Manchester United caretaker manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer believes embracing everything that comes with modern footballers is key to getting the best out of them.

It is a month since the Old Trafford hierarchy called time on Jose Mourinho’s turbulent tenure, with background backbiting compounding on-field struggles.

Few were sad to see the Portuguese go and the former manager spoke in-depth for the first time on Thursday, when he told beIN SPORTS that “in modern football there is a problem between the coach and the player”.

Solskjaer does not appear to have encountered such problems such his arrival, getting United playing with swagger and the team with a smile.

Asked if modern players need to be treated differently, the Norwegian said: “I think so. Times are changing.

“I’m old enough to have worked with older players than me and older managers, so I know that type of player and that type of management school.

“But I’m young enough and I’ve got kids, I’ve got an 18-year-old myself, and I’ve worked with young players back home. It is a different era.

“Those values, beliefs and principles don’t change.”

Mourinho made thinly-veiled digs at United during his interview, saying “people don’t know what is going on behind the scenes”.

There was clear discord with some key players, with Paul Pogba enjoying the starkest revival having gone from distrusted bench player to the star of Solskjaer’s side.

“I wouldn’t say (modern players are) more powerful, but it’s different with social media and the society they grow up in compared with what I did,” the caretaker boss said.

“I sound really old now, but it is such a different era. Now everything is on Facebook or Twitter or whatever it is straight away.

“It’s not malicious, it’s just the reality we live in. They still have to have the values of a team and know that you have to improve.

“No one deserves to be in a better team than what they give, if you know what I mean.

“If they want to help the team, they deserve to be here. If they don’t want to help the team, then they don’t deserve to be here.”