Spurs boss Jose Mourinho says Manchester United are favourites to win the Europa League. The Red Devils dropped to the Europa League after finishing 3rd in their Champions League group. Man United failed to reach the knockout stages of the UCL after falling to a 3-2 defeat at the hands of RB Leipzig, and will now play the rest of their European football this season in the Europa League alongside Mourinho’s Tottenham Hotspur, Leicester and Arsenal. The Europa League group stages rounds up tomorrow, and the draws will be held just Jose Mourinho feels that Man United are among the favourites to win the competition. According to him, teams dropping from the Champions League are always at a different level to those already in the Europa League.
“The teams that drop down are always strong teams, teams that normally don’t belong to this level,” Jose said in his press conference ahead of Tottenham’s final group match against Antwerp on Thursday 10th December.
Group H was a hard group
Jose hailed Man United as one of the top teams but says their Champions League group -which has French Champions and beaten finalists from last season PSG – is a tough group. Group H also contains last season’s semi finalists Leipzig.
“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.”
Leipzig who beat Man United 3-2 on match day 6 progressed to the knockout rounds ahead of the Red Devils. They will be joined by Paris St Germain who play Basaksehir in a rescheduled fixture after the initial match on Tuesday was suspended 14 minutes in, due to an alleged racism row that saw the Basaksehir players walk off the pitch in protest.
Europa League would be tougher
With more teams dropping to the Europa League ahead of the round of the Round of 32 draw, Jose expects a tougher competition and says the level will improve.
“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,”
When is Round of 32 drawn?
The draw for the Europa League Round of 32 takes place at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, on Monday 14 December just after the Champions League Round of 16 draw takes place at the same venue. The live stream for the Europa League will begin here at 13:00 CET.