Solskjaer’s spot of trouble with penalty shout!

OLE Gunnar Solskjaer felt United were denied a penalty in their Premier League draw with Arsenal.

Moments before Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang equalised for the Gunners in the 58th minute, Sead Kolasinac handled the ball inside his area but the Video Assistant Referee did not overrule referee Kevin Friend, who ignored the contact.

VAR intervened to allow Aubameyang’s leveller to stand after he was flagged offside by linesman Scott Ledger. He was played yards onside by Harry Maguire but Ashley Young appeared to ease off as he approached Aubameyang after the flag was raised.

In Uefa competition and other overseas leagues, the linesmen are told not to flag until the passage of play has ended but the Premier League has not subscribed to that law.

“Ashley certainly holds his hand up,” Solskjaer said. “Because he looks straight at the linesman, maybe he hesitates a little bit, he could’ve probably got a block in, probably would have helped David [de Gea]. But no consolation for us now, it’s a perfectly good goal for them. [The linesman] probably should have kept the flag down.

“It (the rule) made an impact on the situation by raising the flag. When it’s that way, you could wait and take it later, when it’s the handball that we could have, should have had a penalty, take it back. But that’s up to the referee.

“There was a handball shout that we could have, should have.

“Loads of the penalty decisions now, if you don’t make it you can’t go back and have it. But it’s a work in progress, I’m for the right decisions and they definitely deserve their goal today.”

United have taken nine points from 21 this term and are only 10th in the table. They have failed to score more than one in 18 of their last 21 matches and conceded after going 1-0 up for the fourth time this term against Arsenal.

Solskjaer has overseen their worst league start in 30 years but remains encouraged by United’s performance level. He added: “There are many things we look at and many things that give me loads of confidence.

“We can talk about performances but it’s the results that matter. You can talk about the results, I can talk about the six out of seven games good performances. West Ham we know was below par but still not as bad as you lot made it out to be.”

Meanwhile, scorer Scott McTominay spoke of his disappointment with the draw.

“In the first 45 minutes we were right on the front foot, we were aggressive and did a lot of things right,” he said. “I thought we were good value for three points. It was little mistakes that we need to start cutting out which are starting to cost us games or cost us points.

“Everyone in that dressing room knows that it is a tough one to take.”