Manchester City host Manchester United at Etihad in Manchester derby.
City are looking for a fourth successive home win, while United are seeking just their second away win.
Ahead of the game, United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer faced the press.
Solskjaer provided an injury update on Anthony Martial and Paul Pogba.
“We hope to have Anthony definitely for part of the game, not sure if he’s able to start, Paul won’t be, no,” he said.
On Pogba, he added: “
As soon as possible, he’s out on the grass training, I said in 2019 so hopefully before the New Year.”
The boss spoke about the derby: “
Manchester derbies are always special games but you can’t say it matters more... For the fans, of course. We’re up for it, fans ate were fantastic at home and sure we’ll hear them on Saturday.”
Are you taking a better team than the one that got beat back at Old Trafford in April?
Confidence is a strange thing in football, you can get performances and results like Wednesday night and it boosts it so much and I know our boys will be up for it, energy-wise should be fine young, 24 hrs less recovery time shouldn’t matter, go on adrenaline. Yesterday was a recovery day, they were tired, today’s another preparation day, still haven’t had that session. I expect them to have had a good night’s sleep and the smiles are back on faces.
Had some good results this season, why have you not been able to build on previous ones?
We’re going away against arguably the best team in England, difficult game but we need consistency, I said it before this is a chance for everyone was doom and gloom but it’s a chance to turn that doubt into belief and for us if we can manage to get another performance the confidence, the way we played against Tottenham if we can do that at the Etihad we can come out of it with a result. People say ‘why do you not have better results in other games’ but Premier League is hard, no matter who you play, it’s margins, I think it’s a compliment to the league, you’ve got City, Liverpool, Leicester consistent but the other games are really tight.
Is the challenge for Rashford to do what Aguero and Vardy do and score game after game?
He is doing that at the moment and how he didn’t get the goal against Villa is beyond me, he’s consistently now scoring 10 in the last 11 or whatever but it’s not like four in one and two or three without, it’s not just in spurts but he’s consistently getting chances, and into better positions and on Wednesday night he was unbelievable and hope to see that again.
What have you made on the latest situation on the racism front in Italy and what do you make of Chris Smalling?
First of all, when you see that paper you say wow really is that poss? It’s the worst front page I’ve ever seen and we’ve been in touch with Chris just so he knows we’ll back him and Romelu as well. I don’t work in your line of business but wow, it’s incredible and at least we don’t see that here, that has to be stamped out. Chris has been fantastic but we know sometimes if you change the environment it can go both ways but Chris is the type to relish these challenges he’s cultured, enjoys life down there, new experience for him, he’s a boy who couldn’t be here without being a reg and so happy for him because we can see the top player he is.
Will Smalling return here?
Yeah.
How has the derby developed since you were a player?
At least we play every year now, took many years before I played a Manchester derby myself, it’s changed in a way, Manchester City are a better team now than when I was playing, football has changed quite a lot, was allowed a few more proper tackles with every little angle, everything being scrutinised now it’s more of a technical, tactical game than physical mental, a derby should be played as a derby, we don’t play basketball and we’re ready if that happens.
