Manchester United defender Luke Shaw accused his side of lacking enough aggression, intensity and motivation after a meek 1-0 home defeat to Wolves on Monday.
A fourth league defeat in 10 games at Old Trafford this season leaves United still languishing in seventh, four points adrift of the top four.
But the Red Devils are 22 points behind City at the top of the table and closer to rock bottom Norwich.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer paid for a dreadful run of results when he was sacked as manager in November.
“We look our squad, our team, the players we have, we have unbelievable quality,” Shaw told Sky Sport. “Sometimes quality isn’t enough.
“We need to bring the intensity, we need to bring is more aggressive and we need to bring more motivation. I think maybe from the outside today, it didn’t look like we had any of the three.
“I think to win these types of games against a tough team like Wolves we all need to be 100 percent committed because we know it’s always close games whoever they play.
“We have time now to refocus. We’ve got a long training week and maybe the manager can bring some more ideas on what he wants on the pitch.”
“I cannot make any guarantees. Look at today’s performance, if I say we are 100 percent convinced we will finish in the top four, I don’t know if people will believe that,” said the German.
“For me it is about taking the next steps and getting better. I knew this could be and would be hard but today’s game showed we still have a long way to go.”
