Ole Gunnar Solskjaer seeking inspiration from 1999 treble heroes before FA Cup match against Liverpool
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Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has warned his Manchester United players that they are going to have to do it the hard way like the 1999 treble winners if they want to win the FA Cup this season.
United face Liverpool for the second time in a week in their FA Cup fourth round tie at Old Trafford on Sunday night in what is the latest unfavourable draw Solskjaer has been handed since becoming manager in December 2018.
Sir Alex Ferguson’s treble winners also had to overcome Liverpool, in addition to Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham and Middlesbrough, en route to lifting the Cup 22 years ago.
United were indebted to a 90th minute winner from Solskjaer to see off Liverpool then and the club’s future manager would later clinch an unprecedented treble with his stoppage time goal against Bayern Munich in the Champions League final.
But, like the 1999 team, Solskjaer has had little luck in draws across a host of cup competitions, including the Champions League, in stark contrast to his Manchester City counterpart, Pep Guardiola, who has been given a succession of favourable pairings in different cup outings in recent seasons.
And he is not expecting that will change if United overcome a struggling Liverpool side on Sunday.
“We’ll rotate, that’s for sure,” said the United manager, whose side returned to the top of the Premier League thanks to Wednesday’s 2-1 win over Fulham.
“We’ll put a decent team together, of course, a team I feel can win the game. We know it's a difficult tie. I’m not the best on draws so I think they should try to get someone else in if they want an easy draw!
“Of course you want to get your hands on that first trophy, but it’s always the league position that’s the measure of how far you have come. Anyone can have an easy cup run, I’m not one of those!
“I never get an easy cup run! I’m never going to watch a draw ever again because we always seem to pick out the difficult opponents. In a cup run, sometimes you can get to a final without really playing any of the top ones. This time around, we’ve picked one of the favourites and we know this is a big one if you want to go all the way.”
Arsenal, Chelsea twice and Wolves twice are among United’s previous FA Cup opponents since Solskjaer took charge while his side failed to get out of a tough Champions League group this season comprising Paris Saint-Germain, RB Leipzig and Istanbul Basaksehir and, in 2018/19, faced PSG and Barcelona in the knockout stages.
United have been handed one of the hardest Europa League Round of 32 draws, against Real Sociedad, and Chelsea, Everton and City twice have been among the teams they have faced in the Carabao Cup over the past two and a half seasons.
But Solskjaer is hoping his players can emulate the 1999 side he was part of by navigating a tough Cup run.
“Of course we can transpose a few things from that season,” he said. “We know that there’s tight moments, very fine margins. We know in that season we were close to going out against Liverpool. Peter Schmeichel saved a penalty from Dennis Bergkamp in the semi-final against Arsenal in injury time. Those moments gave us the mental advantage, especially in the semi-final. But against Liverpool as well in that fourth round, when you get that boost of turning 1-0 down to a 2-1 win against a big team it’s massive.
“The FA Cup is a run we’ve got to enjoy as long as it lasts. We got to the semis last year. We’re going to make a few changes but we’ll put a team out there that I hope can go through.”
