Manchester United midfielder Nemanja Matic has his out at club manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer while on international duty with Serbia, saying if the team "does not win, he bears the responsibility."
The 31-year-old has featured once for the Red Devils this season in the Premier League - getting just over 20 minutes of football under his belt, coming on as a substitute against Southampton - a game that ended in a 1-1 draw.
His country Serbia take on reigning European champions and inaugural Nations League winners Portugal on Saturday in Belgrade in a Euro 2020 qualifier. Speaking ahead of the game, Matic said, "the coach must opt for the team that will fight for the title and if he does not win, he bears the responsibility,"
"I have been in football for a long time, I have played almost all the games for all the clubs in the last 10 years. In order for me to play, one had to sit on the bench and accept that fact, and so do I now. In the first two or three games, he picked the team without me. I work as hard as I can. We respect the decision, it's up to me to show him that he was wrong and to bring me back to where I belong.
"There is no problem. I told him I disagreed with him but that he had to decide the team."
Manchester United return to Premier League action on September 14th, with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's charges lying eight in the table. In the first four games of the season, they suffered a last-minute loss to Crystal Palace, despite Daniel James equalising late on for the Old Trafford side. In the first month of the season, there were also two separate penalty debacles, with Paul Pogba and Marcus Rashford facing racial abuse online in the wake of missing spot-kicks against Wolves and Crystal Palace respectively.
