Ole Gunnar Solskjaer reminded Manchester United players at half-time there were still three halves left to recover from their forlorn first-half shellacking by Manchester City.
United went in at the pause 3-0 down to City in their League Cup semi-final first leg and were booed off by some of their supporters. Despite the hopelessness of the situation, United emerged and did not concede after the interval and clawed a goal back through Marcus Rashford.
Rashford's strike could prove to be inconsequential ahead of the return leg in three weeks' time but Solskjaer opened up on what he told United players at the break.
"'There are still three 45 minutes to be played, we've got to stay in the game, make sure we win the second-half'," Solskjaer said. "You come into half-time, with that result, that's the word pride Pep was talking about, is one word you speak about, make sure you win the second-half and are in the tie. Of course, it's a difficult task but that second-half at least gave us something to hang onto."
United shipped three goals in 21 first-half minutes to all but gift City the victory on the night. Pep Guardiola named Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus on the bench and Solskjaer conceded United could not cope with City's innovative set-up.
"From the first goal until half-time we just couldn't cope with that setback," Solskjaer added. "We were running in between, the pressure didn't work, we let them play, our heads dropped, decisions were made we shouldn't do and that needed sorting at half-time.
"Second-half was a good response and although it's a steep mountain to climb we can still climb it and just got to look forward.
"From their goal until half-time is the worst we've played. Before then, it could have gone either way but doesn't matter now, we've just got to focus now on Saturday, Norwich, after that second-half we've got something we can believe in."
