Manchester United come from behind to win 3-1 at Everton on Saturday lunchtime, but manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is unhappy with the Premier League scheduling after Luke Shaw, Victor Lindelof and Marcus Rashford all sustain injuries at Goodison
Sunday 8 November 2020 07:01, UK
Furious Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has heavily criticised the Premier League's scheduling after his side's 3-1 win at Everton on Saturday lunchtime, claiming his side "were set up to fail".
United travelled to Istanbul Basaksehir for a Champions League group stage clash on Wednesday - a game they lost 2-1 - before having to face a refreshed Everton at Goodison Park in the weekend's early kick-off.
And despite his team coming from behind to claim all three points, the Norwegian still hit out at what he called the "absolute joke" schedule his players were faced with after Luke Shaw (hamstring), Victor Lindelof (back) and Marcus Rashford (shoulder) all picked up injuries.
"How can you expect players to perform to the best of their ability when you send them out at 12.30pm? Absolute joke," he said in his post-match press conference.
"A month ago we tried to move this game. What sense is there for us to play on a Saturday when we could play on the Sunday and there is an international break afterwards?
"I can't say enough how hard these times are for everyone, not just footballers, and we want to see football with quality.
"Our players were set up to fail today with the schedule. I pushed my club to really fight the kick-off time on this one to give us at least half a chance, but it was quashed.
"They will be assessed and hopefully it is not too serious, but they [Shaw and Rashford] looked in a bad way there towards the end," he added.
"It doesn't look great. Victor hopefully is not too bad but it is his back as well.
"When it is a serious injury it is not worth the points, but we got the three points today and the boys were not going to give anyone the chance to take three points off us as they were so determined.
"I don't really want to lighten the mood. I think it is such a serious issue, they are not robots they are human beings and they are asked to perform.
"Towards the end of the game we didn't have the intensity to our game. Bruno is a leader and showed a lot of desire and the reaction from everyone was great today."
Meanwhile, Everton - the Premier League's early pace-setters - have now taken just one point from their last four matches and conceded at least two goals in each of their last five games.
Manager Carlo Ancelotti, who has lost three successive league matches for the first time since November 2006 with AC Milan, was not happy with their defending.
"It was not a good performance in one aspect and that was defensively. After we scored a goal we were not able to defend properly," said the Italian.
"It is quite clearly a problem and we have to sort this."
