Wayne Rooney rued Manchester United’s defensive mistakes in the defeat to his former club Everton and lamented their habit of making life hard for themselves.
• Payne: Time for change at United
• Jolly: Moyes’ depressing return
The striker, who captained United in their 2-0 loss at Goodison Park, agreed with manager David Moyes’ theory that United passed the ball well but admitted they lacked the quality to create chances.
United did not record a shot on target in the first half and Rooney felt United’s “sloppy” defending cost them.
Phil Jones handled Romelu Lukaku’s shot to allow Leighton Baines to break the deadlock from the penalty spot before Kevin Mirallas added a second goal.
“We're obviously disappointed with the result,” Rooney told MUTV. “I thought that in the first half we moved the ball well, but we just didn’t penetrate enough.
“We moved the ball quite well and they were struggling to get near us at times, but we just had to try to break them down. They sat quite deep, so we might have needed more width or more runners in behind to create space, but it was a difficult game.
“Everyone knows that it’s a difficult place to come and Everton made it difficult for us by putting bodies behind the ball, but we conceded two really sloppy goals, which we need to cut out because we’re making it hard for ourselves to get back into games.
“Obviously, once they got the first goal we knew it would be tough and the second goal was a big blow. It’s not nice when you concede just before half-time at a place like this. Everton are in good form and they've got a lot of confidence so we knew it would be hard. We knew that if we got a goal after half-time we could put them under pressure, but unfortunately it didn't come.
“I think for the first goal, the ball obviously hit Phil’s hand, so we went behind to a penalty when we had control of the game. For the second one, we should have stopped the counter-attack first of all. They ran in behind us and in fairness, it was a good finish, but it’s not good enough.”
United were condemned to their 11th defeat of the league season to ensure they cannot finish in the top four and Rooney added: “Overall, the result is a real disappointment to us.”