Sports
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer: Matching 1999 Treble Winners ‘More or Less Impossible’
Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesOle Gunnar Solskjaer has said matching Manchester United’s 1998-99 achievement of winning the Premier League, FA Cup and UEFA Champions League in the same season is “more or less impossible” in the modern game. Liverpool’s 2-0 loss to Chelsea in the FA Cup fifth round on Tuesday ended the Reds’ treble chances for the…
Clive Brunskill/Getty Images
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has said matching Manchester United‘s 1998-99 achievement of winning the Premier League, FA Cup and UEFA Champions League in the same season is “more or less impossible” in the modern game.
Liverpool‘s 2-0 loss to Chelsea in the FA Cup fifth round on Tuesday ended the Reds' treble chances for the 2019-20 campaign:
B/R Football @brfootball
No room in the club.
Liverpool's dream of a treble is over. https://t.co/RterLuSRY6
Jurgen Klopp's side are all but guaranteed to win the Premier League as they have a 22-point lead at the top of the table, and they are still in the Champions League, but they can no longer emulate Sir Alex Ferguson's treble-winning side.
Pep Guardiola's Manchester City also fell short of the mark last term. They won a domestic treble—the Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup—but were ousted from the Champions League at the quarter-final stage.
Solskjaer was a key part of United's treble-winning side in 1999, famously netting a late winner in the Champions League final against Bayern Munich.
Now in charge at Old Trafford, the Norwegian said after Liverpool's loss to Chelsea that he does not believe it is possible for the achievement to be equalled:
“We hope we are going do it again, but it's a difficult task. It's more or less impossible—there are so many good teams around. It has changed domestically. It was either us or Arsenal in '99 and now there's more of us.”
United are a long way from being able to compete for the Premier League title again, let alone win another treble, but they are still in the running to win the FA Cup this term.
They play their fifth-round match against Derby County on Thursday at Pride Park, where they will come up against former captain Wayne Rooney, who joined the Rams from DC United in January.
Rooney is United's all-time record goalscorer, but Solskjaer joked “any goal he scores against us will be chalked off his goals tally.”
B/R Football @brfootball
The stats behind Wayne Rooney's record breaking 250 goals for Manchester United #Rooney250 https://t.co/EM06QJCvPa
If the Red Devils can get past Derby and reach the quarter-finals, they will be counted among the favourites to go all the way after Liverpool's exit.
But the final stages of the FA Cup look set to be highly competitive this term.
Arsenal, Chelsea, Sheffield United and Newcastle United have already reached the last eight, and Manchester City, Leicester City and Tottenham Hotspur could have joined them by the time United face Derby.
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