United, who suffered their first league defeat of the season against Manchester City last Saturday, are fourth in the table.
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“It is obvious that we left players like (Antonio) Valencia and (Luke) Shaw at home to play and to rest so we go back to a normal team without so many changes”, Mourinho told BT Sport.
Jose Mourinho was frustrated by the result and the fact Nicolai Jorgensen was not called offside in the build-up to Tonny Vilhena’s later victor – something that irked Smalling, as did the overall display.
Another similarity in the Group A opener was Mourinho’s belief that the defeat was undeserved, albeit their performance was not brilliant for the duration.
“Obviously when you lose matches the mood, the feeling, is not the same”.
“I am not saying bad, but I’m saying not with the ambition you need to win football matches”.
“In the second half, they answered my half-time words and it is not disappointing as it was in our best period that we lost the game”. “Some of the players were playing their first minutes of the season, not many minutes for them”, Mourinho added.
Signed to much fanfare and for a world-record fee, the France midfielder was anonymous for large parts of the encounter in Holland.
“I tried to not let him play a lot and it was good”.
“No, no – I think he showed some class today”, he said smiling when asked if the Frenchman was still in his back pocket.
Mourinho opted to leave Zlatan Ibrahimovic on the bench but turned to the striker in the second half, making all three changes at once with Ashley Young and Memphis Depay also entering the fray.
But Mourinho insists he will not react any more acutely to the recent losses than he did when United made a 100 per cent start to the new campaign before the global break.
“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. I know they want to work”.
“At the right moment we scored the goal – a fantastic goal on the counter-attack”.
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“We fought in the contest”.
