Manchester United’s defenders should be upset with their attacking teammates for not killing off their Europa League quarter-final first leg at Anderlecht after grabbing a crucial away goal, said manager Jose Mourinho. United led in the first half via Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s 10th goal of the season, but failed to score more goals and put the tie to bed. The Red Devils were punished for their lackadaisical as Anderlecht’s Leander Dendoncker headed home a late equaliser for the home side to take to Old Trafford next week.
After the game, Mourinho said the result was positive for Manchester United, as they would be playing the second leg at home with an away-goal advantage, but it should have been much better. “We can only blame ourselves because we had an easy game to play in the second half and we didn’t play in attack with that instinct,” he said in the post-match press conference. “We lost the ball easily too many times, we stopped our counter-attacks because of sloppy decisions, sloppy touches of the ball and then we gave them opportunity to have some counter-attacks. But luckily our defenders were very much in the game and they resolved all of these problems. But if I were a Manchester United defender I would be very upset with the attacking players because they have to kill the game and they didn’t.”
United started with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Marcus Rashford, Jesse Lingard, and Mkhitaryan, before Anthony Martial came on in the second half, but still were not able to score more than the one goal. “In my poor English, I cannot find a better word [than sloppy],” Mourinho said. “You have to play more seriously. Put the performance of two or three of our attacking players together and you squeeze not much juice out of it. Rashford, Lingard, Ibrahimovic, Martial. They were very similar [in not doing enough]. But the people behind – very solid, very focused. The defenders did the serious work but the people who had to kill the game didn’t. We start the game at Old Trafford in front, but we had all the conditions to kill the game.”
United’s inability to kill games this season has seen them play out as many as 12 draws in the Premier League so far in 30 matches, despite being unbeaten since October. “We had chances, control, but we don’t score goals; we risk,” Mourinho said, of the Anderlecht game. “There was lots of space to kill, good chances. Lots of chances that we don’t get because of a bad touch, sloppy touch, a flick, bad decisions in the last third. There was a team with good organisation at the back, but one mistake and we were punished.”
Manchester United host Anderlecht for the second leg at Old Trafford next Thursday, before which they welcome the would-be Premier League champions Chelsea on Sunday.
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