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Carabao Cup

Solskjaer eyes perfect performance

29 January 2020

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has called on his Manchester United team to use their win against Paris Saint-Germain in the UEFA Champions League last season as motivation, as they head to Manchester City looking to overturn a 3-1 defeat in their Carabao Cup Semi-Final first leg.

Rivals Manchester City hold a two-goal advantage going into Wednesday’s match, following goals from Bernardo Silva, Riyad Mahrez and an own goal from Andreas Pereira at Old Trafford which gave Pep Guardiola’s side another memorable win.

And Solskjaer is hoping that United can put in a perfect performance against the holders.

“We’ve got to go into memory bank and think PSG [in the Champions League], because we’ve done it against good teams before and it gives us some hope, the game in December of course gives us hope that we can do something there,” he said.

“It looked like it was over at half-time [in the first-leg] because the second part of that first half they outplayed us for a while, and it’s hard.

“It has to be a perfect performance to win by two goals against such a good team away from home. For us it’s not about away goals – we just need to score two more than them.”

The Reds have been victorious against the Citizens already this season, carding a 2-1 win in the Premier League back in December, and the Norwegian says scoring the first goal is vital in this game.

“We can’t just defend, we have to try to keep the ball and make them run after the ball. It has to be a perfect performance, but we’ve done amazing things before at this club. We need the first goal,” he added.

“They’re getting players back as well, we hit them last time when they were struggling a bit and since then they’ve played really well.

“We’ve lost Scott [McTominay] and Marcus [Rashford] since that game, we’re a little bit lighter in the playing department.” 


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