PALACE PUNISH DEVILS
Zaha double hands United dreadful Premier League start
OLE Gunnar Solskjaer blamed a lack of preparation time for Manchester United’s dreadful start to the Premier League season as Wilfried Zaha scored twice against his former club to hand Crystal Palace a 3-1 win at Old
Trafford on Saturday.
United ended the 2019/20 season little over a month ago due to their run to the Europa League semi-finals and had just two weeks pre-season training together.
“You can see we are short (of match fitness) and they deserved the points. They were sharper than us in the challenges,” said
Solskjaer.
“You can’t be too surprised we are not at our best yet because this is the first game we’ve played since the middle of August. We have had a very short and strange pre-season. We need to improve and we need to improve quickly.”
United finished last season on a 14-match unbeaten run in the Premier League to secure a thirdplace finish and raise hopes of mounting a title challenge to rivals Liverpool and Manchester City this season.
But on this evidence they need far more than the solitary signing of Donny Van de Beek, who scored on his debut, to compete at the top of the table.
Solskjaer, though, refused to use a lack of new signings as an excuse for such a slow start.
“If you look at the players we have on the pitch and on the bench today, we need to look within first and know we have to perform better,” he added.
“We are always looking to improve if there is something out there available at the right price. But we can all look ourselves in the mirror today instead.”
Palace have now won their first two games of a Premier League season for the first time and on their last two visits to United.
“When we had the ball I thought we looked very dangerous and threatening so I don’t think it was a big surprise that we scored three,” said Palace boss Roy Hodgson.
“When you come here you need to show you are going to play on the front foot and not just defend and let them do what they want on the ball,” added Hodgson. “We started in the right way and finished in the right way.”