Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard are out for up to three weeks because of injury, with Ole Gunnar Solskjær saying that means a chance for Alexis Sánchez and Romelu Lukaku to step up for Manchester United.
Martial and Lingard were forced off during Tuesday’s 2-0 defeat by Paris Saint-Germain at Old Trafford because of groin and hamstring problems respectively.
Solskjær said: "I think they'll be out for two to three weeks. Then you're looking at young players [to come in]: Mason Greenwood – his time to step in and he's injured unfortunately, out for a couple of weeks as well. Sometimes that's how the luck goes but Mason will get his chance."
If Martial and Lingard are out for three weeks they will miss Monday’s FA Cup tie at Chelsea, the league games with Liverpool, Crystal Palace and Arsenal and the Champions League return at PSG.
Asked whether this was an opportunity for Sánchez and Lukaku, Solskjær said: "Yeah, it might be. We've got forward options but Angel Gomes and Tahith Chong have been training with us all week so there's a big chance they'll be involved. Alexis, Romelu, Chongy or Angel.
“Anthony and Jesse have done really well for us; they’re vital. But then again with Romelu and Alexis, they’ve got different skill sets and will be able to show what they can do so we need to gel a team together for Monday. There are quite a few other teams with injuries so you have to adapt to that.”
Solskjær conceded that in the second-half passage when PSG scored their goals United went into disarray. “You’ve got to bounce back at this club,” he said. “You always have challenges here and away against Chelsea is tough. Let’s make sure the next two days in training we’re ready on Monday. We know there was a spell against PSG – seven, eight, 10 minutes – we lost our way. Apart from that we weren’t too bad.
“Maybe PSG was the first game that as a team they came differently from what they did before – the 3-4-3 system, it’s always a difficult one but games mostly are decided by individual skills and not down to tactics.”
This was United’s first loss in Solskjær’s 12 matches. “It’s a different feel of course,” he said. “I hate losing games, the boys hate it, they’ve been down but there’s no point dwelling on it. There’s big games against good teams coming up and we need to dust ourselves down.
“It’s been a great week. You don’t panic because you’ve lost a game, you don’t change everything – it doesn’t change the mindset at all. We need to keep working on the way we play football. We want to go down to Chelsea, we want to have Liverpool here and impose ourselves on those games.”
Regarding Solskjær’s relationship with Ed Woodward, the executive vice-chairman, he said: “We speak almost daily. If we don’t speak we keep in touch by all these gadgets nowadays.”
(Guardian service)
