Solskjaer’s Christmas bonus for his players
OLE Gunnar Solskjaer allowed United players to spend Christmas evening at home rather than at The Lowry Hotel.
United have spent the last three Christmas nights at The Lowry on the eve of Boxing Day matches at Old Trafford, but the M.E.N. understands Solskjaer let his players stay at home.
United players are expected to meet at their Carrington training complex this afternoon before taking the coach to the stadium for the 5.30pm kick-off at Newcastle.
It is understood United cancelled their scheduled stay at The Lowry around two weeks ago - shortly after they had recorded back-to-back wins against Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City.
Solskjaer took charge of United for the first time at Old Trafford against Huddersfield on Boxing Day last year and the squad arrived at The Lowry in the evening. Solskjaer was only installed as caretaker manager on December 19.
Jose Mourinho oversaw Christmas Day training at Old Trafford in 2017, before United travelled to The Lowry to prepare for the visit of Burnley. United also checked in at the Manchester city centre hotel on Christmas night in 2016 ahead of their win over Sunderland.
This is the fourth year running United have hosted on Boxing Day and they last played away from home on December 26 in 2015 at Stoke.
United have an arrangement to stay at The Lowry for every league game but have also used the Crowne Plaza on Oxford Road and the Hilton Garden Inn at Lancashire Cricket Ground.
OLE Gunnar Solskjaer says United players need to earn the support of matchgoers after their pitiful performance at Watford.
Solskjaer likened United’s performance at Vicarage Road to his 2008 testimonial after they were beaten 2-0 by the Premier League’s basement side and United are now seven points adrift of the final Champions League qualifying spot.
United host Newcastle at tea time today, having dropped 15 points against the league’s bottom seven sides.
Newcastle were viewed by many as relegation candidates at the start of the campaign but are ninth and level on points with United at nearly the halfway stage.
Newcastle have actually won one more league game than United this term and bottom-half teams Arsenal, Crystal Palace, Everton and Aston Villa have all taken points off United at Old Traffod.
“It’s an easy team talk, to be fair, to get the reaction,” Solskjaer said. “Show a reaction, get your fans on your side, which is no problem because our fans have always been on our side when we’ve needed them.
“But we’ve got to earn that one, that’s the easy bit - I am sure we’ll see a reaction. Today was a big, big disappointing day.”
A Matty Longstaff goal secured victory for Newcastle over United in October and the Magpies stunned Old Trafford last season by going 2-0 up inside 10 minutes amid intense speculation surrounding Jose Mourinho’s position. United recovered to seal a 3-2 comeback.
Newcastle’s sole win at Old Trafford since 1972 came six years ago when David Moyes was in charge but Solskjaer is expecting a test of United’s unconvincing ability to break down teams that sit deep against Steve Bruce’s side.
“Don’t ask me. Fear factor, you’ve got to ask every other manager or team,” he shrugged.
“We’ve done well at Old Trafford the last I don’t know how long. We lost to Palace (in August) but that’s the only defeat we’ve had there. So, for me, we’re going to just keep growing as a team, keep developing as a team.
“Hopefully we can break teams down more often. It’s going to be difficult to break [Newcastle] down. I expect that we get the fair share of possession.
“We were disappointed, we had more than 70 per cent up there when we lost the game.
“One of the good things about the team this year, we have reacted after bad results. We haven’t kept the consistency as we’d like the other way, but we’ve never gone on a big run like we did towards the end of last season so there will be a reaction, definitely.”