Jose Mourinho questioned Manchester United players’ attitude after their 2-1 defeat to Fenerbahce in the Europa League. Striker Moussa Sow opened the scoring with a stunning overhead kick and Jeremain Lens doubled the lead from a stunning free kick. Wayne Rooney scored a consolation goal for The Red Devils with a 25 yards stunner.
Jose Mourinho slammed his players for the lackadaisical attitude, “They deserved to win. Football is not just about quality; it is about effort and commitment, it is about playing to your limits. In an atmosphere like this, to concede an early goal gives the opposition exactly what they want.
“The opponent can then defend and counter-attack us with a lead and that is our fault for letting them be in that situation. They were playing a Champions League final and we were playing a summer friendly by the way the game started.”
Jose Mourinho had to deploy Daley Blind and Marcos Rojo as centre backs as Chris Smalling and Eric Bailly has been out for an injury for an unknown period. Mourinho admitted that it’s difficult to play with two left-footed player, “It is difficult to cope, having to play with two left-backs at centre-back.
“This makes it tough to cope with the physicality of the game. To try and have the ball and create chances we made attacking changes but we could not create chances to score.”
United are currently third in the points table with 6 points and have an outside chance to qualify if they win their next two matches. On being asked about their qualification chances the Portuguese answered, “We don’t depend on the others, we depend on ourselves. If we win both games we qualify. Even with four points we could qualify, since Feyenoord play Fenerbahce and both sides cannot get maximum points.”
