Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has confessed that his side have failed to achieve their goals in the 2020/21 campaign after they fell in the Europa League final to Villarreal on Wednesday.

United had hoped to add a piece of European silverware to their cabinet after securing second place in the Premier League, but a tepid meeting with Villarreal ended in a penalty shootout defeat as David de Gea saw his effort turned away after 20 successive goals.

With no trophies won, Solskjaer was not in a chirpy mood after the game, and when asked by BT Sport whether this season had been a success, he responded ’no‘ almost immediately and then offered up a very uncomfortable silence.

As noted by Sky Sports News, Solskjaer gave the same abrupt answer when asked the same question in his post-match press conference, before admitting his side simply are not good enough to win trophies just yet.

„We need to get better, simple as,“ he confessed. „We’ve done really well this season to come through a difficult start and no pre-season, losing three of the first six games.

„We pushed in the league and got closer to the top than we thought at that point. And we got to a final but you need to win these finals to make it a good season.

No matter the competition.
No matter the result.

We win, lose and draw together. United.#MUFC | #UELfinal pic.twitter.com/ZvRJ3CzEJc

— Manchester United (@ManUtd) May 26, 2021

„We, who are here now, need to do better, work better, harder, cleverer. But two or three players to strengthen the starting XI and the squad altogether is important for us to go even further. I’m sure our challengers will also want to improve, so we’ll improve as much as we can.“

Solskjaer’s lack of faith in the depth of his squad was made abundantly clear by the fact he did not make a single substitution until the 100th minute, despite United looking second-best and failing to create anything of note.

„We felt the players out there, Mason [Greenwood], Marcus [Rashford], Bruno [Fernandes], Edi [Cavani], match-winners, can create anything,“ Solskjaer said of his decision to delay changes.

„Scott [McTominay], who I thought was the best player on the pitch, and Paul [Pogba], so it’s difficult to make that change, especially when Fred has been injured for a week. We just couldn’t create enough chances to win the game. We didn’t do enough in the 120 minutes to score more goals. That’s the disappointing bit.

„You’ve got players of high quality there, and we started with loads of goal scorers, match-winners, and hoped it would give us the upper hand.“

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