Solskjaer discusses Dalot progress, midfield options, fitness update and Lingard future

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer faced the press on Thursday in the second of his pre-match press conferences this week.

As usual, there was plenty for the Manchester United boss to discuss ahead of the trip to West Ham United on Sunday, and the Norweigan was asked about the Champions League loss to Young Boys, Diogo Dalot’s impact in that game and his choices in centre-midfield.

Solskjaer also gave a fitness update on Edinson Cavani and discussed Jesse Lingard’s future at United.

Here are the best bits from what the Red Devils boss had to say...

Dalot

“Diogo has had a very good summer of course, with being called up in the Euros. He did well for Portugal Under-21s He’s had a season that he learnt a lot from in Milan. He kept fit, that was a big thing. He has qualities that we want to exploit more and more. He’s got more experience and we’re not here just to loan out players for years and years. Last year’s loan was to give him that experience and I think he did well when he came on the other night.”

Bouncing back from Young Boys loss

“Of course you wait to see them this morning when you come back in. The attitude is like how you expect it to [be]. They’re focused, of course, a little disappointed, but not too downbeat. You know that it’s a setback, you have to do better and we have got five games to get those 10/12 points that we need. Of course, it’s not the start we wanted but we’re a good team that can bounce back again and the group is good.”

Centre-midfield

“We want centre-midfielders who can play. Today’s football is about ‘he’s a good six, he’s a good eight, he’s a 10’. Back in the day, you had proper midfielders: Roy Keane, Paul Scholes and Bryan Robson. You see players out there who can do attacking and defending. We look for midfielders who are complete and we try to develop that in our midfield. It’s a balance between how many you commit forward to how you defend because one little mistake and it’s a counter-attack on you.”

Cavani

“Edinson will hopefully start training with us after the weekend, hopefully maybe Monday. Maybe he’ll be involved on Wednesday. He had a fantastic season, last season. The impact he made towards the end of it when he got his fitness. He struggled earlier on with fitness and he got niggly injuries. We feel now, that to get the best out of Edinson this season, we need to keep him 100% fit and not push him and we’ve got a strong squad that will cope with having to let players heal and not risk any further injuries. I can see Edinson having  a major impact because he’s that type of personality and a player. He’s a top professional and he can’t wait to get back on, he’s working really hard to get back on the pitch.”

Lingard

“He’s got this season left on his contract and the club are talking to him and his dad. We see him as a Manchester United player for the future as well. Jesse has come back into us after a great spell at West Ham. He showed his qualities; he’s back into the England squad, he scores goals for England and we want to really see the best of Jesse this season. We support him and we want to keep him here with us. He’s a red through and through.”