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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
Samuel Luckhurst

Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer breaks silence after avoiding FA charge

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has drawn a line under Manchester United's penalty controversy at Chelsea after the Football Association clarified he would not be charged.

United were furious the referee Stuart Attwell did not penalise Callum Hudson-Odoi for a 14th-minute handball inside his own area, especially as Attwell had checked the replay on the Video Assistant Referee monitor.

Solskjaer and United left-back Luke Shaw questioned Attwell following the goalless draw but the FA did not consider their comments to be breaches of its rules and regulations.

Shaw claimed Attwell had told United captain Harry Maguire he did not award them a penalty as it would have created 'a lot of talk' but United later claimed Shaw had misheard the conversation.

"That's water under the bridge, you move onto the next one," Solskjaer stressed. "We all know it's a high-pressure situation and we just have to accept decisions when they are made and we move on. All my focus after the game has been on Palace [on Wednesday night], I've not looked back at all on that.

"I think the refs have a difficult enough job without extra pressure, so we should just leave them to it, make as many good decisions as they can."

United were top of the Premier League at the halfway stage but have since won just two league games, drawn four and lost to basement club Sheffield United, a defeat that triggered their collapse in form.

Manchester City are 12 points clear with 12 games left and there have been suggestions United lost their nerve once they reached the summit. Solskjaer insists that was not the case.

"Not at all, that's the Premier League, the pressure has not been there at all," Solskjaer claimed. "We enjoy being as close to the top as possible, that's the quality of the Premier League, the opposition, the quality of tactics, the demands of the season.

"We've played I don't know how many games, there's Europa League, the Premier League, the FA Cup. It's the strangest year of all for everyone. Pressure, no? That's just the Premier League."

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