Ole Gunnar Solskjaer wants his Manchester United players to have an edge and has urged them to wise up to the ways of the Premier League.
Solskjaer’s men were handed a shock defeat at home to Sheffield United last week, but to compound the defeat it’s been revealed by the referee’s delegate that a number of key decisions in the game were wrong.
Kean Bryan put the visitors in front, before United captain Harry Maguire equalised with a header.
Oliver Burke then popped up late on with a dramatic winner to hand Chris Wilder’s side a famous victory.
However, the match featured other flash points aside from the three goals that stood. Indeed, Anthony Martial had an effort disallowed by referee Peter Bankes for infringement on Blades goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale.
What’s more, Bryan’s opener became shrouded in controversy after a push on David de Gea from Billy Sharp.
And Solskjaer has claimed the match delegate has confirmed in his report that his side were on the end of two game-changing decisions.
VAR reviewed both incidents and decided there was no ‘clear and obvious’ error, as both were borderline judgments, so decided to go with the on-field decisions by the officials.
“Maybe we should have made more of a fuss about it,” said Solskjaer. “We’re a bunch of nice lads.
“Maybe we should have really hung on to that or made them look at it before the game started again.
“I’ve got the delegates’ report from the ref and the two decisions were wrong. They’ve admitted their goal should have been disallowed and our goal should have stood.
“That’s a big, big momentum changer for us. You’re more likely to, when you go 1-0 up rather than 1-0 down, go on and win that game.
“There’s been a narrative for too long about the decisions we’ve got for us and I can look at many decisions this season that we feel [went against us].
“Even in the first league game, with Victor Lindelof, they agreed on that one, that it wasn’t a penalty. But that doesn’t change where we are now.
Solskjaer wants a reaction
“I felt the Harry one was clear and obvious – it should have been a goal. The other one could be debatable.”
Solskjaer tempered his views by claiming he did not want his players surrounding referees, which United were often seen doing in the manager’s playing days.
“I don’t want my players to put too much unfair pressure on the referees,” added Solskjaer. “We just have to leave it to the referees to make decisions. That’s their job.
“I think whenever a team feels unfairly treated, there will be a reaction, but I have no problem with human error, absolutely no problem.
“And I understand why the decisions were made. Unfortunately, they went against us and they were wrong.”
