Manchester United: Ole Gunnar Solskjaer warns players ‘it’s not job done’ ahead of Leicester showdown

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has warned his Manchester United players that one lapse of concentration could cost them a place in next season’s Champions League.

United travel to fellow top-four contenders Leicester City on Sunday knowing they will return to European football’s elite club competition if they avoid defeat.

But if they lose and drop out of the Premier League’s top four places, their Champions League hopes will rest on winning next month’s Europa League mini-tournament in Germany.

“We’re looking forward to the game, we have given ourselves a good chance of being in the Champions League next year but we can’t go into a game thinking about what the outcome could be, we’ve just got to perform at a high enough level and standard so we can get a result.

“We want to dominate the game. We wanted to get this position where we could go to Leicester and beat them and we are not going to change our approach. We want to go there and try and win the game.

“Focus and concentration is very vital in football. When you play against quality teams and quality players, one lapse of concentration can hurt you we’re going to go into it with a strong frame of mind and it’s not job done,” the United manager warned.

“We have got to this point and we have one more game this season, that’s this season. This is a journey for this team, this is one extra step on the journey for this team.

“We’ve come a long way mentally, we have shown more robustness, resilience, when we lost the first goal in games, we’ve also shown the heights when everything’s flowing, which you can’t expect every time. I’m delighted with how the development looks.”

The chances of United finishing in the top four appeared slim during the autumn, when Solskjaer’s side fell as low as 14th, and Wednesday’s 1-1 draw with West Ham saw them return to the Champions League spots for the first time since September.

United will start the final day in third place and whatever the outcome, their manager believes they have made progress over the course of the campaign.

“Let’s get this game out of the way and get the third position and continue the growth and journey that this team is on,” he said.

“Of course we’ve had some hard times this season, some setbacks, but we’ve shown that this is a team going places and if we can finish the season with a trophy in Europe and third we can discuss that then.”

Solskjaer revealed that he will give his players a short break next week before the return to Europa League action, with United leading LASK Linz 5-0 after the first leg of their last-16 tie.

“[The players] need mental and physical time away from the place because the effort has been fantastic,” he said. ”They can recharge the batteries for a few days and then go again.

“We’ve got LASK, a 5-0 lead there, so we don’t have to go into that game chasing as you would normally a two or three goal win. You just want a good performance and hopefully that will be enough to get into the quarters. But they will have a few days off, definitely.”