Tottenham Hotspur manager Jose Mourinho believes Manchester United was in an unlucky UEFA Champions League group.
United dropped down the UEFA Europa League on Wednesday after a shock 3-2 loss to Germany’s RB Leipzig who took the last 16 spot together with PSG in Group H.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team has thus joined the lower level competition with the likes of Ajax Amsterdam.
“The teams that drop down are always strong teams, teams that normally don't belong to that level," Mourinho said via BBC.
"Manchester United are one of the top teams. The group was very hard - Paris St-Germain, Manchester and Leipzig, very hard.
"We all knew it was not going to be easy for any one of them and we all knew from that group a top team would drop into the Europa League.
CONFIRMED: These 8 teams go into Monday's round of 32 draw ✅#UEL pic.twitter.com/jlo8UvuLFT
— UEFA Europa League (@EuropaLeague) December 9, 2020
Mourinho also took the moment to reveal that he believes the format of moving from the Champions League to the Europa as unfair.
“When you have eight new teams in the competition, and eight teams that belong to another level and they drop to the Europa League, of course the level of the competition is going to improve," added Mourinho.
"The quality improves, the intensity improves and it's a good thing for the competition.
"But from the sports point of view, I think it's not fair that a team that doesn't succeed in one competition drops to another,” he concluded.
