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Manchester United v Southampton team news | Greenwood starts for MUFC

Manchester United take on Southampton at Old Trafford tonight, in their first home game since bei...



Manchester United v Southampto...
Soccer

Manchester United v Southampton team news | Greenwood starts for MUFC

Manchester United take on Southampton at Old Trafford tonight, in their first home game since being trounced by bottom club Sheffield United.
The Saints will be looking to repeat their feat of winning in Manchester as they did last year, and the teams have been released.

Solskjaer on online abuse

In the run-up to the game, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer took to castigating online trolls for racist abuse of his players.

Rashford revealed the abuse in a short thread on Twitter on Saturday night, in the wake of United's scoreless Premier League draw away to Arsenal.

"Humanity and social media at its worst. Yes I’m a black man and I live every day proud that I am. No one, or no one comment, is going to make me feel any different," he wrote.

"So sorry if you were looking for a strong reaction, you’re just simply not going to get it here. I’m not sharing screenshots.

"It would be irresponsible to do so and as you can imagine there’s nothing original in them. I have beautiful children of all colours following me and they don’t need to read it. Beautiful colours that should only be celebrated."

Solskjaer, who addressed the same issue last Friday after Alex Tuanzebe and Anthony Martial were racially abused online, was speaking ahead of United's home game against Southampton on Tuesday night.

The Norwegian feels that the matter needs to be addressed but in conjunction with the social media platforms.

"I don't think this is just a matter of footballers or famous people," Solskjaer said.

"That gets highlighted, which is in a sense good that we talk about it, but it's unacceptable behaviour. It happens all across society.

"We will work with the authorities and it has to be stopped. This way of discrimination, on social media, we can't do a lot can we?

"We have to work with the platforms. They've got to be stronger to make sure we stop this."

Last September, a man from Tralee was tracked down and charged for harassing former Arsenal and England striker Ian Wright.

Solskjaer feels that taking away the ability to remain anonymous would help to stamp out the online abuse.

"We'd all like freedom of speech but this crosses a line of what's acceptable. It's absolutely unacceptable behaviour in 2021," he added.

"The ignorance they show, you feel sorry for them, we've just got to help them. Sometimes you help people by taking away the chance of expressing themselves, especially when they're anonymous."

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