Solskjaer: Man Utd players ‘lost their heads’ in Saints draw
Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer believes his players ‘lost their heads’ in the 1-1 draw at Southampton.
The Red Devils almost took the lead in the first half as Anthony Martial had an effort cleared off the line by Mohammed Salisu.
Instead it was Ralph Hasenhuttl’s men who struck first in the 30th minute. Bruno Fernandes was bundled off the ball by Jack Stephens, allowing Saints to attack.
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The ball eventually came to Scottish forward Che Adams, whose shot deflected off Fred and into the bottom corner.
Mason Greenwood dragged United level ten minutes after the interval. Paul Pogba linked up well with Fernandes, before poking the ball into the path of Greenwood.
Alex McCarthy couldn’t stop the young Englishman’s left-footed strike.
£15million signing Adam Armstrong had a great opportunity to give Saints all three points.
He found space in behind and sent a shot towards goal, only for David De Gea to save.
After the draw, Solskjaer was asked if Fernandes was fouled in the build up to Adams’ goal.
“It seems like football’s gone from one extreme to the other, that’s a foul definitely,” he told Sky Sports.
“But you don’t get every decision in football and we should have reacted better. We need better reactions when we don’t get decisions.
“It’s a game that they can win, we can win; we should have, could have scored a few.
“When they scored we lost our heads a little bit. After half-time I thought we were good again, until we scored. Then the last 15, 20 we lost our shape and got sloppy.”
The result meant United equalled Arsenal’s record of 27 consecutive unbeaten Premier League away matches.
Solskjaer added: “You don’t want to equal anyone, you want to go past them, so we’ll have the chance to do that next week so we’ll think about it then.”
United have now picked up four points from their first two league matches, following their 5-1 thrashing of Leeds on the opening day.
They face Wolves in their next match on Sunday August 29. Saints, meanwhile, travel to Newport County on Wednesday in the Carabao Cup.
