Manchester United striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic admitted he was "tired" in Thursday's Europa League draw at Anderlecht and had no issue with Jose Mourinho's criticism.
After United missed a host of chances and settled for a 1-1 draw, Mourinho placed the blame on Ibrahimovic and his fellow attackers for not supplying a larger cushion.
And Ibrahimovic said he agreed with his manager's assessment of his performance, as United hope to win the competition in order to qualify for next season's Champions League.
"I think he is right in this matter because I was not feeling good in the sense of I was feeling tired," he told multiple English newspapers. "But it is not an excuse because I still have to do well, I still have to do much more and much better than I did. I speak for myself and [Anderlecht] was not a good performance.
"We have one month to go, it is many games we play. I have been playing almost all the games.
"But we are still grinding, we are still pushing because we have the Europa League and the end of the Premier League. We fight for it."
Before the second leg against Anderlecht, United must first take on Premier League leaders Chelsea on Sunday. Ibrahimovic said the Blues would have the advantage of more rest time after failing to qualify for Europe last season.
"I think they are a good team," he said. "Overall a good team and then of course they are playing once a week which makes a difference also because at the end of the season, I do not know how many games we have in total but I think we have much more than them.
"They have not been playing in Europe this season and they went out from the League Cup early. But they have a great team, or else they would not be number one."
At stake is United's 21-game unbeaten Premier League run, which has run since a 4-0 defeat to Chelsea in the reverse fixture in October, though Ibrahimovic said he was not primarily concerned with the statistic.
"I think our unbeaten league run is nothing we focus on," he said. I would prefer to be first in the league and not having this record. It does not give us anything, this record."