Ole Gunnar Solskjaer says Manchester United will not settle for second in the Premier League title race, despite having taken only 10 points from their last seven league games.
United were held to a 1-1 draw at West Brom on Super Sunday and despite returning to second place on goal difference, they have ultimately slipped further behind local rivals Manchester City.
Pep Guardiola’s side are now seven points ahead at the top of the table and have a game in hand, but Solskjaer insists Man Utd will not be letting them get away too easily.
He said: “No one will give it away this early. This season is so unpredictable, life is so unpredictable, anything can happen and of course we’re not going to settle for second.
“It’s a compliment to the boys that we’ve gotten ourselves into the position we’re in. We’re the team closest [to Man City] and we should be challenging the team in front of us.
“We’re not going to let them get away with it, but we need to win games to be in that position.”
It was ultimately a lacklustre showing at The Hawthorns, although Man United were improved after half-time and saw the majority of the possession (73.1 per cent).
They did come away with their unbeaten Premier League run intact, extending it to 19 games, but Solskjaer dismissed the statistic after a disappointing draw.
He added: “At the moment, that record doesn’t mean anything. We are in desperate need of three points because we want to move up the table and you don’t do that by getting one point away from home. It’s a disappointing outcome today.
“Then again some of the play was really good, some of the performances were really good so there are some positives. But overall, we’re disappointed with one point only.
“We built loads of pressure, created pressure, pegged them back but I didn’t feel we created enough big moments to score the goals. We didn’t have the aura.
“Saying that, we did get down the sides and flashed a few crosses down the line but maybe the cross, or the position or the movement wasn’t there. We didn’t have big moments that you felt should have been a goal disappointingly, even though the ball was in the last third all the time apart from a few counter-attacks, which is always dangerous when you have Premier League players against you.”