Ole Gunnar Solskjaer defended his team selection in Manchester United’s FA Cup defeat at Leicester and insisted he would pick the same team again.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said: “I would have started the same team again. We felt they had more than 45 minutes in them, they’re important players for us, that’s why we started with them. Every team selection has reasons behind it and Bruno has played a lot of football. Thursday night he broke all his records physically, statistically. And the boy is not inhuman, he is also a human being. He’s played a game every three or four days and it was a chance to start both Donny and Paul, but the accumulation of games maybe caught up with us. Bruno wants to play and sometimes you make decisions for the benefit of the team. We picked a team we felt was going to win the game, giving us a foundation to win the game. We knew players like Donny and Paul wouldn’t last more than an hourish, we knew we had subs who could come on and make a difference, and we hoped they could give us that extra energy and brightness. We were not as sharp as we normally have been lately, the accumulation of games is maybe a factor and the freshness of Leicester made them sharper than us today.”
United’s unbeaten domestic away run ended after 28 games in a 3-1 reverse at the King Power Stadium, where Paul Pogba started for the first time in six weeks and Donny van de Beek made his comeback after a five-week absence. United trail Manchester City by 14 points in the Premier League and their only realistic chance of a trophy is in the Europa League as they attempt to avoid a fourth successive trophyless season.
