After Paul Pogba’s costly spot-kick miss against Wolves, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer attempted to clear up the confusion over who Manchester United’s penalty taker is by revealing that both Marcus Rashford and the Frenchman share the duties.
Pogba stepped up to take the second-half penalty, which he had won himself, despite Rashford having converted one emphatically in United’s 4-0 hammering of Chelsea last week.
And when the ex-Juventus star’s attempt was brilliantly stopped by Wolves keeper Rui Patricio, questions were bound to be asked of why he stepped forward this time.
“The two of them are the designated penalty shooters,” explained Solskjaer in his post-match press conference following the 1-1 draw at Molineux. “It’s up to them, there and then, as to who feels ‘this is mine’.
Sometimes penalty-takers feel confident enough to score. I’ve been in that situation myself and have gone up and missed a penalty for Norway. “When there are two names there it’s the one who is the most confident and Paul has scored before so there’s no problem.
Today Patricio made a good save. The two of them have been very confident. Last week Marcus scored a goal, I’m sure he would have loved to take another, but also Paul is confident. I like players with confidence.
I’ve absolutely no problem with players walking up and saying ‘this is mine’.” Solskjaer was understandably disappointed to see his United side come away with just a point after a dominant performance, but he talked about taking the positives from the draw into their next fixture against Crystal Palace.
“We go away from here disappointed because we feel we should have had three points. That’s another positive sign. “The boys aren’t happy. They’re not bouncing in there because we got a point.
We feel we deserved more and we could have done more. We know that we could have played better in the second half. We should have been better on the ball and we gave them too many chances to counter attack. But that could be a good learning curve.”
United entertain Palace at Old Trafford on Saturday and will be looking for another three points and a clean sheet against a side who have yet to find the net in their two Premier League matches this season.
The Red Devils are 2.05 to be the only team to score this weekend with Palace 1.85 to register at any time in the match.
