Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had a special game plan for Manchester United’s win over Arsenal (Getty Images)

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has revealed that he showed clips of Manchester United’s counter-attacking goals against Arsenal to his players before their FA Cup victory on Friday evening.

Goals from Alexis Sanchez, Jesse Lingard and Anthony Martial secured a 3-1 victory for United to took their place in the fifth round of the FA Cup.

Arsenal started brightly at the Emirates Stadium but found themselves two goals down after two fast counters from United.

Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang pulled a goal back for Arsenal before half-time but Anthony Martial struck late on after another free-flowing move to put the tie beyond doubt.




And after the match, Solskjaer revealed that counter-attacking was a key part of United’s game plan against Unai Emery’s side and that his players were shown clips of similar of goals before the match, including Cristiano Ronaldo’s brilliant effort for United in the Champions League in 2009.

‘It’s fantastic to go through in the cup. It’s one of the hardest games you can get,’ Solskjaer told BBC Sport.

Arsenal v @ManUtd = One of THE great #UCL counterattacking goals ? Ronaldo ➡️ Park ⤴️ Rooney ↗️ Ronaldo ⚽️ pic.twitter.com/TeEADQNB2U — UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) January 25, 2019

‘I’ve had a [selection] headache since I came because the squad is full of good players.

‘It’s up to us to pick the right tactics and players. We need to rest a few as there’s big games coming up. But we have fresh legs.

‘Today we looked more like a proper team. We looked more structured.

Alexis Sanchez scored against his former club to put United in front (Getty Images)

Anthony Martial sealed United’s win with a late goal (BPI/REX)

‘We’d worked hard at defending and counter-attacking. Counter-attacking is classic Manchester United – Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ji Sung-park – we’ve scored so many at Arsenal over the years.

‘Today was a big step forward. It was a massive improvement from the Tottenham game.

‘It’s easy to get excited and talk about the future but we need to just keep working and think about the next game.’

‘We had to dig deep. The attitude and work-rate was important. Towards the end it was comfortable but not during the 90 minutes.’