Manchester United will be in Europa League last 32 after finishing third in their Champions League group; Jose Mourinho says teams should not be allowed to enter a new tournament if they are knocked out of a previous one; Tottenham boss says PSG-Basaksehir walk-off 'iconic'
Wednesday 9 December 2020 14:23, UK
Jose Mourinho believes Manchester United are one of the favourites to win the Europa League - but says Tottenham's Premier League rivals should not be in the competition.
Manchester United - where Mourinho was manager between 2016 and 2018 - dropped into the tournament after being knocked out of the Champions League on Tuesday night.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side will finish third in their group after losing 3-2 away to RB Leipzig, and will now join the Champions League's other third-placed sides in the knockout rounds of the Europa League.
Mourinho won the competition with United in May 2017 - before being sacked 18 months later - and believes his former club have a good chance of repeating his success, saying: "Of course now Manchester United become one of the top favourites to win the competition.
"The teams that drop from the Champions League are always strong teams. Normally they don't belong at the level of the Europa League. And Manchester United is one of the top teams.
"The group was very hard - Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester [United] and Leipzig - and we all knew it. It was not going to be easy for any one of them and we knew, from that group, a top team would drop into the Europa League."
Mourinho was then asked about comments he had previously made about disagreeing with third-placed Champions League sides entering the Europa League, to which he replied: "It's a point of principle and if it happened to my team, I would feel exactly the same.
"It is the way it is and honestly brings more quality to the competition - we cannot forget that.
"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. No doubts. And when the quality improves, the attention improves. It's a good thing for the competition.
"But by the sports point of view is where I think it is not fair. A team that doesn't succeed in one competition drops to another. Imagine the third team in the Europa League - now there is another competition - and the third team, instead of finishing, goes to another competition in the hierarchy of European football.
"In football, when for some reason we don't succeed… unlucky, next season. But it is the way it is and is not a problem for me."
Tottenham are guaranteed to be in the Europa League last-32 draw - alongside United - after securing qualification from their group last week, and will finish top if they beat Antwerp at home on Thursday.
But Spurs will likely be without Serge Aurier, who went into Sunday's win over Arsenal carrying an injury, and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, who Mourinho suggested would be rested ahead of Sunday's game at Crystal Palace, live on Sky Sports.
Speaking ahead of Antwerp's visit to north London, Mourinho also offered his thoughts on PSG's and Istanbul Basaksehir's players refusing to complete their Champions League tie on Tuesday due to alleged racism by the fourth official.
The Turkish side accused Sebastian Coltescu of using racist language towards their assistant coach, Pierre Webo, leading to players from both sides leaving the field.
They did not return and the game will instead be completed on Wednesday with a new team of officials.
Mourinho said: "It's a very sad situation and every form of racism has to be fought. It's never accepted. I'm very sad because we don't want that in football.
"The fourth official... only he can express his feelings. Of course he made an unacceptable mistake but only he can open his heart, apologise and accept the consequences.
"Probably he is a very good referee [but] everyone in football and society, we have our responsibilities in relation to these situations and if we make mistakes, we have to accept the responsibilities.
"But more important for me is that that game becomes quite iconic. Champions League, to stop after 15 minutes for a very sad reason, will become iconic and hopefully, in the future, never happens again.
"But as a football guy, I'm very, very sorry that in my industry, that situation happened."
