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Jesse Lingard will bounce back from mistake, say Manchester United’s Harry Maguire and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

Manchester United are now already in a scrap to get out of their Champions League group

Sarah Rendell
Wednesday 15 September 2021 10:52 BST
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Lingard’s error led to Young Boys’ winner in Champions League match
Lingard’s error led to Young Boys’ winner in Champions League match (Manchester United via Getty Imag)

Manchester United captain Harry Maguire and manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer say Jesse Lingard will bounce back from his error against Young Boys in the Champions League.

The forward’s back pass in the fifth minute of stoppage time went into the path of Jordan Siebatcheu who slotted the winner in the 2-1 match.

However, Lingard wasn’t the only United player at fault as Aaron Wan-Bissaka was given a red card in the first half after Cristiano Ronaldo opened the scoring.

Solskjaer said of Lingard: “We’re humans, every footballer makes mistakes. With Jesse, no footballer likes making mistakes but it’s obviously part and parcel of the game.

“We’ll learn from it, he’ll learn from it. He’ll pick himself up and be ready to go on Sunday against West Ham.”

And Maguire added: “I’m sure everyone on that pitch today has made a mistake. I’m sure Jesse will pick himself up.

“It’s the first game in the group. We’ve got many games to bounce back and we must do. We’ll try and pick up three points in our next game and build momentum from there.”

The loss has already thrown doubt over United’s Champions League campaign and memories of not qualifying for the knock-out stages last season are haunting the club.

However, Solskjaer says the team are now concentrating on their next matches in the group - two home fixtures. One of which is against Villarreal who defeated the Red Devils in the Europa League final last term.

The boss said: “You need 10, maybe 12, points, you need to win your home games, win one away from home. Of course we’ve lost the opportunity to get three points but we’ve got two home games next and got to focus on them two.

“Lack of concentration, make a mistake and you get punished. You get done. We did that last year in Europe. Today in the last seconds Jesse just wants to play it safe and just one misplaced pass and you’ve conceded a goal. Aaron’s normally a very, very astute tackler - one of the best in the world.

“We know we’ve given ourselves a more difficult task than what we did last year but everyone thought we were through after two games last year.”

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