Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has backed Alexis Sánchez to play “a lot of games” despite the striker’s disappointing form for Manchester United.

Since signing in January 2018 from Arsenal the 30-year-old has scored only three Premier League goals and his last in any competition was at Arsenal in a 3-1 FA Cup win in January. He has not completed a full 90 minutes for United since the opening game of the previous season.

Yet Solskjaer, whose team play Wolves away on Monday, said Sánchez is still part of his plans and is working to regain fitness after injuring a hamstring at the Copa América.

“Alexis is such a professional and he comes in working every single day really hard and he wants to be a part of this,” he said. “There are these stories he’s been put in the reserves – of course he hasn’t, he’s part of our squad and he is a really good player. He has had three weeks now, so he’s a few weeks behind the rest but close to being part of it.

“We don’t have the biggest forward line in numbers so Alexis might end up playing a lot more games than you expect and we expect him to come good at this club, he’s quality.”

“We’ve had a behind closed doors game, and he’s training, he is doing a little bit of extras. He’ll be gradually integrated into more and more playing time but we’ll have more behind closed-doors games because with one game a week now it’s hard to keep everyone ticking. We are arranging a few of them.”

Fred was not in the match-day squad for the 4-0 win over Chelsea. Again Solskjaer backed the midfielder to force his way into the side.

“We believe Fred is going to have a big season as well,” he said. “Every game’s a puzzle. You’ve got good players everywhere and last time we also couldn’t fit Chris Smalling, Marcos Rojo, Phil Jones and Alexis into the squad of 18. It is a puzzle all over the pitch but it is a nice puzzle to have. It’s about picking between good players and who’s in form.”