After securing an eighth consecutive win since taking charge, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was unsurprisingly delighted with his Man Utd players on Friday.
Goals from Alexis Sanchez, Jesse Lingard and Anthony Martial ensured we saw off Arsenal at the Emirates in a 3-1 win, as we advance to the fifth round of the FA Cup and continue our impressive winning run.
Speaking after the game, the Norwegian tactician showed a different side by giving some insight into his tactical qualities, as he noted that historically the counter-attack has always been a weakness for Arsenal against us, and he exploited that brilliantly on Friday night, with the players following the instructions perfectly.
“That’s part of it. If you go through the history and the games we’ve played against Arsenal that’s how it is,” he told the club site. “Everyone knows about the classic Champions League goal [in 2009] with Ji [-sung Park], Cristiano [Ronaldo] and Wayne [Rooney] running forward. Wazza has scored a couple more like that, as has Ji, so the counter-attacking threat that we have is in our history against Arsenal.”
That’s undoubtedly a great sign of his tactical know-how too, as Solskjaer has largely been praised for his man-management and style of play thus far.
Solskjaer also praised the attitude and application from the players as he is evidently pushing the right buttons to keep them hungry for more victories, while he was pleased with the improvement from the win over Tottenham.
Further, he reserved a bit of special praise for Jesse Lingard, who was on the scoresheet at the Emirates again with a crucial goal for us to open up a two-goal lead in the first half.
“He always pops up with goals and he is someone we never ever hesitate to put in a Man United team. And he’s been brought through the system so he knows what this means, he knows the history, he knows everything about the club and he’s someone we love.”
