Ole Gunnar Solskjaer reveals why he didn’t replace Fred after he escaped red card for headbutt as Manchester United lose ‘tight’ PSG clash

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has admitted he considered withdrawing Fred at half-time of Manchester United’s Champions League defeat by Paris Saint-Germain.

However, he decided to keep the Brazil midfielder on the pitch despite seeing him escaping a red card for a headbutt on Leandro Paredes.

BT Sport

Fred quite clearly leaned into his opponent – but he somehow escaped a sending off

Even though the coming together of heads was reviewed by VAR and the referee on the pitchside monitor Fred was only shown a yellow card, but his early bath did come eventually.

Just moments after PSG retook the lead after Marcus Rashford had cancelled out Neymar’s early opening goal, Fred was shown his second yellow card for a foul on Ander Herrera.

And manager Solskjaer was asked whether he considered replacing Fred at half-time given his lucky escape after the headbutt – explaining why he opted to keep him on the pitch.

“Yeah, yeah,” replied Solskjaer to this question. “But Fred has played really well and we spoke about staying calm and staying on your feet, and the second yellow card is nowhere near a foul.

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“And Ander knows that as well. He definitely knows.”

Solskjaer was clearly not impressed by Fred’s actions, however.

“Fred shouldn’t put his head towards him,” continued the boss. “I don’t think he touched him, but you don’t do that.

“So he’s a bit lucky, yeah – it’s either nothing or a red card. I thought he was lucky to stay on when the referee decided to give him anything.”

Despite losing 3-1 which means Man United’s hopes of qualifying for the Champions League knockout stages goes down to their final group game, against RB Leipzig next week, Solskjaer was not disheartened by what he saw from his players.

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He called it a ‘tight’ game with the only difference between the two teams being PSG took their chances at Old Trafford while United were profligate in front of goal.

“It’s tight in games like this,” added Solskjaer.

“If Marquinhos had bigger studs on he would have been offside, that’s a marginal decision as well, so sometimes you can’t really put your finger on what is the deciding factor today.

“They were the better team because they scored, but I thought both teams played really well.”

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