MAN UTD 3 BURNLEY 1
OLE GUNNAR Solskjaer hailed Manchester United’s resolve after they finally ground down Burnley’s dogged resistance to keep their slim Premier League title hopes alive.
Mason Greenwood got his second goal late in the game before Edinson Cavani sealed a 3-1 victory, James Tarkowski having earlier equalised 114 seconds after the opener.
With a fifth successive league win having moved United eight points behind leaders Manchester City with six games to play, Solskjaer is not throwing in the towel just yet.
‘I’m really proud that we never gave up and that we’ve proven so many times this season our fitness and resilience,’ said the United boss, who saw a trend continue from winning 3-1 at Tottenham last time out. ‘We came back and scored three goals last week, we’ve scored three goals in the second half here as well.
‘Our fitness, confidence and belief has improved so much this season compared to last year – that’s big, big progress.’
He said catching City was ‘probably unrealistic’ but added: ‘Stranger things have happened in football and we’ve just got to do our job and see what everyone else does.’ And two-goal hero Greenwood insisted: ‘You can never be sure. They [City] might slip up, we have to concentrate on our next games.
‘Anything’s possible, hopefully they drop some points but we just have to keep focused on our games.’
However, United suffered a blow with Marcus Rashford withdrawn late on. Solskjaer said the foot injury he has been nursing in recent weeks had become ‘too sore’.
Fourth-bottom Burnley impressed again having not lost on their previous four visits to Old Trafford and boss Sean Dyche said: ‘We were in the game and threatening on the break. The mentality is strong here, you can see that from the players.’