Defiant Solskjaer will not ‘give up’ after his ‘darkest day’ as Man Utd boss

Manchester United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has insisted that he will not “give up” despite their 5-0 defeat against Liverpool being his “darkest day”.

Man Utd went into this game after fighting back to beat Atalanta 3-2 in the Champions League group stages in midweek.

There was an end to end start to the game and Liverpool were clinical as they made the most of their openings.

The Manchester United 0-5 Liverpool Emergency Mailbox

Liverpool went two goals ahead thanks to finishes from Naby Keita and Diogo Jota. From there it got worse for Man Utd as Mohamed Salah added to their advantage before the break.

The in-form attacker scored a quickfire brace to make it 4-0 just before half time. He then completed his hat-trick in the 50th minute after being set up superbly on the counter-attack by Jordan Henderson.

Paul Pogba was brought on at half time but he was sent off with around half an hour to go. After an intervention from VAR, the midfielder was shown a straight red card for a poor challenge on Keita.

Liverpool did not extend their lead further late on as it finished 5-0. This is their biggest ever win at Old Trafford.

As reported by BBC Sport, Solskjaer took responsibility after Man Utd’s performance was “not good enough” against Liverpool:

“It is not easy to say something apart from it is the darkest day I have had leading these players. We were not good enough individually and as a team, can’t give a team like Liverpool those chances but unfortunately we did,” Solskjaer added.

“The whole performance was not good enough. We created openings, they had chances and they have been clinical. The third goal decided the game.”

Whose responsibility? “It is mine, that is it. The coaching staff are very, very good, brilliant. I choose the way we approach the game, we were not clinical enough and gave too much space and when you give good players space they score.

“We are at home, playing against Liverpool, we have gone here over the last two and half years and had a similar approach to high press but today they scored on their chances I think as Manchester United we should always try to stamp our authority on the game.

“That fourth goal is when you go into half time with having to score one every 15 minutes. I know these boys are capable of it. The fourth, that was probably game over.

“You can look at last season we lose to Spurs 6-1 this is worse, miles worse. This is miles worse for me as a Manchester lad. I’ve just got to say we have to get over this as quickly as we can.

“I have come too far, we have come too far as a group. We are too close to give up now.

“It is going to be a difficult one. The players will be low but there are loads of characters there.

“We know we are rock bottom, we can’t feel any worse than this. Let’s see where we take it.”