Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has admitted Manchester United will need a “perfect” performance in tomorrow's Carabao Cup semi-final second leg against Manchester City.
City hold a 3-1 lead from the first leg at Old Trafford, with Solskjaer acknowledging the scale of the task facing him and his players at the Etihad Stadium.
Solskjaer called on his players to invoke the spirit of their epic Champions League win at Paris St Germain last season, when they overcame a two-goal deficit to advance.
And the United boss also reminded his players of their 2-1 win at City in the Premier League last month in a bid to inspire them to another famous victory.
“It has to be a perfect performance to win with two goals against such a good team away from home,” said Solskajer.
“It's not about away goals, we just need to score two more than them. It would be good not to concede first, because that makes it less difficult.
“It looked like it was over at half-time, I have to say. In the second part of that first-half they outplayed us for a while and it was hard, but we got the goal back.
“We're still in it, we hope for another one, but we've got to go into the memory bank and think PSG.
“We've done it against good teams before, which gives us hope, and the game in December gives us hope.”
Since United beat City last month, Pep Guardiola's side have won 11 of 13 games, with Solskjaer admitting their local rivals are in much better shape now.
“They're getting players back as well,” said Solskjaer. “We hit them last time when they were struggling a bit and since then they've played really well.
“We've lost Scott McTominay and Marcus Rashford since that game, so we're a little bit lighter in the playing department, but we can't just defend.
“We have to keep the ball and make them run after the ball, but we've done amazing things before at this club and the PSG game for me is a very, very good example of how you can make a two goal deficit work in your favour. We need the first goal.”
