‘In the second half we were always in control, we were trying to win the game and they were trying not to lose the game.
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United largely underachieved in Louis van Gaal’s two campaigns at the helm and Mourinho was asked about the difficulty he has in restoring confidence at Old Trafford given their difficulties in recent seasons at a post-match news conference. “We know that. We know that when Man United goes to the Europa League we are going to be the team that everybody wants to play against, that everybody wants to fight to their limits, which they did and they had the luck on their side to score a goal in the last part of the game”. Some of our players were playing their first minutes of the season.
Mourinho sent out a much-changed line-up that could not prevent United slipping to a second consecutive defeat after their painful loss to bitter rivals Manchester City in the Premier League. I know that the situation is not click your fingers and everybody is ideal.
“We were trying to win and they were trying not to lose”.
He said: “I don’t want to personalise”.
Mourinho dismissed the sweeping changes as reason for the defeat – “I played with enough good players to win the match”, he said – and was pleased by the players’ reaction to his half-time pep talk.
The Red Devils did show more urgency after the break, but were caught cold by Tonny Vilhena’s 79th-minute victor despite suspicions of offside against Nicolai Jorgensen – who provided the assist.
“I think we had two matches where we didn’t play well for 90 minutes, but two matches where we deserved a better result than what we did”.
Jose Mourinho insisted there is no reason to panic after seeing Manchester United suffer their second defeat in the space of six days in Rotterdam last night.
“I think the left-hand side and right-hand side are problems for United”.
Claude Puel got his first victory as Southampton manager as the Premier League side eased to a 3-0 home victory over Sparta Prague at St Mary’s Stadium in Group K. The Frenchman was left fuming at the weekend when Southampton lost to a harsh injury-time penalty at Arsenal.
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Even so, they still carved out the best chance of the first half when Matteo Darmian’s cross picked out Anthony Martial, who should have done better than fire wide from the edge of the penalty area. “It was double unlucky because it was a clear offside [for Feyenoord’s goal]”.
