Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has urged his players to treat the current title talk as they would any other “noise” surrounding the club.
The Red devils have received huge criticism this campaign, particularly after their exit from the Champions League earlier this month and over their poor home form.
However, results have generally been positive and they head into Christmas in good form, five points behind league leaders Liverpool with an outstanding game still to play.
Last week’s 6-2 beating of Leeds sparked suggestions they could yet mount a title push while Wednesday’s 2-0 defeat of Everton further boosted their silverware prospects.
“Well, whatever,” said Solskjaer when asked about the title. “There is noise around Man Utd anyway, so for us it’s about improving as a team, taking one game at a time – and we have to, that’s the name of the game.
“That is the only way that you are going to challenge for anything at the end of the season anyway so it’s not something that we talk about.
“The only thing that we talk about and focus on is improving day by day and learning, and how to deal with certain situations and maybe now at the moment we are getting praise and that’s another thing to learn to deal with.”
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United’s next trip is a tricky one as they face Leicester at the King Power Stadium on Boxing Day and Solskjaer knows the importance of not conceding early in the game.
He said: “It’s going to catch up with you if you are going to give teams a lead, and Leicester are one of those teams that you definitely don’t want to give a one or two goal lead to because they have so many players on the transition that you can easily concede two or three or four, so we have to start as well as we did[(on Wednesday].
“We started really well, and against Leeds, and of course the first goal in any game is a very important one.”
