'As soon as Paul’s agent realises this is a team sport the better' - Man Utd boss Solskjaer hits back at Raiola after Pogba exit comments

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer hit back at Mino Raiola after his Manchester United side were dumped out of the Champions League on Tuesday.

Paul Pogba’s agent did an explosive interview with Tuttosport on Monday declaring his client’s time at the club was over. 

Solskjaer started the midfielder on the bench at Leipzig but insisted his decision had nothing to do with the comments from Raiola the previous day.

Pogba came off the bench and scored in the 82nd minute as United attempted a late comeback, but the Red Devils fell to a 3-2 defeat that saw them crash out of the Champions League. 

Pushed after the game on if Raiola's comments had had any impact on the team Solskjaer replied: “Squad is fine, they’re a team and they stick together. As soon as Paul’s agent realises this is a team sport and we work together the better, and that’s maybe the last thing I’ll say about that, I don’t want to spend energy on that.”

It is not the first time Raiola has been vocal about his client’s desire to leave but Solskjaer would not indicate if he had spoken to the Frenchman about the incident.

“You’ve got to ask Paul if he’s happy or not, I’m not going to speak for him,” the United manager said on BT Sport. “He’s focused on doing his best for the team when he’s here, he’s working hard in training and he just needs to focus on his performances. Now is not the time to discuss transfer targets or ins and outs of the club.”

Solskjaer lamented his side's slow start to the game at Leipzig, as United were down two goals within the first 13 minutes.

“Today we never got going and as I said before the other games we conceded the first goal, we started and played pretty well, but today we didn’t start until 2-0,” Solskjaer explained.

“That’s something we need to address even more. Of course we have addressed it and spoken about it and talked about it, especially Leipzig what they will do early on in the game, we need to manage that one and we didn’t manage it well enough definitely.”