Ole Gunnar Solskjaer during Manchester United's 1-1 draw with Southampton.

Ole: We should have killed the game off

Saturday 31 August 2019 15:50

Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer feels his side should have killed off the game in the first half after the Reds were held to a 1-1 draw against Southampton at St Mary's on Saturday.

Daniel James broke the deadlock at St Mary’s after just 10 minutes - his third goal in four games for the Reds.

Despite that, it was a disappointing afternoon for United as we allowed the hosts to grab a second-half equaliser through defender Jannik Vestergaard.

Here’s what Ole had to say after the game when speaking in his press conference and also to MUTV and BT Sport...
JAMES GOAL

"We know his qualities and coming in off the left he’s got a good strike in him. It was a great goal today and he runs in behind and creates spaces for other players around him. I’m delighted for the boy, he’s come in and really made an impact for us. He deserves all his success.

"Three goals from three starts and one sub appearance isn’t bad for a young boy. He’ll keep on improving and we’ll keep on improving because the team is getting better. We’re conceding less chances, we just have to stop conceding goals when there is a chance against us."
NOT KILLING OFF THE GAME

“I think we should have finished the game off at 1-0. We started the game well and created chances and spaces everywhere for Juan [Mata] and Dan to run into and we dominated for 20-25 minutes, but we let them back into the game by not scoring the second and being careless and giving the ball away. I think we’re going in the right direction, we’re creating chances away from home against a team that wants to press and make it difficult for you. Even after we made a couple of mistakes we still trusted ourselves to play our way out of it but we just couldn’t get the finishing goal.”
Solskjaer's Saints verdict Video

Solskjaer's Saints verdict

The boss discusses our frustrating 1-1 draw on the south coast...

SOUTHAMPTON EQUALISER

“Those were the 10-15 seconds we were in trouble. The first corner, the boy gets up on his own, it’s a fantastic save from David [De Gea], but we’re not sharp enough to close the cross down and it’s not like he’s invisible that big boy in the box. So he should have been picked up and we should have dealt with that one. They were the two efforts they had and that was within 10 seconds of each other. The rest of the game I thought we did well.”
Mata: 'we must be more ruthless' Video

Mata: 'we must be more ruthless'

Juan gives a full and frank assessment of our draw with Southampton...

SCORING MORE GOALS

“We had loads of chances, created loads of openings but the last bit is just missing. It’s getting there though. We have to learn to get those scrappy goals, not just the worldies! We do push teams back now and we do get around them. What is pleasing is that we didn’t just resort to panicky crosses and long balls and we played, and we should have scored to be honest. We feel numb and a little bit disappointed. In the last three games we’ve lost points that we definitely deserved to win.”

UPDATE ON POGBA

"He twisted his ankle quite badly but he will go away on international duty now and hopefully it’s not too bad and he can play for France."

TWO-WEEK BREAK

“It’s always a long week when you don’t have a game. We’ll just have to enjoy the internationals and hope our boys come back with good experiences and the mentality to put this right.”

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