OLE GUNNAR SOLSKJAER gunned down the suggestion as clinically as he used to bury a half-chance in the back of the net.
After a week to forget for Manchester United, he could have done with his team showing the same fighting attitude.
League One strugglers Tranmere overcame Watford on this sticky pitch and now hope to do the same to Man Utd
Ole Gunnar Solskjaier believes the commitment and spirit of his players cannot be denied, despite recent poor results
Where was the accountability in his stumbling squad? Where were the leaders? Were too many going missing instead of fronting up?
The facts would point to a bunch who have gone missing in action. A defeat at deadly rivals Liverpool, followed by the tamest of roll-overs at home to Burnley.
To cap it all, players burying their heads in hoodies and ducking post-match questioning at that second loss — contractual obligations aside — and the chance to explain what is going wrong.
Solskjaer, though, is having none of it. The United chief — like his team, under increasing fire — reckons no one is hiding.
And he is convinced that today, on a Prenton Park mud-patch, his stumbling stars will prove their appetite for a scrap, in a perilous FA Cup clash with Tranmere.
The usual twinkle in Solskjaer’s eye was swapped for a hard stare, as he said: “I have not seen many of my players getting their hoods up, hiding and trying to disappear.
“What I can see is loads of players who really want this to be a success, and we put demands on ourselves behind the doors.
“Of course they are not going to come out and criticise each other and I am not going to sit here and criticise my players. I will do that behind closed doors.
“We have open discussions there but we are not going to hang people out to dry. That is just common sense because if I point a finger at you, more fingers get pointed back at me.”
All admirable, of course. An approach Sir Alex Ferguson famously took whenever the going got tough.
A circling of wagons, a siege mentality, and an “us-against-the- world” tactic.
The only difference, of course, was that Fergie had the men with the mettle to hit back.
BABY-FACED… BUT BABIES NOT ASSASSINS
Men like Roy Keane, Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs, Bryan Robson . . . the list was endless.
Yet while Solskjaer was famously the baby-faced assassin of that bunch who fired the bullets, the current crop of players have played like baby-faced, er, babies.
The Anfield loss was not ideal but seen as no disgrace — then Burnley won at Old Trafford for the first time in 58 years.
Defeat to a lowly League One side in the Cup would top the lot.
Yet Solskjaer, 46, reckons the banana-skin fourth-round tie could stop the rot and set up United for a flying finish.
He added: “It is a big game for us. After two defeats we need to go out there and show we can fight, show we are not going to put our hoodies up and walk away.
“These players like a challenge and will fly into challenges with the aim of starting a winning run.
“There is no disrespect but we are a Premier League club and they are League One, so we should be able to go there and outplay them.
“That won’t be possible on that pitch, so we are up for a scrap.”
A scrap he is adamant his players are relishing.
Certainly he has no doubts about their appetite for the battle.
He made that clear when asked if he regretted not replacing those who departed in the summer, like strike duo Alexis Sanchez and Romelu Lukaku.
Solskjaer said: “I have not thought, ‘Oh, I wish I had kept him’. You let players go because of different reasons and some of those we let go were not right for the culture I was trying to build.
“That is just my belief and why we kept the players here with the right attitude.
“We know they will run through a brick wall for the club and for each other. Not everyone did.”
This afternoon, in Birkenhead, they will get the chance to prove it. Woe betide them, United and Solskjaer if they fall short again.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer hints at new Man Utd signings after losing two games in a row
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
