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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
Samuel Luckhurst

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer unhappy with Manchester United fixture schedule

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is unahppy at Manchester United's tight turnaround after their Champions League win over Villarreal on Wednesday night.

For the second week running, United are kicking off at 12.30pm on Saturday in the Premier League having played their midweek match on a Wednesday night.

Solskjaer was furious last year when United's November trip to Everton was scheduled for 12.30pm on a Saturday after they had travelled to Turkey for their 2-1 defeat to Istanbul Basaksehir.

The United manager blamed the Premier League's domestic rights holders, BT Sport and Sky Sports, for the scheduling. BT are televising United's fixture with Everton while Sky are showing Liverpool versus Manchester City on Sunday.

Liverpool and City played in the Champions League on Tuesday and will have had a five-day gap between matches, whereas UInited have three.

"The boost and energy you get in the group after a win like this has to be built on," Solskjaer said of the finale against Villarreal. "It's a very, very quick turnaround, a different turnaround to last year when we played Everton away and played Wednesday night and Saturday morning. But the players aren't going to get caught out, we've got to start as we finished on Wednesday night.

"Yeah, absolutely no explanation, well, it's TV. Absolutely no common sense at all. We had the same scenario last year when we were in Turkey, came back and played Everton. The players aren't gonna get that joy again, they had it last year as well.

"But we have to make it happen, because it's not like we did it last year so it's going to have to happen again, the crowd is going to have to help, that's important and I know they will.

"Us and Chelsea played Wednesday night. We could easily have played Sunday and Liverpool-City should have been a Saturday one. Common sense might not be so common. But that's for another day."

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