Manchester United take on Fulham tomorrow and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has fielded the media’s questions ahead of the Premier League tie.
Solskjaer is still yet to lose as United caretaker boss and oversaw their win at Leicester last weekend.
The Red Devils can move up to fourth in the top-flight table with a win at Craven Cottage and will be confident of doing so against a Fulham side currently second bottom.
In his pre-match press-conference, Solskjaer has discussed Phil Jones’ new Old Trafford contract, why Antonio Valencia is missing and what makes Claudio Ranieri one of his inspirations.
Team news for Fulham clash
“[Marcos] Rojo has been training for a few days, so he’s back in training. But we’ve lost Antonio and Matteo [Darmian] through niggles for a couple of weeks.
“We’re still not bad. We’ve got 20-21 players training every day, so that’s good.”
Why Antonio Valencia has not been playing
“Well hopefully he’ll recover because he’s been training hard really hard then he got a setback so hopefully in a couple of weeks he’ll… he’s captain for us hopefully we can get him back on the pitch but it was hard when he broke down, he would’ve travelled now this weekend.”
Phil Jones’ new contract
“Phil knows what it takes to be a Manchester United player, he has won the Premier League, FA Cup and Europa League and is now one of the senior players within the team.
“He is coming up to his 27th birthday and entering into his prime years as a centre half. We are delighted Phil has committed his future to the club.
“It’s a signal for the players that we believe in them. Phil has been here for so long. He’s won the Premier League, he’s won trophies, he knows what it takes for us to move up the table.”
On putting his own stamp on the United side after selling Marouane Fellaini
“Well, every day I feel that I do help the club put my stamp on it, yes, but decisions sometimes of players’ futures are not down to me.
“Either it’s the players, do they want to stay, move on but we have a vision and picture of how we want to look in a few years and we have to think long term and also short term.
“I’ve got a picture of what this Manchester United team should look in a couple of years but I put my views to Ed and the club.”
On Fulham boss Claudio Ranieri
“I don’t know the ins and outs of the situation at Fulham but what he did at Leicester shows you what capabilities he has as a manager, must be the best achievement ever to win that league.
“I don’t know the word but the team spirit, effort, they believed in themselves, so he is someone I’ve looked up to admired, you read books, I know we’re going to come up against a manager and team that counter-attacking football that he’s always had in his teams.
“I’ve copied a couple of his sessions actually.”
Focus on Fulham and not Tuesday’s Champions League clash against PSG
“Fulham is a character revealer, it reveals do we have the focus on what’s important which is always the next game and can we forget about PSG.
“The focus around the PSG game for a long time, Chelsea, Liverpool, but they’re not the games that will move us up the table, they’re the other games.”
Will United be title challenge next term?
“I hope so, that they believe they can do that because you cannot outperform your ego, that’s one of them mantles you have to trust and believe yourself but you’ve got to believe in yourself.
“If you want to be a champion and win it’s how you prepare for every single game, how we demand, that we focus on every single day in training every single game.
“It’s about Fulham, one game at a time but every single day prepare as best you can and I love to hear players, but that also means a decision.”
And finally, the need for ongoing consistency
“The last two months been fantastic, with the points we’ve got. So consistency is a key word now, we have to keep improving, keep winning games.
“But we want to win games in a better way than the Leicester one. I felt we hung on. It was good enough, but we shouldn’t be happy with just good enough. We want to keep improving.”