Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has challenged his Manchester United players to bounce back from their Champions League defeat to PSG with a good performance against Chelsea in what is a crucial FA Cup encounter. The Parisians handed Solskjaer his first defeat as United manager after an incredible run of form saw them rise into the top four of the Premier League.
He told reporters in his pre-match press conference that his players were hurt by the defeat:
“They've been down of course but there's no point dwelling on it. There are big games against good teams coming up, so we need to dust ourselves down and get going again on Monday.”
“Yes, you have to bounce back at this club. You'll always have challenges, and away against Chelsea is one of the tougher challenges, so let's just make sure the next two or three days in training are good so we are ready for Monday.
“We know there was a spell against PSG - seven, eight, nine or 10 minutes - where we lost our way a bit. But apart from that, we weren't too bad defensively.”
Solskjaer will have to cope without Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard for the next few days, tow players who have been crucial to his sides’ success in recent weeks. However he was keen to keep his side focused:
“Well, you don't panic because you've lost a game or change everything, because it doesn't 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 in an attacking, positive mind.
“We want to go down to Chelsea and then play Liverpool here and still impose ourselves on those games. There are quite a few other teams who have injuries. So you adapt and you have to manage that.”
The FA Cup represents a major chance for United to win a trophy this season but Solskjaer was happy to get away from the pressure for a few days this week, as he explained at United’s training ground.
“I’ve been back home actually, I’ve been to Norway. It was planned before actually so it was nice to see the family. But it's a different feeling of course. I hate losing games and it seems like the boys hate losing games.”
