Ole Gunnar Solskjaer - the Manchester United manager - has bit back at Tottenham Hotspur chief Jose Mourinho for the Portuguese's claims about his former club getting "lucky" with refereeing decisions.
Mourinho made the claim after Crystal Palace were denied a penalty and had a goal chalked off during Thursday evening's 2-0 defeat to United at Selhurst Park.
The win for United moved them seven points clear of Spurs with two Premier League fixtures remaining, meaning Spurs cannot catch the Red Devils this season.
Though Mourinho, who will be looking to guide his side to fourth win in five matches this afternoon when Spurs welcome Leicester City to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, has admitted that the decisions going in United's favour are not the reason they will finish above Spurs this season, he does feel they have had luck on their side.
"No. First of all I’m not looking to that fight, I don’t know mathematically what is possible for them," Mourinho said during Friday's pre-match press conference when asked if Tottenham could help United seal a top-four berth by beating Leicester today.
"I think they play the last game is between them [Leicester and United] and I don’t know if things can be decided there.
"I don’t know if Chelsea is in a safe position – I don’t think they are. I think they still are in this fight.
"If Manchester United does it, they will do it by playing very well in the second part of the season and when you play well you deserve, and on top of that everybody knows that they were a bit lucky.
"More than one time, luck that others have not had. We didn’t have, for example, that luck."
Solskjaer, who will be looking to lead his side into the FA Cup Final when they lock horns with Chelsea at Wembley this evening in the second semi-final, has now refuted Mourinho's claims, insisting that referee's have have actually apologised to United this season for the decisions they have either got wrong or missed.
"You earn your own luck and I can talk about the red cards that Southampton and West Ham should have had against us in games where we’ve lost points," admitted Solskjaer, as quoted by our sister title, the Manchester Evening News.
"We’ve seen the referee reports after and they’ve apologised for making the wrong decisions against us.
"It’s one of those things, VAR is there to help football have more and more correct decisions and I’ve always said factual decisions are just a fact, if you’re one centimetre or one metre offside you’re offside, unfortunately, that’s how it is in football now."
The United boss added: "I trust our referees not to be influenced and I believe me moaning about the referee will not do us any favours. I think the standard of refereeing is great.
"We need to keep at playing the football we do and let the referees do the refereeing.
"I’d rather go and ask in a friendly manner, it was the same when Mark Noble should have been sent off half-a-yard in front of me earlier in the season, when he absolutely flattened Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
"I’ve always believed in allowing them to make decisions, I’m not going to be able to influence them by moaning and crying about it."
