Manchester United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has defended goalkeeper David De Gea after he came in for some stinging criticism from Roy Keane for his performance in the 1-1 draw at Tottenham.

Keane said he would have been ‘swinging punches’ at De Gea had he been in the Man Utd dressing room at half time after the Spaniard failed to keep out Steven Bergwijn’s first-half drive.

The former Red Devils skipper went on to say he was ‘sick to death’ of De Gea after what he perceives as a succession of high-profile mistakes, claiming he should get a taxi back up to Manchester after the game instead of on the team bus.

Solskjaer has leapt to the defence of his goalkeeper, who also made a fine stop to deny Son Heung-Min, joking his former teammate Keane would not have done much better.

‘Well, I’m disappointed to [see them] score the first time they have a chance and the boy hit it really well,’ he said. ‘Roy was a fantastic midfielder, a good friend of mine, I’m not sure he would have stopped it either.

‘David is disappointed with it but the ball is moving through the air, we reacted well after that one and he had a good save five minutes after, we had a bad spell for 10 minutes and they looked like they could get a second.’

The Red Devils were much improved after the break and came close to equalising when Anthony Martial’s effort was superbly upped over by Hugo Lloris. They did eventually claw themselves level through Bruno Fernandes’ penalty with nine minute’s left after Paul Pogba had been fouled by Eric Dier.

The draw means United are now just two points behind fourth-placed Chelsea and extends their unbeaten run in all competition to 12 matches.

‘Good performance, disappointed with the one point. I think we deserved more. I think the performance deserved three points,’ added Solskjaer.

‘We started off slow, dominated possession, yes, but too slow, then we conceded a sloppy goal – disappointed with that one. We had a bad five minutes after that one but after that I think it was only a matter of time before we got the goal.

‘Hugo Lloris made a fantastic save and we should have had more goals.’