West Ham United were 1-0 winners in the third-round meeting at Old Trafford, with Manuel Lanzini’s early strike being the decisive goal against Manchester United.
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Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has admitted that his team had a slow start in their Carabao Cup defeat on Wednesday night. West Ham United were 1-0 winners in the third-round meeting at Old Trafford, with Manuel Lanzini’s early strike being the decisive goal against United. The home side dominated possession after that early setback and managed 27 shots overall. However, they couldn’t break down the resilient visitors’ defence, as the Hammers held on for their first win at the Theatre of Dreams in over 14 years. Despite the defeat, Solskjaer was happy with the atmosphere created by the 72,000-strong home crowd.
Speaking to MUTV and Sky Sports after the match, Ole started, “We’ve got to the semi-finals the last two years and it’s a competition we’ve got tradition for to give players minutes because we need to think about the bigger picture. Today, we made that decision and some of them will definitely come out stronger for it because they’ve now got 90 minutes under the belt and are ready for the league and the Champions League, and the FA Cup when that starts.”
The manager then spoke about how the team made a “poor start” and how satisfied he was with the response they showed. “We had a poor start, then some good bits and then towards the end when we went gung ho, we opened ourselves up and of course they could have scored a few more. I thought the boys gave it a real good go, worked really hard and we ended up with 27 shots which is quite remarkable. Maybe you could see some players needing minutes but that’s natural,” Ole Gunnar Solskjaer elaborated.
“We didn’t create enough big chances, we built pressure, but we couldn’t [score]. We had a couple of big chances – Mason [Greenwood] came on, had a decent one. We built pressure but sometimes you know that pressure doesn’t come to anything.”
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was particularly happy with the way Mason Greenwood played after coming on to the pitch from the bench. “Mason came on and made a positive impact, no doubt about it. He was fresh, sharp and could have got a goal, but it was too little, too late. In the last six or seven minutes of course, we’re going to go gung-ho and they could have scored a couple,” Ole stated.
Speaking about the atmosphere created by the fans at Old Trafford, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said, “[It was] fantastic. Absolutely incredible. We have some new coaches coming in and they were asking this morning, ‘what do you reckon, how many fans – are we going to get 40, 50 [thousand]?’ No, I knew it would be close to full. No doubt about our fans, they are brilliant. They kept going and the atmosphere was brilliant.”
“We’ve got lots of games and we’ll just keep on doing what we’re doing and trying to get results. We’ve started the season okay, apart from we’re out of this cup which is not great, and we haven’t had a great result away in Europe. But we’ll be focused, we’ll be ready for Saturday.”
