Daniel James still believes Manchester United can finish in the top four, despite suffered another knock back following last night’s defeat against Burnley at Old Trafford.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side were booed off the pitch after goals from Chris Woods and Jay Rodriquez gave the Clarets a two-goal win over the Red Devils.
It denied Man Utd the chance of closing the gap on fourth-placed Chelsea, who drew with rivals Arsenal on Tuesday night. The Gunners were reduced to 10-men following David Luiz’s red card but hung on and scored a late equaliser to take a point from Stamford Bridge.
Despite admitting his team’s performance wasn’t good enough, James believes United can still catch Chelsea in the race for a Champions League spot.
“I think that [top four] is up for grabs,” James told MUTV (via Sky Sports). “We have got to keep fighting, reflect on this game and see what went wrong.
“We have two big cup games, we need to go into that with our heads held high. The league game isn’t for a couple of weeks now, obviously it’s in our minds but we need to concentrate on the next game.”
Watching the game back this morning, it was even more noticeable how he didn’t take our chances while Burnley were clinical. That’s all that separated the two teams last night.
Burnley only had two shots on target and scored from them.
United had a whopping 24 attempts with seven of those forcing Nick Pope into a save.
“We knew it was going to be a tough game,” James added. “We had a lot of possession, a lot of the ball and created chances but we didn’t finish them today.
“They scored from a set piece but even then we thought we could go on to win the game but it wasn’t good enough.”
A lot of work required if United are to finish in the top-four. Ed Woodward needs to dip into his pockets before the January transfer window shuts.
