Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has defended Paul Pogba for losing the ball in the build-up to Crystal Palace’s winning goal in today’s 2-1 defeat at Old Trafford.
The Red Devils had only just levelled things up at 1-1 as Daniel James cancelled out an earlier goal from Jordan Ayew, when Patrick van Aanholt broke forward to net an unlikely winner in stoppage time.
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It’s undoubtedly a terrible result for United, who were also held to a draw away to Wolves on Monday night, undoing all their fine work from that exciting opening day win over Chelsea.
Pogba was in the spotlight for his penalty miss at Wolves, and it was the France international at the centre of things today as well.
As MUFC chased a winner, Pogba lost the ball in the opposition half and fell over, thereby failing to help track back as Palace broke and scored.
Still, Solskjaer praised the 26-year-old for what he brought to the team and backed him to bounce back from this mistake.
‘I thought he, as the rest of the team, grew into the game,’ said Solskjaer, as quoted by the Metro.
‘He won the ball really well for our first goal, he played some great passes. He knows and we know he’s going to want the ball all the time.
‘He knows that, yeah, he lost the ball, but he’ll lose the ball again and he’ll try again. So no problem with that.’