Ole, did you ask for this run to be moved, even a few hours further into Sunday? The two o’clock seems to be extra unhelpful to you.
“Sunday two o’clock is not the problem, that was always scheduled. Tuesday-Thursday after Thursday-Sunday, that’s a big problem.”
Hi Ole, sorry to continue the theme. Because you’ve got so many games in a short space of time, you’ve talked about rotation, is it going to be a situation where you have to put one XI out in one game and then, two days later, have to put out a completely different XI?
“Yeah. As I said, two games in three days is difficult but you can accept that, we do that at Christmas. Two games in three days after a long season with all the games we’ve had is even more difficult. Three games in five days is very, very difficult, almost impossible. And four games in eight, it is impossible. But I think you all know me or I hope you do anyway. We’ll take the challenge head on and I’m not sitting here sulking but I’m just saying some there do not understand the physicality of the Premier League – it’s the best league in the world. I don’t know how you can defend playing these three games in so short a space of time and I have to look after the players. That might be somebody not happy with my selection for one game or two games and that might affect whoever gets into the fourth position or Champions League but that’s not my problem. That’s everyone else’s problem.”
United have a strong record against Villa and are unbeaten in 21 Premier League away games [against them], how are you approaching the game with Villa also still without Jack Grealish?
“I think they’re a very good team, you saw them last week beat Everton. They’ve had a very good season, they had a little spell with some worse results but we played them in a pre-season friendly before this season, and lost. We won a hard-fought game 2-1 at Old Trafford, we know it’s going to be tough but we’re looking forward to it. You know the energy that we used tonight will probably be filled up twice because of getting to a final. I think we’ll recover, refuel. We’re looking forward to this game, the players are looking forward to it, they know it’s a big game for us.”
