It’s clear that Manchester United’s best chance of making it to the Champions League next season is to win the Europa League. The Red Devils are in the quarter-finals of Europe’s second-tier competition and Sunday’s 3-0 win over Sunderland got them to fifth in the Premier League table, four points below fourth-placed Manchester City, against whom they have a game in hand.
However, Manchester United are not giving any one tournament the preference and are fighting for Champions League football on both fronts, manager Jose Mourinho said. “We’re still there, trying to put some pressure on to go into the last month still fighting,” the Portuguese said after Sunday’s match, as reported by The Guardian.
“We’re still fighting for the top four and we can win the Europa League – although it’s as difficult as finishing fourth,” he added. “But we have to fight for it. I’m not happy with just fighting for fourth, I want to fight for trophies.”
United went into Sunday’s match after four of the five teams placed above them won all their games of the weekend. With Arsenal playing on Monday night away to Crystal Palace, the pressure was on Mourinho’s men to get all three points against a Sunderland team battling relegation. United ended up winning 3-0 after Sunderland were reduced to 10 men, a performance that the manager said was “not brilliant” but “a comfortable one”.
‘Solid display’
“The result was good,” Mourinho told MUTV. “We resisted the results of yesterday when Manchester City and Liverpool won, they left us in a position of ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It was ‘yes’. We got three points and it was a solid display.”
United went ahead in the first half via a superb goal from Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The 35-year-old Swede netted for the 28th time this season for the Reds. “It was open at 0-0,” Mourinho said. “We were in control without danger. We were playing quite compact and solid. You need these players to break it. Every team has a couple of them. Zlatan did that. It’s very important and one more goal for him is a beautiful number that he’s getting. We felt the game was in our pocket. In this beautiful weather, the game was played at a more slow intensity.”
Mourinho was also pleased with the performance of young left-back Luke Shaw, who has come under criticism from the Portuguese in the recent past for his attitude. Shaw was brought off in the second half after being booked and with the Europa League quarter-final on Thursday in mind.
“I took Shaw off because of the yellow card and the pressure from the crowd,” Mourinho said. “It was good to protect him but it was also good for him to play one hour with a good solid performance and no mistakes, so I’m really pleased for him.”
‘Kill the game’
United got a two-goal cushion early in the second half after Henrikh Mkhitaryan got the ball on the edge of the penalty area and nutmegged the Sunderland goalkeeper with a low shot into the bottom corner. The game was put to bed a minute before regular time ended, as Marcus Rashford combined with Ibrahimovic to net his first Premier League goal since September.
“I told them in the second half we had to go to kill the game,” Mourinho said, of his halftime address to the team. “It was under control but we needed the second goal to kill mentally the opponent. But I didn’t expect that it was after one minute. I was thinking it had to be after a solid period of intensity for our attacking football. But we started the game, scored a goal and killed it.”