Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has refused to blame Andreas Pereira for the mistake that gifted Burnley their opening goal against Manchester United on Tuesday night. The Red Devils fought back from two goals down to pick up a point at Old Trafford after Burnley went ahead when Pereira dawdled on the ball and was robbed by Jack Cork, who played in Ashley Barnes to fire home. But Solskjaer says the error was a team mistake, not an individual one, and is confident Pereira will be a stronger player for it.
Asked if he regretted playing Pereira, who came in for Ander Herrera, Solskjaer said: ‘No. It was the right decision to make. We had a couple of niggles and unfortunately he’s involved in the first goal but that’s the whole team. ‘We played our way into trouble there. Instead of starting off with a forward pass we played it back to the keeper so that’s just another thing we have to learn from.’
He went into greater detail with MUTV, saying: ‘It’s a learning process every game you play, and for me as well learning about the players when we went 1-0 down, and then 2-0 down, but we still came back to get a point which was brilliant. ‘Andreas will be better off for having this experience so no problem about that.’
Solskjaer added: ‘I thought we could have got the third as well as, we could have, there was a nice block on either Alexis [Sanchez] or Marcus [Rashford], I can’t remember. ‘You never give up, that’s just the DNA here. Disappointed not to get the three points but fantastically happy with the comeback.’
