Juan Mata admits Manchester United are determined to win Europa League

Jose Mourinho got his wish for a short trip when Manchester United were paired with Anderlecht in the quarter-finals of the Europa League.

17 (or 14 if Anderlecht knock them out) games in 70 days, that’s an average of a game every four days should they reach the Europa League final.

“I can understand if you don’t have any help in relation to the Premier League, but I don’t understand not having any help in relation to European football”, Mourinho said.

“I’ve never once heard any of them complain”, he said, perhaps because he’s done all the complaining for them. They simply don’t care. There are other interests that are more important. And they need every coin to survive when Paul is a multimillionaire.

Middlesbrough are winless in their last 12 meetings with Man Utd in all competitions (D5 L7), although they did progress via penalties in their League Cup clash in October 2015. They speak English no problem. Me? Germany’s doing that. “It makes no sense (not to do it)”.

” It is hard for me to believe we are going to play tomorrow in that field – if you can call it a field”.

United are favourites to win the competition for the first time in Solna, Sweden on May 24 which could earn them a passage into next season’s Champions League, a fact not lost on Juan Mata, who scored United’s victor against Rostov. “It’s as simple as that”. We are so many matches away and some of those are against big opponents who have experience in the Champions League. We will probably lose the game on Sunday.

“But we are professionals, so the next morning we were here to train. We tried to rest him in the Cup tie at Blackburn but he had to come on, and now he is paying the price”.

United began the second half slowly, with Rostov creating their first real opportunity of the game in the 54th minute when Sardar Azmoun bent an effort towards goal from the edge of the area that Sergio Romero did well to turn around the post.

United are the only team in the top six left in European competition, which Mourinho feels puts his side at more of a disadvantage than it should do. They don’t know what fatigue is, they don’t know what accumulation is, they don’t know what it is to go home tonight and don’t speak because of fatigue.

“My teams’ injury records are very, very good”, said Mourinho. “He was already feeling his hamstring in the first half”. ‘He gets millions, let him run.