Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer continues to dismiss concern about his team after they came back from a 2-0 deficit to beat Atalanta 3-2 in UEFA Champions League action at Old Trafford on Wednesday.
“Every fixture is tough for Man United because it’s a crisis every time you lose a game,” Solskjaer said.
The Norwegian had been under fire thanks to a 2W-1D-4L stretch heading into Wednesday’s game, and reports say that Solskjaer was booed while walking into the halftime tunnel.
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Solskjaer hailed the support of the fans and the occasion of a UCL match at Old Trafford, but did — for some reason — discuss the segment of fans who weren’t happy.
“Some supporters maybe felt that they wanted to wake up the players but I didn’t feel they needed waking up,” Solskjaer said. “They needed support. It’s easy when you get the crowd on your back, you start blaming others, but we didn’t.”
United wasn’t particularly bad in the first half besides the two concessions, but it’s curious that a man so in-tune with the import of the supporters would give them any openings by even being mildly critical of them.
The Red Devils had 55% of the ball and a 9-5 shots edge in the first half, and the second half numbers moved to 57% and 13-8 in shots.
The difference? They took Bruno Fernandes’ magnificent playmaking and actually scored. One of those came from Harry Maguire, who asked about the Luke Shaw to Cristiano Ronaldo match-winner.
“We’ve conceded too many goals this season, we know that,” Maguire said. “We didn’t concede many chances so that was better than Sunday. But we’ve got players like Cristiano in the team, we know he’s going to score goals. That’s what he does. He did it against Villarreal and did it again tonight.”
United meets Liverpool at the weekend as a brutal run of fixtures continues for Solskjaer’s men.
