Ole Gunnar Solskjaer insists he does not need to receive acclaim for Manchester United's turnaround as he paid little interest to criticism earlier in the season.
Solskjaer has United in the mix for Champions League qualification, two points behind fourth-placed Chelsea in fifth, which may also secure a spot in Europe's elite club competition depending on the outcome of Manchester City's appeal against their two-year ban.
United's form has picked up dramatically since the January arrival of Bruno Fernandes and they are now 15 unbeaten in all competitions.
But Solskjaer says he will not let listen to outside voices regardless of results.
"If you're worried about what others write about you, think about you, say about you, you shouldn't be in this job," he said on Friday.
"What I feel [about praise] doesn't really matter. What I do is with the coaching staff, with the club, trying to improve us. I don't need anyone to say that was the right thing or wrong thing or feel that we've shown we've done the right thing.
"For me, it's just about next game and improving all the time. I believe in a certain way of managing the club, managing players, the staff, and I'm just doing what I think is right.
"That's what I've done all my life more or less, working in football, and sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't."
"I'm very pleased with so many clean sheets — at the moment we're defending well," Ole says.
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) July 3, 2020
"We know that we are capable of creating chances, so if you have foundations to build from the back, with the intensity of the defensive work, then you've got a team."#MUFC #MUNBOU pic.twitter.com/gzq0W0k8IQ
United will be expected to continue their impressive run against struggling Bournemouth in the Premier League on Saturday, but Solskjaer suggests their schedule is not as straightforward as it looks.
"I've seen lots of quotes saying we have an 'easy' run-in," the manager added.
"But the next five games are against Bournemouth, who we lost to in the previous game, Aston Villa, who we drew [with] at Old Trafford, Southampton, we drew with them, we lost to Crystal Palace, lost to West Ham.
"These are teams we've got a point to prove against and we have to improve on the last performance.
"I don't think it's an easy game. What anyone else thinks doesn't matter. We know [that] to win a game of football we'll have to perform."
On the atmosphere at United, he added: "It's been a while since we've been on a run like this. When I first came in, the run was obviously a good one.
"But now definitely we are feeling confident, we are feeling in good form, and [the players] should be, because they worked so hard over the lockdown period.
"They're just getting their sharpness and fitness and match fitness back. And when you perform like you have done - the Sheffield United and Brighton games were really good - they should be confident."
