CAPE TOWN – Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has hit back at claims by Frank Lampard and Jose Mourinho that his charges have been lucky since the Premier League returned.

Solskjaer’s Reds have seen a number of VAR decisions go their way during their 19-game unbeaten run in all competitions. On Sunday, United head to Wembley to face Chelsea in the semi-finals of the FA Cup, and Lampard urged his players to be careful when challenging in the box.

“They have to be. Because when players of such high level, quality and speed of the Manchester United forwards, you have to move your feet and not dive in on them.

“You need to understand the qualities of the opposition, with players like that. [Bruno] Fernandes is very clever in his movement. We saw that at Aston Villa to make something feel like a penalty where maybe it even isn’t.

“As a player we can talk about VAR decisions and wheter they’re right or wrong. But if a player is going to dangle a leg and not move their feet then you obviusly do leave yourself open to penalties. VAR or no VAR,” said the Chelsea boss.

Former Chelsea manager, and Solskjaer’s preecessor at United, Tottenham Hotspur’s Jose Mourinho, said United have been lucky in their pursuit of a top four finish, citing the referee’s failure to point to the spot during Thursday’s game against Crystal Palace.

“I think they play the last game is between them [Leiceser and United] and I don’t know if things can be decided there. I don’t know if Chelsea is in a safe position. I don’t think they are. I think they still are in this fight.

“If Manchester United does it, they will do it by playing very well in the second part of the season and when you play well you deserve, and on top of that everybody knows that they were a bit lucky,” said Spurs’ Portuguese boss.

But, according to Solskjaer, United were more unlucky than lucky, saying the last minute penalty against Tottenham was taken away from them, which resulted in two dropped points.

“I can sit here for hours now and try to talk about this. It looks like there’s a narrative, it looks like people want to influence whoever is making the decisions,” said the Norweigian.

“But, I hear people talking about luck, that we’ve been lucky more than unlucky, then if you look at the factual decisions – I don’t want to sound like a certain manager talking about facts – but if you’re offside, you’re offside. That’s clear.

“Talking about lucky, the penalty we got against Tottenham in the last minute that was taken away from us – that might be two points for us,” he continued.

“So there is actually me that should be complaining that we get decisions against us on the pitch by the on-field referee. So there’s a narrative there. But we just have to focus on our games. Let other people talk about that.

“I don’t want to go too much into that because you might be in trouble. I’m pretty relaxed on these but of course referees are going to be making objective decisions, they’re not going to be influenced by any emotion anyway. So I don’t think they’ll read it.”

IOL Sport