Manchester United were dumped out of the Champions League after another disgraceful European performance.
After bottling it against Sevilla last summer, the feat was repeated twice in their return to the Champions League. Solskjær’s side somehow managed to make Istanbul Basaksehir look like an Ajax side from the 90’s and a deserved loss in Germany now means that United are back in the Europa League.
Serious questions will be asked of the United manager now and rightly so.
“We started too late. Great spirit and comeback again. It’s different to the Premier League, you can’t give a team a three-goal lead and expect to come back.
“We were unlucky towards the end and you almost thought it was in at the last minute there,” he said in a desperate attempt to save his team some blushes.
“The turning point was the big defeat to Istanbul. That is when we lost the points we should have had.
“Of course you can’t say we were good enough, we weren’t. In a difficult group of course, the big defeat for us was the one away to Istanbul – that’s where we lost the points we should have had.
“Today we were close but we knew we had to defend crosses and balls into the box and we just couldn’t clear them.
“As a footballer you can’t feel sorry for yourself. You feel sorry for a few minutes tonight and then we focus on a massive game on Saturday.”
Harry Maguire will be awarded the second goal but it won’t mask a horrendous performance from the United captain. The defender is responsible for rallying the troops ahead of such a vital game and will rightly take a lot of the blame for their awful attitude.
“We started the game too slow,” he said after the game.
“The second-half we gave everything. We have to look at ourselves. The amount of chances we had. Ultimately we started too slow.
“There are 11 bodies out there who have got to go out their and be aggressive. It is the basics of football, if you don’t block crosses you won’t win matches.
“I don’t want to look at excuses. We have to go out and be aggressive, win balls. That’s the basics. If you can’t defend crosses you’re going to lose games. I don’t want to look at shape – it’s not an excuse.
“We have to look at ourselves, we gave ourselves too much to do. You’ve seen how close we came at the end but we started too slow and we can’t keep falling behind.
“We said on Saturday at half-time, 2-0 down, the next goal is crucial and we said it again tonight. They made it 3-0 and the task becomes even bigger. The third goal proved to be the crucial one but even three down we came close at the end.
“It’s a tough group but we felt we should get through. That’s the standards of this club. I’m gutted for everyone, we worked so hard to reach this competition. No matter what group we got it would be tough. We have to do more.”
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