Ole: We want to win the group
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said his players enjoyed themselves during Manchester United’s comfortable 4-1 victory over Istanbul Basaksehir in the Champions League on Tuesday night.
Goals from Bruno Fernandes (two), Marcus Rashford and Daniel James mean the Reds need just one more point to secure qualification from Group H, but the manager insists his side want to win the group.
Speaking to BT Sport after the game, here’s what he had to say…
THE BOYS ENJOYED IT
“I felt, in the first half, you saw the intent straight away. The boys wanted to play, they enjoyed it. It’s a Champions League night at home at Old Trafford, you expect them to enjoy themselves, and we created some great chances, some very nice goals, and I was very pleased.”
PRAISE FOR CAVANI AND VAN DE BEEK“I think the two of them are getting used to how we want them to play. Of course, Donny can play in different positions, Edinson is a good old fashion number nine and we haven’t had that for a little while, and I was very happy with how Anthony [Martial] played off the left hand side again.”
Ole: Tonight was good for my heart!
The boss tells us what he liked about the Basaksehir win and discusses Bruno, James and his substitutions...
WHY RASHFORD TOOK THE PENALTY
“Marcus is a very good penalty taker as well, and Bruno is very confident. If Bruno feels he wants to give it to Marcus, so be it. Anthony had one against Leipzig so why not – they can share them around!”
NERVY MOMENTS TOWARDS THE END
“When you’re 3-0 up and you take your foot off the pedal a little bit, you give them something to play for. They enjoyed the second half more than the first, but a 4-1 win in the Champions League, you’re happy with.”
THE STATE OF GROUP H
“We need one more point to go through, but of course we want to be top of the group. That’s our aim, but we’ll take one game at a time and now it’s PSG coming here, so we’re looking forward to that one.”
INJURY CONCERN FOR LINDELOF AND WAN-BISSAKA
“Hopefully they’ll be ready for the weekend but we’re not sure. It’s back problems for Victor and he had an ankle problem, Aaron, so there was no point taking any more chances and risking more swelling to it.”
Highlights: United 4 Basaksehir 1
Watch goals from Fernandes (2), Rashford and James, as the Reds move clear at the top of Group H…
“We could, we could’ve asked for 12, but that’s the standard we have to set. We know every single game, if we perform to our best level we’ll beat anyone. That’s the challenge for the boys and the pressure for the boys. Of course, we’re happy today, a very good performance, we created chances. Going into half-time at 3-0 was comfortable, sometimes it’s nice for the heartbeat to be a little bit lower!”
BRUNO BREEDS CONFIDENCE
“Midfielder? He plays up front! He’s had a fantastic impact, and you just see how it breeds confidence and it gives other players confidence around him. We know, at any moment, he can create a chance for anyone, so it’s for the rest of them to make movements, runs in behind, clever movements, because he’ll find you.”
SUBSTITUTION DILEMMAS
“I think so, I was thinking about it at half-time: ‘Maybe I should make more substitutions.’ But you don’t want to give the boys the impression that the game is over and we can relax, we wanted to go out there and get the fourth. We couldn’t, but then after about an hour we thought we needed to rest some of these players because it’s going to be a long season.”