Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has blamed an empty Old Trafford for his side's 1-0 defeat to Arsenal.
Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang's penalty gave Arsenal the victory on Sunday as United's home woes continue.
They're yet to win a Premier League game at home this season and Solskjaer thinks a lack of crowd is impacting his players.
Per Daily Mail, he explained: "From the first half we never turned up. They were better than us. A couple of half decent chances, second half it didn't look like they would score other than a penalty, we have to turn up with more intensity.
"That might be a reason, when you think you have played well you take foot off the pedal, but that's now how it works. We weren't at the races.
"Today we were too sloppy, too many passes went astray, too many things that can go wrong went wrong for us.
"There is a reason behind big squads in football, you want to perform time and again but that's not possible. We need that consistency.
"Home and away form is out the window really with no fans in the stadium. You can't really look at that, just look at the stats. It doesn't mean too much, we need to get points on the board. We need to focus on Everton next week."
United were relatively flat coming off their 5-0 victory over RB Leipzig in the Champions League in midweek and they didn't create many chances.
Paul Pogba fouled Hector Bellerin in the box which gave Aubameyang the chance to seal Arsenal's first Premier League win at Old Trafford since 2006.
Gunners boss Mikel Arteta credited his side's performance and made special note of Aubameyang, who scored his first league goal since the opening day of the season.
"I'm glad it's finished. Every striker needs goals and in these moments we have to create more for Auba. He has scored the crucial goal and it is going to lift his confidence," Arteta told BBC per Goal.
"I wanted to keep it quiet from the players. I wanted to generate belief and I asked them to be who we are as a team right now. I'm delighted because we played with a lot of courage and big personality.
"They played a really tricky formation with four midfielders and two that constantly strain your back four.
"We could have scored twice in the first half and when we scored the goal we had to manage those moments. There was high stress, it is different to any other ground.
"Individually you have to win the fights and step up to the occasion and the performance of every player today was top drawer."
Comments
Post a Comment