Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

Ole's Spurs press conference in full

Friday 09 April 2021 13:30

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer says Manchester United are in a much better position to take on Tottenham Hotspur than we were for the reverse fixture in October.

The Reds, shorn of Anthony Martial after an early red card, went down 6-1 to Jose Mourinho's men at Old Trafford, in what was only our third game of the season after a shortened summer break.

Solskjaer says much of that poor performance was down to a lack of fitness, and that the side will have learned their lessons this time around.

In his pre-match press conference to preview the game, Ole also discussed Marcus Rashford's fitness, dealing with Harry Kane and Edinson Cavani's future...

Ole sorry to spring this on you, but this racism debate you’ve been asked about constantly over the last few weeks. Two or three clubs have started boycotting social media. You’ve talked about the onus being on the tech giants. Is it right that people are trying to force their hand? Is that progress?
“We’re making progress as in it’s the awareness, it’s been raised and I think loads of clubs, and ourselves included, want to work with all the social media companies to get rid of it. I respect other club’s and other player’s and other manager’s decisions to do whatever they do – if it’s boycotting or shutting down their own accounts. But, for me, I think it’s important that we work together with them, that we find a way out of this once and for all.”

Tottenham v United: Watch Ole's press conference Video

Tottenham v United: Watch Ole's press conference

Watch what the boss says about racism in football, Marcus Rashford, Harry Kane and more in his press conference...

This is my standard question: how’s the team looking? And I might as well get my other standard question out of the way: is it Dean [Henderson] back in goal on Sunday?
“We’ll pick a team, probably I don’t think I will until the morning, to be honest, because it will be difficult to prepare. We’ll have to stay over here, fly back tomorrow and Saturday will just be a day of recovery and see how the bodies feel. So I don’t know until then, but I hope both Luke [Shaw] and Marcus [Rashford] will be ready after tonight, yeah.”

When United went from sixth to second a few years ago, you said you didn’t think fans should be happy with that. Given your own experiences with the club and its progress, are you more appreciative of possibly finishing second?
“We should never settle for second place at Man United and we’ll never settle for a second place and I think that’s the point here – that we have seen the heights and we know what this club is capable of. For me, I’ve been here now a little while myself and it’s taken time for us to be in this position and, hopefully, we can be better next season because this is below our ambitions.”

Just how hurtful was that home game against Tottenham earlier this season and is that something that gives you guys extra spark for going into this match?
“Yeah, I think the players will remember that game with a lot of pain and their pride has been hurt. Our professional pride has been hurt, the manner we lost is not worthy of ourselves and our team and we know that. We gave ourselves a difficult game by having 10 men. Pre-season was short and we weren’t up to the standard required, but we were so poor and I’m pretty, pretty sure that we’ll see some players wanting to prove that we’re better than that.”

Can you just recall what the feeling was like in the dressing room among the squad after that Spurs match and which areas do you think you’ve improved on most since that game?
“Well, the biggest thing that we’ve improved on is our fitness levels, because we were way short of what they were at. It was our third game, was it? Third game and we didn’t look anything like [them] and we got conned into a red card and that’s something that we have to be aware of. That we can’t react like this, because we know that, in games, there’ll be situations that you’ll be wound up and we’ve learnt a lot from that and I’m sure we’ll have a better performance this time round.”

Ole praises Lindelof after win in Granada Video

Ole praises Lindelof after win in Granada

Hear the boss's verdict on our vital first-leg win in Spain, and his praise for one Red in particular...

Ole, just to go back to Marcus, particularly as before most games there’s a lot of concern about him as he’s played an awful lot of football this season. There’s quite a lot to come, including the Euros – should England fans be concerned about his fitness going into the summer and will he need a break at some stage?
“I don’t think you need to be concerned about his fitness. Of course, barring any injury. No, his fitness is really good. He’s an athletic boy, he’s a fit boy, strong boy, you can see when he goes into headers and challenges he can look after himself. But, at one point, of course you hope to get to a position where he doesn’t have to play every game, every minute and, at the moment, of course we have to take him off because his foot is a little bit sore. So hopefully that’ll improve as the season goes on because I think he was better tonight than he was on Sunday.”

How worried are you about the in-form Harry Kane? He’s got 10 goals in his last 10 games - is that something you need to talk about with your defenders?
“Yeah, of course it is. When you play against one of the best centre forwards in European football, it is something that we prepare for and I think every team when they play Tottenham or England, you know Harry Kane’s qualities, but we prepare the defenders for every single opposition and opponent. You know the season that Son and Kane have had, the relationship they’ve had. Of course, that’s one of Tottenham’s strengths and they’ve got other quality players as well that we have to be aware of.”

Highlights: Granada 0 United 2 Video

Highlights: Granada 0 United 2

Watch Rashford's sublime opener and the Fernandes penalty that has put us in pole position against Granada...

I just wondered whether you’d had much communication about Edinson [Cavani] over next season? I know you probably want to have a look in the summer about next season, but have you decided what you guys might do with him?
“Yeah. I’ve kept in touch with Edi and of course we keep an open dialogue. He’s still unsure what he wants to do next season, which I find fine. It’s not been an easy year, either for him or the rest of the world this season, so he still wants time to make his mind up.”

It can’t have been a more difficult time to start a new life in a new country. Do you think he can kick on now and end the season on a high?
“I’m very sure that we will get a good version of Edinson for the rest of the season. He knows that this is the business end of the season, where we fight for the Europa League trophy and we can see the end-line in the league. Only eight games left and you’re thinking about where you’re going to end up. He’s been so positive in and around the place, he’s been great to have, he’s been working hard now obviously to get fit and we’ve got him and now, hopefully, we can keep him fit for the next six, seven weeks.”

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