Ole Gunnar Solskjaer Hails Impact of Donny van de Beek & Edinson Cavani in UCL Win

Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer was pleased with the impact made by Donny van de Beek and Edinson Cavani in Tuesday night’s 4-1 Champions League win over Istanbul Basaksehir, with the latter finally making his full debut for the club.

Following on from successive substitute appearances for the last six games, it was the first time Cavani was named in a starting XI. Van de Beek, meanwhile, is still waiting for his full Premier League debut and had started the previous two in Europe, but played 90 minutes for only the second time.

Solskjaer has been deliberately careful in his use of Van de Beek since a £40m transfer from Ajax, while Cavani has been allowed time to build up his fitness after going six months without playing.

“I think the two of them are getting used to how we want them to play,” the boss told BT Sport.

“Of course, Donny can play in different positions, Edinson is a good old fashioned number nine and we haven’t had that for a little while, and I was very happy with how Anthony [Martial] played off the left hand side again.”

Having fallen to a shock 2-1 defeat in Turkey in the reverse fixture, United raced into a 2-0 lead over Basaksehir at Old Trafford thanks to an early brace from Bruno Fernandes. The Portuguese is a player that Solskjaer says ‘breeds confidence’ in his teammates.

Fernandes had an opportunity to score a hat-trick when United were awarded a penalty shortly before half-time. But the usual taker stepped aside to let Marcus Rashford score his first goal since October. There was a similar situation against RB Leipzig last month when Rashford was on a hat-trick but gave a penalty to Martial to get him on the score-sheet as well.

Solskjaer is happy for them to do it, explaining, “Marcus is a very good penalty taker as well, and Bruno is very confident. If Bruno feels he wants to give it to Marcus, so be it. Anthony had one against Leipzig so why not – they can share them around!”

The only detraction from the night was the loss of Victor Lindelof and Aaron Wan-Bissaka, withdrawn after 45 minutes and 59 minutes respectively as a precaution. Lindelof aggravated an ongoing back issue, while Wan-Bissaka took a knock on the ankle. But Solskjaer is hopeful that both players will be available when United face Southampton on Sunday.

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