Ole Gunnar Solskjaer says Manchester United are facing a “relentless” schedule ahead of their mid-season break next month.
United host Wolves tomorrow in an FA Cup third round replay, which will be their 14th game in 45 days, with Solskajer admitting the fixture burden has taken its toll on his players.
“Results give you energy,” said Solskajer. “I've been counting and it's our 14th game in 45 days.
“We've still got five or six games before the winter break, so it's relentless, it'll be 18 games in less than 60 days, which is physically and mentally demanding, so we have to energise them.
“One good result and performance, like Norwich, they felt good about themselves, while bad results have to be used as a motivation, as in we're not there yet and need to keep improving.
“We just need the rhythm. When I was playing, I felt us as a team got better as we got the rhythm of match, rest, match, rest.
“I never got that physical thing but players like Roy [Keane], [Paul] Scholesy and Gary [Neville] improved.”
Wednesday's game at Old Trafford will be the sixth time in two seasons United and Wolves have met, with the two sides going up against each other again in the Premier League later this month.
“We've played them so many times, so we're going to be facing a team that know more or less everything about us and us about them,” said Solskjaer.
“We've got them in a couple of weeks in the league as well. We played a decent first-half last week, the second-half was disappointing.
“But we're at home, we want to make sure we go through, this tournament is one we dream about winning when we are young.
“I loved my time playing in finals and winning trophies, so we want to go through.”
