Solskjaer's reaction to a vital United win

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was pleased with how his Manchester United side defended, as the Reds picked up a hard-earned three points against Leicester City at Old Trafford.

Marcus Rashford's spot-kick gave United the lead, but we had to defend valiantly afterwards, as Leicester probed and pushed our defiant defence in search of an equaliser. David De Gea pulled off a couple of decent saves to secure his second clean sheet of the season and bag our second win of the campaign.

Speaking to MUTV, BBC Sport and in his post-match press conference after the game, the manager was very happy with many aspects of our performance, the contributions of Harry Maguire and Aaron Wan-Bissaka, plus our Man-of-the-Match Scott McTominay, and looked ahead to a busy month of fixtures.

WE NEEDED A WIN

“There were many reasons why we needed a win today. For the boys, that they can see what we’re doing is the right way. I thought the first 20-25 minutes were excellent. Then, of course, we played against a good team as well and they made it hard for us and we made it hard for ourselves with some bad decisions.

”We were a little bit sloppy on the ball, but we had to defend and today is probably the first time this season, apart from some parts of the first half against Chelsea, that we’ve had to defend deep against a team that was pushing us, but I never felt under any real, real pressure. They didn’t create too many big chances in that second half, even though they had the ball.“

MAGICAL McTOMINAY

“I thought McTominay was excellent. He lost the ball a few times, but you expect that because he’s still learning his role. He goes into tackles and he’s a leader. I wouldn’t want to go into a 50-50 with him! I thought he did excellent all day.”

AN HONEST APPRAISAL

“We’ve deserved to win games and we haven’t got what we deserved. Today, maybe Leicester deserved a point, I think we should be honest enough to say that. They [our players] hung in there, defended and the crowd just got us over the line.”

OUR FANS LOVE ENERGY AND EFFORT

“I think they stuck in, they stuck together as a team, which we have to do. They showed the energy. I think our fans love a team with energy and effort. You can see in the first 20-25 minutes, that’s how we want to be playing more and more and more and, in the end, we lasted 90 minutes.”

MARCUS'S MENTALITY

“He’s been practising penalties and he can go both ways. He can go through the middle, he was calm and we’re going to get more of them, no doubt about it, because we’ve got players in the box with quick feet and, with VAR now, there’s no chance you’re not going to get them, even though we haven’t got every penalty we should have. Going forward, I think we’ll see him slot in a few more.

”Every striker misses a penalty. I’ve seen [Diego] Maradona and [Lionel] Messi do it. I’ve seen Platini against Brazil and Zico - my favourite player of all time - missed in the same game. You’ve just got to be confident enough to step up next time. What’s the worst that can happen?“

LET'S KEEP OUR HEADS

“It's the same when you coach and you manage. We don’t get carried away when we win a game that we don’t deserve to, and we don’t get down in the dumps when we don’t win games that we should. The performances have been miles better than this and, today, we just have to accept the three points and wake up with a smile, have a day off and relax a bit and look forward to next week.”

A WORD ON THE OPPOSITION

“I thought they did excellently today. I thought they read the game well. I’ve got loads of admiration for Jamie Vardy - he’s my type of centre-forward. He runs in behind and harasses. You’ve got to be spot-on with your decision making: when to stay up, when to drop off and I thought both of them [Vardy and Maguire] proved their worth today. There were a couple of races and Harry did well against him.”

A GOOD WEEKEND

“We had a three-game spell here with no wins and even though we felt the performances had been okay, the results hadn’t come and it’s easier for them to wake up tomorrow morning now knowing they have got three points.”