Solskjaer defend Lindelof amid his costly slump in form for Man Utd

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has defended Victor Lindelof amid his costly slump in form for Manchester United.

United signed Harry Maguire to complement Lindelof in their back four but the Sweden international has regressed since the start of the season. Solskjaer still suggested United should have cut out Kevin Danso's cross.

"As a centre-back, once in a while you do lose a header," Solskjaer said. "And sometimes it's just in those patches and costs the team. Last week, he lost one header, that was a flick on and they scored, this week, he lost a header, and it became a goal.

"You don't expect your centre-back to win every single one, it's not like he's a little boy, Vestergaard, we should have done better and stopped the cross and those were the 10 seconds they created something.

"Apart from that I thought that Victor did well."

United have won three of their last 16 matches since their remarkable Champions League comeback at Paris Saint-Germain and are winless away from home since that night on March 5.

For the third game running, United struggled to break down a reticent defence amid accusations they are overly reliant on the counter-attacking tactic and Solskjaer admitted United were gearing themselves up to counter Southampton early in the second-half.

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"We've dominated the last three games and know we are on the right track getting used to that way of playing," Solskjaer added. "In the last three games they haven't given many points in return but we're getting there and we're getting better and better playing this way.

"We've got to get used to it, it's a young team that will get used to it. But today was a matter of we've just got the game where we wanted, we were winning 1-0, that's when you can get that counter-attacking football, be more clinical, ruthless when we go forward. But it wasn't to be. We just gave them enough encouragement to stay in the game."