MANCHESTER UNITED MIDFIELDER Fred has attributed his good performances to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer helping him grow in confidence in recent weeks.
The Brazilian played a key role in Paul Pogba’s absence as United overturned a two-goal deficit to beat Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday and progress to the Champions League quarter-finals.
Fred signed for the Red Devils for £52 million last summer from Shakhtar Donetsk but has failed to live up to expectations so far, making only 12 Premier League appearances, starting only eight times.
He now feels his performances are improving due to Solskjaer’s influence since taking charge after Jose Mourinho’s departure in December.
“It’s been a hard few months. I have not been playing. There has been a lot of things going on in my mind,” Fred told ESPN.
“Ole has helped me a lot. He had a lot of chats with me. [Michael Carrick] also speaks to me a lot.
That brings me calm that things will turn around for me. They trust me and I feel that trust. And they were right to trust me because I showed that I can play against one of the best teams in the world and play well.
“I’m very, very happy. My confidence is getting better.”
Fred had one of his best games in a red shirt against PSG and showed signs of warranting his huge price tag.
He added:
This was my best moment since I moved to Manchester United. I felt I had a great game. It’s a long time since I played like this: two games in a row. I’m very happy. I want to continue to play like this, to play games.
The 26-year-old claimed that he was not surprised that United beat PSG because of the club’s tendency to pull out results when needed.
“I wasn’t surprised that we won,” he said. “All the team played well. I played well. We knew it was going to be hard, but we are Manchester United.
PSG knew that whatever happened in the first game, that we are still Manchester United. We have injuries but we are Manchester United. That is our name. Everybody knows us around the world. It was great that we got the win in a place like this.
- Omni
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