Home form worries Solskjaer as Man United set away record

Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer expressed his concern about the team’s home form in the Premier League moments after their sixth away win on Thursday night.

The Red Devils came from behind to beat Sheffield United 3-2 at Brammal Lane for their 10th consecutive away win in the Premier League, which is a club record. 

Solskjaer’s side have also won all six of their away games this season scoring at least three goals in each of the games.

However, they have won just one of their six home games this season and lost three.When asked if he was impressed with Thursday night’s win, Solskjaer was instead already thinking about the home fixture against Leeds United scheduled for Sunday.

“Yeah but we need to sort the home form,” Solskjaer told the Manchester United website.

“Obviously, it’s not like it’s home and away in these conditions without fans and it seems like we’re going to be in this situation a little longer, but we should be more used to the Old Trafford pitch than these pitches so hopefully we’ll start. It’s a massive game for us, we know that. We’ve been waiting for years to get this game on and we’ll be ready for it.”

The Norwegian made a big call by selecting Dean Henderson in goal against a club where the youngster was on loan last season.

Henderson’s error led to the hosts taking an early lead.”Good, bad and the ugly, maybe in a different chronological order but it’s a test and a learning curve, Dean’s always learning,” Solskjaer added.

“He comes back here [to Bramall Lane] and he’s probably been looking forward to this for a long, long while and to get that [bad] start, it just shows his character [how he performed] in the rest of the game. When you’re a young keeper you’re going to make mistakes and he’s going to have to learn to redeem himself, which he did. He kept his composure, played really well after that.”

Solskjaer, who was an accomplished striker at Manchester United in his playing days, was happy with the output of his forwards Marcus Rashford, who scored twice, Anthony Martial, who also scored, and Mason Greenwood.

He said: “With the pace and the skill in these boys, the quality of the touches and movement – I thought all three goals were excellent. That’s why we played the team that we did today, because we know that Sheffield United want to play football, they want to press, they want to make it an open game and we could have spaces for our forwards. 

“I said before the game that we need the forwards firing, we need them starting. We’ve come to this position without them really scoring goals and now they’ve had three today – two from Marcus and one for Anthony and that’s brilliant. We just have to keep them going with that mentality because last season those three scored so many goals for us. This year they haven’t really started the season yet, so it’s looking good.”

The usually placid Solskjaer was animated on the touchline on Thursday night, apparently unhappy with some of the physical play of Sheffield United.

“I wanted to test the players here today because we knew it was going to be a physical test, a fight, they were going to get kicked, going to get late tackles,” he explained.

“I don’t mind a fair tackle, but when it’s like a second after the [first] tackle has been made – there were a couple right in front of me, but I think it’s one of these games that our boys will learn from. It’s a proper game and it’s like football should be. I apologised [to Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder], I maybe went overboard with my words, but we’ll have a drink after me and Chris.

“You know you don’t take anything for granted, and when we didn’t score the fourth goal, anything can happen. A referee’s mistake can happen, a player’s mistake can happen, anything can happen. They got a corner, it was headed in and then you’re back to just protecting your goal instead of playing the game out as we should have done.”

Thursday night’s win took Manchester United to sixth place in the table with 23 points, within five points of leaders Liverpool and with a game in hand.

Solskjaer wants to keep up the chase as his side welcome fierce local rivals Leeds United.

“We treat every game as a cup final, we have to,” he said.

“We have to treat every single game this season as the last game we’re going to play for Man United. Just approach it like you do and don’t worry about the next game, we can’t. 

“Sunday [against Leeds] is a big game, massive game. A game that all our supporters and players will really want us to win and let’s hammer in for these boys what it means, because I don’t think any of them were born even when I played in these type of fixtures so we’ll make sure we’re ready.”