Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho singled out his attacking players for the frustrating 1-1 draw with Anderlecht.
The Red Devils dominated the game in Belgium but the Europa League quarter-final first leg ended level.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan gave Manchester Untied a first-half lead but their failure to add to that was punished when Anderlecht striker Leander Dendoncker scored with a powerful header in the 86th minute. To rub it in it was the hosts first and only shot on target.
‘We have to kill matches. We have chances, we have control, we don’t score goals, you risk,’ Mourinho told BT Sport.
Asked why Manchester United struggled to score more, Mourinho replied: ‘Lots of space to play, lots of space to kill. Good chances. Lots of half chances. A bad decision, a bad control, a sloppy touch, a flick. Very bad decisions in the last third.
‘Then a team with good organisation, good defensively. Darmian very solid, Michael Carrick.
‘Then one chance, one mistake and we were punished.’
He continued: ‘I think [sloppy] is the right word – in my poor English I cannot find a better word. I think you have to play more seriously. You put all together the performance of two or three of our attacking players and you squeeze and not much juice out of it.
‘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.
‘If I was one of my defenders I’d be very disappointed.’
Asked about Marcus Rashford’s performance, Mourinho revealed he laid as much blame on the youngster as the rest of his strikers.
‘The same as the others. Rashford, Jesse Lingard, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Anthony Martial. I think they were very similar.’
Manchester United host Anderlecht in the return leg next Thursday where they look to advance to the semi-finals.
‘It’s a valuable goal [Mkhitaryan’s away strike], it’s a valuable result. We have all the conditions to kill everything,’ said Mourinho.
COMMENTS