Ole Gunnar Solskjaer greets Victor Lindelof at full-time in the Sheffield United game

Solskjaer's verdict as Reds rise to sixth

Thursday 17 December 2020 23:01

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's Manchester United made it six wins from six away games in this Premier League season by beating Sheffield United 3-2, but the manager's thoughts swiftly turned to his team's next game - at Old Trafford.

The Reds will be at home on Sunday against another Yorkshire club, Leeds United, and the boss is determined to win that one too, so that the club's home form can begin to match the excellent results on the road.

Here are Ole's key quotes from his post-match interviews on Amazon Prime Video and MUTV...

SIXTH PLACE AFTER SIXTH AWAY WIN

“Yeah but we need to sort the home form. Obviously, it’s not like it’s home and away in these conditions without fans and it seems like we’re going to be in this situation a little longer, but we should be more used to the Old Trafford pitch than these pitches so hopefully we’ll start. It’s a massive game for us, we know that. We’ve been waiting for years to get this game on and we’ll be ready for it.”
Solskjaer's verdict on Blades 2 United 3 Video

Solskjaer's verdict on Blades 2 United 3

Watch as Ole discusses a slow start, Dean Henderson, our attacking play and an incredible stat...

BAD START, GOOD END FOR HENDERSON

“Good, bad and the ugly, maybe in a different chronological order but it’s a test and a learning curve, Dean’s always learning. He comes back here [to Bramall Lane] and he’s probably been looking forward to this for a long, long while and to get that [bad] start, it just shows his character [how he performed] in the rest of the game. When you’re a young keeper you’re going to make mistakes and he's going to have to learn to redeem himself, which he did. He kept his composure, played really well after that. He knows next time that when Oliver Burke is going to close him down he can’t dwell on the ball as he did.”

FANTASTIC FRONT FOUR

“With the pace and the skill in these boys, the quality of the touches and movement – I thought all three goals were excellent. That’s why we played the team that we did today, because we know that Sheffield United want to play football, they want to press, they want to make it an open game and we could have spaces for our forwards. I said before the game that we need the forwards firing, we need them starting. We’ve come to this position without them really scoring goals and now they’ve had three today – two from Marcus and one for Anthony and that’s brilliant. We just have to keep them going with that mentality because last season those three scored so many goals for us. This year they haven’t really started the season yet, so it’s looking good.”

BLADES TOO PHYSICAL?

“I wanted to test the players here today because we knew it was going to be a physical test, a fight, they were going to get kicked, going to get late tackles. I don’t mind a fair tackle, but when it’s like a second after the [first] tackle has been made – there were a couple right in front of me, but I think it’s one of these games that our boys will learn from. It’s a proper game and it’s like football should be. I apologised [to Chris Wilder], I maybe went overboard with my words, but we’ll have a drink after me and Chris.”

TENSE FINALE

“You know you don’t take anything for granted, and when we didn’t score the fourth goal, anything can happen. A referee’s mistake can happen, a player’s mistake can happen, anything can happen. They got a corner, it was headed in and then you’re back to just protecting your goal instead of playing the game out as we should have done.”
CAVANI'S FA CHARGE

“I know that Edinson never meant any harm, it’s his friend [he was replying to]. He has come into a new country and made a mistake and he’s apologised. He didn’t mean any malice, so we’ll work with the FA and hopefully he’ll be ok.”

EVERY WIN COUNTS IN A TIGHT TABLE


“We treat every game as a cup final, we have to. We have to treat every single game this season as the last game we’re going to play for Man United. Just approach it like you do and don’t worry about the next game, we can’t. Sunday [against Leeds] is a big game, massive game. A game that all our supporters and players will really want us to win and let's hammer in for these boys what it means, because I don’t think any of them were born even when I played in these type of fixtures so we’ll make sure we’re ready.”

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