Manchester United had to make three forced substitutions during their 0-0 draw vs Liverpool on Sunday in the Premier League.
This meant that Juan Mata, Ander Herrera and Jesse Lingard all had to come off injured before the first-half.
All these injuries forced Solksjaer to tweak his formation going into the second-half with Andreas Periera coming into the midfield in place of Ander Herrera.
And Man United were already without Nemanja Matic who was out with an injury which meant young Scott McTominay was playing in defensive midfield right from the very beginning.
The duo of Pereira and Scott McTominay have been used sparingly this season and throwing them into such a crunch match could have led to a catastrophe.
Thankfully though, both the academy graduates came up with stellar performances and now wonder Solskjaer heaped praised on McTominay and Periera after the game.
“I learned a lot about the players: Scott McTominay was a ‘Darren Fletcher’ for us, absolutely fantastic,” Solskjaer said, per the Evening Standard.
“Andreas (Pereira) has had criticism lately but he’s had to come on and I thought he did fantastic so I learned a lot about the character of the team.
“I was very impressed by my team: the attitude, the character we showed in adversity because everything that could’ve gone wrong in the first half went wrong.”
Scott last start for Man United came in early December but the manager has already confirmed that Nemanja Matic will be out of action for a couple of weeks which means that McTominay is likely to play in central defence vs Palace in midweek.
As far as Andreas Periera is concerned, he too has made quite a statement vs Liverpool but the manager also had Fred who has been waiting in the wings for some time now.
And we feel that Solksjaer might just give the nod to the summer signing when they travel to Selhurst Park.
Read: Apart from Mata, Herrera and Lingard, here’s one more player who got injured vs Liverpool.
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