Mourinho defends team selection after Europa defeat

Jose Mourinho defended his team selection after Manchester United fell to a 1-0 defeat away at Feyenoord in the Europa League on Thursday.

A 79th minute winner from Tonny Vilhena gave the Dutch side their first win over an English opponent in 14 years.

Mourinho admitted that although he made eight changes, the team did enough in the second half to win the match.

“So I looked to this game with proper eyes, you can say: ‘Ah, you changed eight players.’ Ok, I changed eight players but I played with a good team, enough good players to win the match. In the second half they answered my words at half-time, and I’m more disappointed because it’s exactly in our best period that we lost the game,” he said post-match.

His opposite number, Giovanni van Bronckhorst was proud his players were able to keep a clean sheet.

The former defender believes although United made changes to their squad, it was a ‘big bonus’ to earn three points from the opening match in the group stage.

“It was hard to predict which 11 Manchester United and [Jose] Mourinho would use for this game. I think we kept our plan no matter which player played. The players did well, that was the most important thing for us. Of course, he rested a couple of players – it’s still a fantastic team and to win against a team like that is a big bonus,” he added.