Manchester United’s hard evening in Rotterdam was almost made worse as Chris Smalling nearly missed the flight home after struggling to produce a sample at doping control.
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Both losses were slender and could have been avoided were it not for ineffective first-half displays – something Shaw says cannot be repeated when they return to domestic action with a trip to Watford on Sunday.
“Beforehand I said to the boys, “If we go all out and they play five per cent less then we can win”.
Wayne Rooney, Antonio Valencia and Luke Shaw return to Jose Mourinho’s matchday squad as Manchester United return from the Netherlands.
He told United’s official website: “You win matches and people are happy and full of confidence”.
“When you lose matches, there are no miracles in terms of the players’ soul”, he said. That is the normal nature of football players. We don’t have time to dwell and we have a few days to recover.
However, Martial is still a far better option than any of Lingard, Memphis Depay or Ashley Young, the latter two of whom are surely fighting for their future at the club at this stage rater than knocking on the door of the first team. They scored the goal, which I don’t think we deserved.
I think we kept our plan no matter which player played.
United were the square root of pathetic on the night and eventually lost out 1-0 to a bang average Feyenoord side – the Dutch side eventually prevailing through sheer persistence and grunt, perhaps epitomised by the tireless shift put in by their venerated captain, Dirk Kuyt.
Not for the first time since his world-record move to United, France midfielder Pogba was a subdued figure and he shot tamely over early in the second half.
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Morgan Schneiderlin and Ander Herrera gave very good accounts of themselves, certainly good enough that they should at least be in contention to start against Watford. It starts minute zero at 0-0 so I think it has nothing to do with the previous two matches.
