Ole Gunnar Solsjkaer has rowed back on his comments suggesting that Manchester United need greater squad depth, despite a transfer window which has only seen one major signing.
Solsjkaer said after United’s Europa League semi-final defeat to Sevilla that United needed to strengthen their squad ahead of “a long season” and called on the club to be “good, smart and clever” in the market.
He had previously said in April that United may find themselves in a position where they could ‘exploit’ a market affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
Since then, United have only completed 35-million pounds signing of Donny van de Beek from Ajax, with no breakthrough in negotiations for their primary transfer target Jadon Sancho.
Solskjaer claimed that his opinion on squad depth has changed in the time since the Sevilla defeat and he distanced himself from the ‘exploit’ remark.
“I think my wording in lockdown, ‘exploit’, was a bad word by me,” he said. “I didn’t mean it in that respect, I meant there might be clubs and players out there who have to move because of the situation and it might be something interesting.
“At the moment we’ve not had the – what’s the word – there’s not been those situations. We’ve lost loads of money, as the other clubs have as well.
“And when I talk about the squad depth, we’ve got a big squad. Of course the performances last season didn’t warrant me giving too many of them more options because I think the 11, 12, 13 players who played and played well really deserved to play more and that means when you don’t want play you don’t get that fitness and sharpness that you need to knock on the door to get into the team.
Solskjaer refused to discuss transfers in detail but said the club was working hard to complete any remaining deals before Monday’s deadline.
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