Manchester, July 15 (IANS) Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer on Wednesday heaped praise on French striker Anthony Martial and also said his team selection for their upcoming Premier League clash against Crystal Palace will not be done keeping in mind Sundays FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea.
United are fifth in the Premier League standings with 59 points and are behind Leicester City on goal difference. They travel to Palace on Thursday looking to stay in the hunt for Champions League qualification.
“The team selection for Thursday is based on Thursday not Sunday. Sunday is irrelevant, it does not come into my head at all,” Solskjaer told a virtual news conference on Wednesday as quoted by Manchester United’s official website.
“There were a couple of doubts before the Southampton game but they all reported fit on the day and hopefully we can give them time now not to leave players out because of injury but there might be one or two fresh legs coming in.”
Anthony Martial has been in superb form, scoring five goals in seven games in all competitions since the season’s restart.
“He’s definitely improving and enjoying his football, he’s stepped it up this season as an individual and more as a team player, and physically,” he said.
“I remember there were talks about our forwards last season being the least active and there were stats flying around but Anthony is now working really hard for the team and he is a quality, quality finisher.”
United have left backs Luke Shaw and Brandon Williams in a race against time to be fit after Shaw twisted his ankle during the 2-2 draw against Southampton on Monday with Williams suffering a head injury after colliding with Kyle Walker-Peters.
“Luke has got a swollen ankle, I’ll give him as much time as possible to recover, it was a twisted ankle. Brandon cut up his eye. I don’t really know, neither of them trained yesterday,” the United manager said.
–IANS
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