomorrow lunch time man. Ah yes let’s stay in it eh fella?”

No, we’re not sure what he means either, but if nothing else it’s nice to know at least one person at United is allowed to refer to Solskjaer as their superior.