Fred left out to get ready for the derby
FRED was rested for United’s trip to West Ham to prepare him for Saturday’s derby. The Brazilian did not travel to London and is suspended for their final Champions League group stage tie at RB Leipzig tomorrow.
Provided Fred is recalled for the visit of City on Saturday, he will have had a 10-day breather between games - and the 27-year-old has also not been on international duty this season. Fred had started United’s six Premier League games prior to the West Ham win but manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said he wanted more physical midfielders in his side to combat the Hammers. “Fred’s not injured,” Solskjaer clarified. “He’s getting ready for the rest of the season because we’ve got a long season. It was a tactical decision to go with more height. “Paul [Pogba] and Scott [McTominay] and Nemanja [Matic] were my three midfielders I brought down for this one.”
West Ham were furious Pogba’s 63rd-minute equaliser was allowed to stand as they felt Dean Henderson’s clearance had curved out of play. Technology that was not available to the Video Assistant Referee suggested they were right.
“The ball went more or less over my head so I can’t really say,” Solskjaer added. “The linesman is in the best position to call it and he said it was clearly inside.
“Very, very good goal by Paul so if it was out, we were lucky. But the referee didn’t make the call.
“There are so many things we can discuss on VAR, if it’s this, that or the other.
“Like Fred got sent off against PSG for something that was clearly not a foul, so we can discuss absolutely everything.
“I think we should leave the game and understand that sometimes there is human error. Maybe it was a human error, I’m not sure, that’s the fantastic bit about football, that we can discuss things as well.”