Solskjaer says red banners at Old Trafford affected team
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer says Manchester United's patchy home form is partly down to the fact his players were unable to see each other clearly due to the red stadium wrap at Old Trafford.
Tuesday was 25 years to the day since Sir Alex Ferguson famously ordered his players to change from their grey kit to blue-and-white midway through a 3-1 loss at Southampton. Solskjaer joined United the season after the Dell debacle and raised the issue of spotting players ahead of tonight’s Europa League quarter-finalsecondlegagainstgranada at an empty Old Trafford.
All four of this season's Premierleaguedefeatshavecome at home, while they suffered a key Champions League group loss to Paris St Germain there, along with the Carabao Cup semi-finaldefeattomanchester City. When that record was put to Solskjaer along with the fact United have yet to win a home Europa League game despite triumphing at Real Sociedad, AC Milan and Granada without conceding, he said: “You’ll see a change now.
“If you see the banners round the club, it's not red anymore. We've looked into this.
“There shouldn’t be any reason,really,butsomeoftheplayers have mentioned that, you know, that split-second decisionthatyouhavetomake,look overyourshoulderifyourteammate's there or not and the red shirtisonaredbackgroundjust with the red seats.
“So we've of course tried to change that, along with an anti-racism campaign, so of course that was important that it wasn’t red anymore. But then again, if you've got a 4-0 advantage (like we did against Sociedad) you don't really have to win that game. Nil-nil was a goodresult.thenthefirstgame against Milan that's still a draw, weconcededinthelastminute.
“I still think we played some good football at home. We started off badly with the three defeats, with Palace, Tottenham and Arsenal very early on, so we've improved.”
United replaced the red stadium wrap with black banners at the start of April, which read “United Against Racism” as part of the club's See Red antiracism campaign.
Tonight’squarter-finalagainst Granada will be just the second match Solskjaer's side have played at Old Trafford since the change in design.
United are well placed to seal a semi-final date against Roma or Ajax after winning the first leg 2-0 in Spain last week.
Marcus Rashford overcame injury concerns to open the scoring that night and, having been withdrawn in the second half, managed 72 minutes of Sunday's 3-1 Premier League win at Tottenham. But the 23-year-old,whohasbeendealing with an ankle complaint, looks set to be sidelined for the return fixture against Granada having missed training on the eve of the game. Solskjaer will be without captain Harry Maguire, midfielder Scott Mctominayandleft-backluke Shawthroughsuspensionafter theywerebookedinandalusia.
“It's never a positive thing to not have every player available but we've got players ready to deputise,” Solskjaer said. “We have to make sure that we go through," Solskjaer added. “I always pick a team that I think will win a game and we will go into it wanting to win this.”