Ahead of his side’s huge FA Cup clash against Chelsea on Monday, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has revealed his Manchester United side are not panicking despite suffering a 2-0 reverse against PSG on Tuesday night.
Having been hired following the dismissal of Jose Mourinho, Solskjaer led United on an 11-game run which featured ten wins and a draw, taking the club back into the Premier League’s top four in the process. Solskjaer has been praised for his attacking style of play at United, but was met with his first setback on Tuesday, when Paris Saint-Germain handed United a 2-0 defeat in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie.
However, with big games coming up against Chelsea (FA Cup, Monday) and Liverpool (Premier League, Feb 24), Solskjaer says now is not the time for a complete change in strategy, despite the loss to injury of Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard. “You don’t panic because you have lost a game,” said Solskjaer. “You don’t change everything, because it does not change the mindset at all.
“We need to keep working on the way we want to play football. The way we approach the games will always be with an attacking, positive mind. “We want to go to Chelsea, Liverpool here, we still want to impose ourselves on those games. Quite a few other teams have injuries (too), so you have to adapt.”
Solskjaer agreed that the mood in the camp was not as upbeat as usual, but expects his team to respond well to the defeat. “It’s a different feel,” he said. “I hate losing games, the boys hate losing games. They have been down but there is no point dwelling on it, we need to get going again. “You have to bounce back at this club and away at Chelsea is one of the tougher challenges. “We know there was a seven-to-eight-minute spell against PSG where we lost our way, but we were not too bad defensively (overall).”