Ole makes admission over Manchester United’s transfer window after defeat

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Manchester United Manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer admits that Manchester United are ‘short’ after their Premier League season started with a humiliating home defeat to Crystal Palace.

Manchester United were humiliated 3-1 by Palace amid mounting fan disgruntlement over their lack of transfer activity and their only summer signing, Donny van de Beek, started on the bench.

There were 34 days between United’s Europa League semi-final defeat to Sevilla and the visit of Palace and Solskjaer named usual regulars Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Mason Greenwood on the bench. Paul Pogba played for just over an hour before he was substituted.

Donny Van de Beek emerged to score on his debut but Palace were worthy victors and the former Manchester United winger Wilfried Zaha was the visitors’ matchwinner with two goals. Zaha was the last specialist right winger United signed and the position, identified as a priority this window, has not been reinforced and Solskjaer selected Timothy Fosu-Mensah and Daniel James on that flank.

“You can see we are short and they deserved the points,” Ole said. “They were sharper than us in challenges, tackles. We started off slowly and that had a knock-on effect for the rest of the game when they got the first goal.

“We had a long season last season and we didn’t finish until August 16 and we have not had enough preparation time to be sharper. We’ve worked hard with the ones who’ve been here, there have been a few players away on internationals.

“I spoke to Roy and he said they had four friendlies and this was their third competitive game, and it is a big difference to our one against Aston Villa last week.

“You have to make the most of the time you have got and we have already started playing catch-up, of course, and it showed. But we will improve quickly, hopefully quicker than we’ve seen today. Today was a performance that you don’t see very often from these players because these players are better than that”

“We can play so much better than today. If you look at the players we had on the pitch and on the bench and not here today, we have to look within first and look at ourselves and know we can perform better”

“But we are always looking to improve if there is something out there that is available at the right price. We always want to strengthen. But we can all look ourselves in the mirror, instead.”

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