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Manchester United's Solskjaer pleased with progress ahead of milestone game

Premier League - Manchester United v Chelsea

(Reuters) - Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said on Friday he hoped to celebrate his 100th game in charge of the club with a victory, but is well aware of the threat posed by old rivals Arsenal.

Solskjaer faced questions about his position following this month's 6-1 Premier League defeat by Tottenham Hotspur but his team have since won three of their last four games in domestic and European competition to silence the critics.

"Arsenal is always going to be difficult, because they're a very good team with a good manager who has got some great ideas on how football should be played and I'm looking forward to it," Solskjaer told reporters ahead of Sunday's game.

"Surprised it's 100 games, it's gone really quickly even though a lot has happened, so let's hope I can celebrate number 100 with a good performance and a good result. I've enjoyed it so far."

Solskjaer rested key players in Wednesday's 5-0 Champions League rout of Bundesliga leaders Leipzig and the Norwegian hailed his squad's strength in depth.

"At the moment, we're looking like a Manchester United squad, I've got opportunities, competition for places," Solskjaer added.

"Any successful team in the modern era of football have had the option to rest players ... that's probably the only way you can last in this most intense league in the world and also with the Champions League involved, you want to go for the trophies.

"I've been pleased with the response after what we did early on in the season, we knew we had to hang in early on and try to get points on the board because we were far behind but now we feel fit and strong and competitive in every game."

(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by David Holmes)