Manchester United do not have a recall clause in Alexis Sanchez's loan arrangement with Inter Milan.
The United attack has been decimated by injury to Marcus Rashford, who is out for around two months with a stress fracture to the back, but the club cannot recall injury-prone winger Sanchez.
Sanchez, 31, is midway through a season long-loan at Inter and last week returned from a three-month lay-off in their Coppa Italia win over Cagliari. Sanchez has only appeared six times for Inter, scoring once.
United are exploring the possibility of a loan deal for a striker to offset the loss of Rashford, their highest scorer this term on 19 goals. United considered a summer move for veteran striker Mario Mandzukic, but the 33-year-old left Juventus for Qatari club Al-Duhail last month.
"The permanent signings we're looking for, the targets are not going to change because we've got two or three players injured for the next few months," Solskjaer said. "It'll still have to be a plan behind them but there might be some short-term deals we have to do.
"The players are giving absolutely everything and, of course, when you miss Scott [McTominay], Paul [Pogba], and Marcus, any team would notice that. So that might mean we might look at some short-term deals to take us until the summer, it might not."
Solskjaer has already for the second half of the campaign amid the injury crisis and United's struggles in the transfer window. United have balked at Sporting Lisbon's €80million valuation of Bruno Fernandes and Norwegian striker Erling Haaland rejected United in favour of joining Borussia Dortmund. Haaland struck a hat-trick on his Dortmund debut at Augsburg on Saturday.
Sanchez joined United from Arsenal in January 2018 and is still the club's highest earner on £400,000-per-week net. The Chile international endured a disastrous 18 months at Old Trafford, scoring only five times before he moved to Inter on loan in August.
Sanchez completed 90 minutes only once for United last season and is contracted to the club until 2022.
