Football
Rob Dawson, Correspondent 5y

Manchester United boss Solskjaer has long-term vision for club

MANCHESTER, England -- Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has said he has told executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward how he thinks Manchester United should look "in a couple of years."

Solskjaer, caretaker manager at Old Trafford until the end of the season, is in the dark about his long-term future at the club, but that has not stopped him from planning ahead with Woodward.

"We have a vision and a picture of how we want to look in a few years," Solskjaer, who was named the Premier League's manager of the month for January, told a news conference on Friday.

"We have to think long term and also short term. I've got a picture of what this Manchester United team should look like in a couple of years, and I put my views to Ed and the club."

Despite only signing a short-term contract to succeed Jose Mourinho, Solskjaer has already shaped the squad, with Chris Smalling, Phil Jones and Anthony Martial signing new contracts and Marouane Fellaini leaving for China.

He has revitalised United, with nine wins and a draw from 10 games in charge, and they can move into the top four with a win at struggling Fulham on Saturday lunchtime.

But with Paris Saint-Germain visiting Old Trafford in the Champions League on Tuesday, Solskjaer has warned his players not to look too far ahead.

"Fulham is a character revealer," he said. "It reveals do we have the focus on what's important, which is always the next game, and can we forget about PSG.

"The focus has been around the PSG game for a long time, Chelsea and Liverpool, but they're not the games that will move us up the table."

Antonio Valencia has not started a game since Jan. 2, but Solskjaer said the full-back has had a recurrence of his injury and will not travel to London with the rest of the squad on Friday.

"Hopefully he'll recover because he's been training hard really hard then he got a setback, so hopefully in a couple of weeks he'll be fit," he said.

"He's captain for us. Hopefully we can get him back on the pitch, but it was hard when he broke down. He would have travelled this weekend."

Marcos Rojo has returned to training but is likely to miss out at Fulham.

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