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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
Daniel Murphy

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer reveals tactical dilemma he has for Manchester United against Barcelona

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has revealed that he has a tactical dilemma between instructing his Manchester United players to sit back against Barcelona or press in search for the ball.

United are in need of another comeback at the Camp Nou as they go into the Champions League quarter-final second leg a goal down after Luke Shaw put the ball into his own net at Old Trafford.

Barcelona haven't lost at home in Europe for 30 games now - the longest a team has ever gone on such a run - so it's going to take something big from United to reach the semis.

With Barca holding the advantage they're likely to keep hold of the ball for large periods of the game and it's a problem that Solskjaer has to make a big decision with how to deal with it.

"They did the last 15 minutes against us at Old Trafford," he told BT Sport when asked about the Catalan's tendency to keep the ball between themselves.

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"Then your decision is do we go and chase it and open up, and give them a chance for the second goal, because they were looking like they were playing through us.

"Or do we wait, okay we’ve got 90 minutes and if they want to do that at the Nou Camp and when we get a goal then suddenly were in the driving seat and as away goals count so much.

"We wanted to get the goal of course we did but it didn't work the changes we made, so make sure we don’t concede and then we’re in the tie."

It's a tactic that Solskjaer has used before.

In the second leg against Paris Saint-Germain after United had got back into the tie through Romelu Lukaku's double the Norwegian purposefully set up his team to defend for the entire second half as PSG began to dominate.

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This kept United in the tie until the ending moments and we all know what happened then.

Solskjaer has history himself of scoring last minute winners in Barcelona and he's hoping United are still in the tie come the 90th minute once again.

"It’s the result that we all remember from 99 but that was against a different team, i know it's on the same pitch and unfortunately im not young enough to be able to play. It's a fantastic stadium, a fantastic place to play.

"If we can get towards 90 minutes and were in with a corner kick at the time maybe it will happen again, history."

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