Man United face Man City at the Etihad on Sunday and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer seems pretty clear of what he wants from this Premier League encounter.
United are second on the league table – 14 points behind leaders Man City so if they don’t beat their local rivals on Sunday then they will officially fall out of the title race.
While Solskjaer will undoubtedly be wary of this fact but the manager has clear intentions of solely focusing on the outcome of the derby, rather than making elaborate pipe dreams.
“Our focus is just on this one game and not where we are going to end up,” the manager said in his press conference.
“We just have to be the best possible Man United and end up trying to improve on last season, of course. That means moving up the table, getting more points, hopefully challenge or get to a final and get a trophy.
“What other teams do, we can’t control. We just have to keep at it ourselves, challenge ourselves and, of course, at the moment they’re ahead of us by a fair distance. Sunday’s a good chance to test ourselves against a good team.
“I don’t worry. I can only control what’s happening here at Man United. There are so many differences between the clubs. If it’s the clubs you talk about I can sit here and talk about a lot.
“At the moment, they’re the only team ahead of us so we want to claw back point one them and get closer to them. They’ve gone through a fantastic spell at the moment. Great form, 21 wins. We’ve have 21 away games in the league unbeaten so one record is going to be broken. Let’s see which one it is.
“I only focus on what we do. We have our model and we as a club believe in a certain way to do it, in a certain player to come here and make us better, a certain person. I don’t think it’s my place to comment on any other clubs and compare us with others.
“Every club do their own business their own way and, at the moment, they’re in great form, doing really well but my focus and our focus is what we can control and that is ourselves.”
Even a 14-point gap will not be easy to claw back, especially with the kind of form that Man City are in right now. But a win on Sunday will give United’s confidence a world of good.
Man United have seen a recent slump in form as they have managed to pick up just one win in their previous five league matches.
Dropping so many points have seriously hampered their title hopes but Solskjaer knows very well that his current side are not capable of matching Man City toe to toe in the long run.
So, beating Man City will be an achievement in itself and Man United will also get a much-needed boost before their key Europa League game vs AC Milan on Thursday.
