Ole Gunnar Solskjaer hails his side’s comeback spirit and camaraderie that has seen them overcome the first half 1-0 deficit.
Manchester United thrashed Aston Villa 3-1 to delayed Manchester City’s EPL title celebration and pressure on the leaders. Solskjaer was delighted by the Red Devils character that resolved to their latest comeback win.
“I believe in the boys and I think they believe in themselves,” Solskjaer said.
“We know that sometimes coming back from Europe is difficult and there wasn’t a lot wrong with the first half either,” he added.
Solskjaer continued, “We didn’t have the margins. They scored and we didn’t. I thought we created the biggest chances, opportunities, but they scored a very good goal.
“Then it was just about trusting ourselves again. We have done it so many times and it’s about ‘here we go again, boys, just keep moving the ball quicker’. That was one of the messages.”
“The players are learning, a developing group as a whole, they’re getting better. The spirit, the camaraderie, they back each other. There’s competition for places so I’m very happy that we’ve done that twice now (reaching the top four),” the Norwegian said.
Meanwhile, Dean Smith fumes at the Villa Park officiating after the referee decided to award the match-leveling spot-kick and the send-off.
According to Smith, the penalty and Ollie Watkins were very soft. He claims it is “pathetic” they cannot appeal Watkins’ sending-off.
“The penalty for me is very, very soft. The red card for Ollie Watkins is very, very soft and probably the word I’d use is ‘confused’. Because I don’t know where we are anymore in terms of decisions like that,” Smith claimed.
“I’m fed up with talking about penalty decisions against Manchester United. We’ve had three dubious ones in the three games against them,” he concluded.