Smalling: Red Devils loss to Watford would cap unacceptable week

Manchester United would be on the end of a third defeat in succession with a loss to Watford this coming Sunday, a string of performances Chris Smalling admits would be unacceptable.

Following last week’s derby defeat to City, Jose Mourinho’s week soured further thanks to Europa League defeat to Feyenoord on Thursday night, with Smalling making his first appearance of the season.

And with a string of marquee signings now in place at Old Trafford, Smalling – stand-in captain in the absence of Wayne Rooney – admits those performances won’t be good enough for Mourinho and co. to be challenging on multiple fronts this season.

(Photo credit: EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images)

“We don’t have time to dwell on the defeat and we have a few days to recover now. We need to stand up and be counted on Sunday,” he said.

“We’ve got to show a lot of character because it’s unacceptable to go and lose three games in a row.

“I think we came into this game very confident and we thought we’d get a good result.

“We wanted to give ourselves a good start to the group but unfortunately we didn’t play up to our usual standards.

“They didn’t create too many chances but we didn’t do enough either to win the game. I think our urgency was there in the second half but we needed to have that in the first half as well.”