There are negative feelings in United – Mourinho
Manchester United defeated Feyenoord 4-0 in the Europa Cup yesterday but Mourinho insists his team have to be more ruthless during their Premier League matches.
Under-fire captain, Wayne Rooney, Juan Mata and Jesse Lingard were all on target to take them to the brink of the knockout phase.
The Portuguese’s men are sixth in England’s top flight, nine points behind leaders Chelsea, having gone through a frustrating run of home draws against Stoke City, Burnley and Arsenal.
Mourinho said after the match, “You have immediately negative feelings because we play so well and don’t score goals and don’t win matches.
So what we need in the Premier League is exactly that, a match where you score goals,” he said.
“People like Zlatan [Ibrahimovic], like Rooney, whose happiness depends on the goals they score, they need that.”
“Against Stoke the goalkeeper won the man of the match, against Burnley the goalkeeper won the man of the match, against Arsenal Petr [Cech] was not the man of the match, but was not far from that.
“We need to put the ball in the net. We scored four, but we missed three or four chances. So I think it’s just that because that has also to be with confidence levels.
“We were winning 1-0 and were missing chances, we lost the ball in midfield and they got a direct free-kick 18 metres from the goal and I thought ‘1-1’.”
Henrikh Mkhitaryan started against Feyenoord, having been largely excluded from Mourinho’s plans since a close-season switch from Borussia Dortmund, although the United boss was forced to field questions over Anthony Martial’s omission from the squad.
“He was okay for this game, it was just an option [not to pick him],” Mourinho added. “He played last Sunday, I cannot play with 12 players, I cannot use 19 or 20 on the bench.
“You wanted to see Mkhitaryan, I wanted to see him too. I cannot play all of them at the same time so it was just an option.
“Players have to win their positions. They are friends, they are colleagues, they work together every day, but at the end they compete between themselves to have more chances to play.
“Anthony played against Arsenal; this was the moment to give a chance to Mkhitaryan to start.”
United face West Ham in the Premier League on Sunday.
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