City 0 United 1: Solskjaer's press conference
TranscriptWatch what the manager told reporters during an interesting post-match press conference at the Etihad Stadium...
Matic red card The first one isn’t a yellow card. He’s unlucky. I disagree with the decision. I think it’s ironic that the first time he makes a foul he gets a yellow card and all the times we broke on them and they brought us down. That’s the referee’s decision, we’ll have to play without him on Saturday which is a blow because he was the Man of the Match for me today. Has that cost you a chance to get to a final? Well we had a chance towards the end. Of course it made it more difficult but I don’t want to talk about the referee too much though, I want to talk about the players and the attitude they’re showing and how far they’ve come. They’ve come here now twice in six weeks and beaten Man City which is difficult enough to do in 10 years. They gave absolutely everything even though we were poor at times with our quality on the ball. Sometimes they broke our play up really well, won the ball back and fouled us a few times, but we spent too many seconds on the ball when we won it. Fred free-kick – why not Juan? Juan is the best one when he feels like it. But they practiced yesterday Juan told me and Fred was unbelievable in training yesterday and he scored six or seven on the bounce apparently and they both felt this was his moment. That was the decision they made there and then. Probably the right decision but it didn’t work out well. If you had Marcus could it have been different? Of course we’re missing Marcus, Paul, Scott, we’re missing big players and we came here and beat them again. I’m so proud of how far they’ve come these boys and they’ve just got to realise that themselves. They need to keep carrying on with this attitude and character and defend as well as we did and of course we have the best goalkeeper in world when he’s in the form; he kept us in the game. It’s a strange feeling going out, but still being so proud of the players. With Matic out on Sat could Bruno start on Sat? Let’s get the contract signed and medical done but the boy is fit and ready to play I would presume. Let’s see if we can get it done tomorrow. Seemed like you told Lingard something when he lost the ball before he was subbed? It was heat of the moment, once in a while when you lose the ball you just need to make sure you try to play more. In the next moment him and Victor grew in confidence and started playing. Once in a while you’re going to make mistakes but if you’re going to just come here and defend then you’ve got no chance, so yes we created one or two dangerous moments with the way we tried to play our way out, but the way we want the boys to express themselves we have to do that to release the pressure. The fan trouble – Pep has condemned it. What are your thoughts? I stand behind Pep. Football is a game we should all enjoy - spectators who want to watch it on TV and the ones who play it. I keep telling the players every time you go out there, do it with a big smile and enjoy yourselves. Work hard yes, but enjoy it. And fans should always try to enjoy the games. We want rivalry but let’s keep it at a sane level and let’s make sure we eradicate that [any trouble] now. So I stand behind Pep and all of us do. We want to make this a nice game. Beaten City twice but lost to Bournemouth, Newcastle and at home to Burnley – do you know which United team is going to turn up week to week? I’ve spoken about this so many times. We know it’s going to be inconsistent the season and while we’re building. But it shows how good we can be and how good these boys can become. Yes we want to eradicate those defeats but I think everyone watching us knows what we’re trying to do and we’ll get there. We’ll add players and the culture here with the character and attitude is there. Today the quality wasn’t great, sometimes that happens and it might happen again. We need more goalscorers and more goals, that’s a definite. I need someone who wants to break their nose to score a goal or a toe – it doesn’t have to be about the nice goals, I’m challenging them and I need to challenge them more because we can’t just score nice goals. Today we pegged them back at times and played them deep but we couldn’t create those chances and those moments. We’re going to get there no doubt because these players want to learn and have improved so much. You’ve mentioned the scrappy goals before particularly with Martial, does there come a point when you have to accept it’s not going to happen? [Laughs] I’ll never accept players not wanting to score goals and easy goals. They’re easy goals when you make the right movements and stay in the box. So I’m going to work with them and we’re going to work and work until we get it done. Chance you’ll bring striker in on loan before deadline? [Laughs] I’m not sure. I know we need more goals. I know if we get Bruno over the line we’ve got a boy there who will score and create. Let’s talk on Friday.