Ole Gunnar Solskjaer preferred Paul Pogba's penalty technique during Manchester United's narrow 2-1 Premier League win over West Ham.
Pogba struck two spotkicks either side of half-time to clinch an undeserved win for United and end his two-month goal drought. Pogba missed from the penalty spot with his previous effort against Southampton last month, which was the third penalty he had failed to convert for United this season.
The 26-year-old has tended to favour a stuttering run-up before he strikes the ball and has previously taken over 10 seconds between starting his run-up to striking the ball. Pogba abandoned the stutter with both penalties against West Ham to score his 15th and 16th goals of the campaign and Solskjaer welcomed the change.
"As long as the ball goes in!" Solskjaer replied when asked about Pogba's approach to the ball. "It is up to him, but he is practising penalties, he is confident, mentally very strong and I like that way, running up and smashing it in. The second one, the 'keeper went the right way but great penalty."
Solskajer conceded United were fortunate to claim the three points against a West Ham side that have still not won a away from home in the league since December. Solskjaer made five changes ahead of the Champions League quarter-final second leg at Barcelona on Tuesday and felt United were not as powerful due to certain absentees.
"Today, when you have Rashford, McTominay, Luke Shaw out, there is intensity, pace and power in those players," Solskjaer said. "Today we had a different set-up, players with creativity. We tried to make it a different kind of game, but we kept giving the ball away.
"It was end to end, like a basketball game at times. When we broke, we looked dangerous, but then a square pass or giving it away, then they broke. And then we broke. I think the intensity was not bad, if you look at the physical stats. But the control was not good enough.
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"We are happy to get the result today. We know it is going to be a very difficult game [at Barcelona] but we have the experience of beating PSG. We went through from being 2-0 down, now we are 1-0 down.
"It will be a greater achievement if we can manage it against Barcelona because of what they are. We will go there with the attitude of why not, have a go but we have to be solid defensively, we can't be as open as we were today.
"The effort was there but the quality wasn't good enough. Wednesday night would have played on some of the players’ minds as in, 'Maybe I'm a little bit tired because of the hard effort'. Maybe some were thinking, 'If I do well today I can play on Tuesday or save myself for Tuesday'. I don't know, I don't think so.
"But when you have three games in six days, it is physically and mentally tough. But we're looking forward to it and I feel good about the players. We cannot get a lot worse than we were today."
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