Ole Gunnar Solskjaer told Manchester United to forget about Paris Saint-Germain and claimed his players fell short of what he expects at Leicester.
Talk regarding next week's Champions League date has swirled around Carrington over recent weeks.
But Solskjaer is adamant that games like Saturday's trip to Fulham will act as the real measure of how far United are progressing after 'hanging on' in victory against Leicester.
'You take one step at a time and that we move into the top four is one of the goals, Solskjaer said.
'We want to stay there and improve on it. Consistency is the key word now. We need to keep on improving and winning games in a better way than the Leicester one. We hung on. It was good enough but we shouldn't just be happy with good enough.
'These games like Fulham are character revealers really. Do we have the focus? Can we forget about PSG?
'I know the focus around the place and the media has been on PSG, Liverpool, Chelsea. It's the other games that will move us up the table.'
Jesse Lingard revealed this week that he believes United should be fighting for the Premier League title next season.
Solskjaer relishes that attitude and added: 'I hope they believe they can do that (win the title). I love to hear players thinking that.
'You can't outperform your ego. But that also means you've got to make a decision yourself.
'If you want to be a champion it means how you prepare for every single game and we demand we focus every single day. It's not about Liverpool in a few weeks time.'