adminMANCHESTER. – Winning the Champions League soccer title this season is not beyond Manchester United but the English Premier League club must take it one game at a time, wing-back Ashley Young has said.
United have progressed to the Champions League knockout stages for the first time since the 2013-14 campaign but Manchester City, Spain’s Barcelona and Real Madrid along with Paris St Germain are considered favourites for the title.
United make a trip to Sevilla in the first leg of their last-16 tie tonight and England international Young believes they can prove their doubters wrong.
“Of course (we can win the Champions League),” Young told the British media. “You don’t enter a competition not to win it. That’s what we will be looking to do and take each game as it comes.
“The next one is against Sevilla. That’s a tough away game like Huddersfield, like Newcastle away. That’s what the stadium is like. We just have to concentrate on ourselves.”
After a shock league defeat to Newcastle United this month, Jose Mourinho’s side received a confidence boost with a 2-0 win over Huddersfield Town in the FA Cup on Saturday. Striker Romelu Lukaku scored both goals for United with Juan Mata and Alexis Sanchez bagging an assist each.
“When you have a striker scoring goals, it’s always important. His (Lukaku) hold-up play, his all-round game was fantastic at Huddersfield, and he’s done that all throughout the season,” Young said.
“He’s getting goals. When you’ve got someone who can hold up the ball like he can and get in the box it’s fantastic. And you can see the combinations between them. Alexis comes inside and Rom’s seen him and picked him up as well and they’re picking each other out and they have worked well together so far.”
United, who are second in the league, host fourth-placed Chelsea in a crunch fixture on Sunday but Young said United’s focus was on their trip to Spain.
“We can’t look too far ahead. Obviously we know we have got Chelsea coming up. Sevilla is the next game and that’s where our thoughts are,” Young said.
United’s Champions League trip to Sevilla tonight is the type of occasion for which the English giants swallowed their pride to pay £89 million for Paul Pogba, four years after he left Old Trafford for Juventus as a free agent.
Yet, it remains to be seen whether the French midfielder even starts at the Sanchez Pizjuan for the first leg of the last-16 tie as much due to his form as his fitness.
The arrival of Alexis Sanchez on the left side of the United attack in January has exacerbated those differences as Pogba and the Chilean are yet to complete 90 minutes together. Mourinho described rumours of a breakdown in communication between he and Pogba as “big lies”, but has not hid his criticism of the 24-year-old’s form.
“In this moment he is not playing well . . . and the team needs him at a good level.” No more so than in the next few weeks as in between their two legs against Sevilla, United also host Chelsea and Liverpool in the Premier League with all three sides locked in a battle to finish in the top four.
“When he is not playing at a good level the team is not as good as the team can be,” added Mourinho.
“I think it happens with every team when the best players, the most crucial players, for some reason are not performing.” For the hundreds of millions spent by United in the transfer market in recent seasons, Pogba remains the most marquee of them all having beat off competition from around Europe to make him then the most expensive player in the world in 2016. – Reuters.
Online Reporter