Manchester United’s Spanish international midfielder Juan Mata said it is time for his team to play well rather than talk a good game, starting with Swansea on Sunday.
The 28-year-old – United’s player of the month in a spell of poor results for them and manager Jose Mourinho including a 4-0 hammering by Chelsea – added the team needed to show character to arrest their dip in form.
United go into the Swansea match on the back of Mourinho slamming their performance in the Europa League 2-1 defeat by Fenerbahce saying they played as if it was a “friendly”.
“We need to show personality especially when the moments are not so good and we are having defeats,” Mata told ‘United Uncovered’.
“After that there are very difficult days until the next game so we need to show personality and we need to play well as a team.
“We need to show all the fans and everyone that we want to win every game and we need to show that passion on the pitch.
“It’s good for us to come and talk about all we have to do but where we need to talk is on the pitch.”
Mata, who scored in the corresponding fixture last season but ended up on the losing side, said he paid little attention to the fact Swansea are struggling this term and are second from bottom after 10 games.
United are currently eighth in the table eight points adrift of the leading trio of Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool.
“I don’t really like to look at statistics before you arrive for a game because normally they change!” he said smiling.
“We need to take it as a very important game for us, we need to win football games in the Premier League, and we need to get closer to the top and pick up three points, then three more points.
“We need to start doing that from this Sunday.”
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