Ahead of Manchester United’s huge UEFA Champions League knockout round clash versus Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday night, manager Ole Gunnar Solksjaer made six changes to his starting XI today. Solskjaer’s decision to rotate his squad ahead of the PSG match in three days paid off with a very convincing 3-0 win at Fulham FC.
Playing the league’s second from bottom side provided an excellent opportunity to give some of the reserves more playing time. Of course, there is an element of risk in this strategy, as it could have resulted in dropped points. The Norwegian addressed the riskiness of his lineup decision making.
Anthony Martial all on his own! What a goal! pic.twitter.com/tLZKK998j0
— NBC Sports Soccer (@NBCSportsSoccer) February 9, 2019
“There is always an element of risk but if you don’t risk you don’t win,” Solskjaer told Sky Sports after United won their 10th of his 11 games in charge.
“I have to trust the players, I didn’t feel there was a problem playing any of them. They put us under pressure in the first 10 minutes but after we scored I thought we were excellent.
“The most pleasing thing was in the second half, the way we controlled it. We could have had four or five goals, it was different to what we did against Leicester so another step in the right direction.”
United got a brace from Man of the Match Paul Pogba, who continued performing at an absolutely elite level form (much more on that here).
The other goal was scored by Anthony Martial, who now has 11 goals across all competitions.
United moved above Chelsea for the final spot in the top four by one point. The Blues play at Manchester City tomorrow.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
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