Under-pressure Ole: Man United must do better

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has told his players they need to “look themselves in the mirror” after Manchester United‘s horror run of form continued with a 4-2 defeat at Leicester City.

Solskjaer’s team have won just one of their last five games and after a dire performance at the King Power Stadium, the Norwegian urged his squad to turn things around quickly when Atalanta visit Old Trafford in the Champions League on Wednesday.

– ESPN+ guide: LaLiga, Bundesliga, MLS, FA Cup, more
– Don’t have ESPN? Get instant access
– ESPN Insider Notebook: Pogba out, Tchouameni in?

“We all need to do better, we have to do better,” Solskjaer told a news conference. “Every game in the Premier League and Champions League, they’re big games, all of them. Leicester is just as big a game as Atalanta.

“We’ve got to dust ourselves off and make sure we come in again and look ourselves in the mirror. That’s the nature of football, you’ve got to respond to setbacks.”

Despite goals from Mason Greenwood and the returning Marcus Rashford, United were undone by a calamitous defensive display which saw Solskjaer’s team concede from a sloppy mistake from Harry Maguire, twice from set-pieces and once just 54 seconds after equalising to make it 2-2.

Afterwards Solskjaer was forced to defend his selection of Maguire, who was only able to return to training on Friday morning after three weeks out with a calf injury.

“It was my decision to play Harry,” he said. “He’s worked really hard on the rehab and he looked ready. He didn’t feel any after-effects after training.

“He’s a big, massive player for us, the captain, the leader. We want to bring him back as soon as we can because he’s been so influential in our play.

“We didn’t defend well enough and all of the goals were disappointing in how we conceded them.”