Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is not interested in blaming Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Jesse Lingard for the key moments in 10-man Manchester United’s 2-1 loss to Young Boys to kickoff this season’s UEFA Champions League campaign on Tuesday in Switzerland.
Cristiano Ronaldo had put United up 1-0 but Wan-Bissaka was shown a straight-red card and Nicolas Ngamaleu leveled the score for Young Boys before Lingard’s poor back pass was picked up by USMNT striker Jordan Pefok for a stoppage-time winner.
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Solskjaer thought the red card was an understandable card caused by a bad pitch in Switzerland, and said Lingard’s error was just one of those things.
“That happens in a game,” Solskjaer said, via manutd.com. “That’s football. Up and downs. You’ve got big moments, you’ve got moments that go for you and against you. He’ll handle that one, and we’ll handle it.”
And Solskjaer stressed that United need not panic despite its most recent UCL setback.
“We need 12 points to go through,” Solskjaer said. “You need to win your home games, win one away from home and go through. A missed opportunity tonight, of course, but then again last year we won our first two games against PSG and Red Bull [Leipzig] and everyone thought we were through. So we have five games to get the 10 or 12 points.”
That’s one way to look at it.
Maguire seemed stunned by the loss, given that United stayed strong at the back for much of a 55-minute run down a man.
“We put ourselves in a strong position, it was a tough game, a tough surface, away from home we found ourselves down to 10 men, we looked comfortable in the game, we conceded a scruffy goal, it was really unlucky.” said Maguire, via The Manchester Evening News. “We weren’t playing our greatest football, we weren’t the biggest threat at the other end of the pitch, we looked really solid, we didn’t concede too many chances, and then the big sucker punch at the end.”
Man United visits West Ham on Sunday before a League Cup rematch days later at Old Trafford. Then it’s Aston Villa and Villarreal at home.
