United’s Paul Pogba controls the ball during the Group A Europa League match between Feyenoord and Manchester United at the De Kuip stadium in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2016.
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Jose Mourinho has conceded he can not click his fingers and remedy Manchester United’s ills after watching his side surrender to a 1-0 defeat by Feyenoord in the Europa League.
Marcus Rashford’s equaliser in the second-half failed to galvanise a United side that barely trained in preparation for their Premier League fixture after Thursday’s Europa League loss to Feyenoord.
“Beforehand I said to the boys, “If we go all out and they play five per cent less then we can win”. We were double unlucky because it’s a clear offside”.
“We were shown the games before from Manchester United, when they played against Hull City and other teams”.
“In the second half, I think we matched that but we need to do that earlier to give ourselves a better platform to win the game”.
There were a handful of late chances but Smalling knows it was too little too late in a match where they were too often outbattled.
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.
“I think they’ll be in good form and have a lot of confidence from beating West Ham like that”.
Man United legend and BT Sport pundit Paul Scholes said: “I don’t really know what position he’s (Pogba) playing at the minute”.
They have played 58 games without him in all competitions in that period, winning 28 (48 percent of games.) The forward made his United debut in 2004, with the most prolific season being in 2011-12 as he struck 34 goals in 43 appearances in all competitions.
Manchester United are back in Premier League action on Sunday against Watford.
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“Euro final, no preseason, holidays, come back – it’s normal that in the first week he had the very good impact in the first game”. Of course, every player wants to play from the kick-off in every game but, when you play for this club, that’s not so easy.
