MANCHESTER -- Jose Mourinho believes Manchester United deserve to finish second in the Premier League this season and those who suggest his team's top-six rivals have more quality than them are off base.
The United manager suggested after his side's 2-0 win over Swansea on Saturday that other top-six rivals have been given more than their fair share of credit.
Liverpool and Tottenham, in particular, have been praised for their style of football.
But Mourinho insists the table, which shows United two points ahead of Liverpool and four ahead of Tottenham, is proof that his team is better.
"It's important for me that since the moment we left the first position and went to second, we stayed there for the whole of the season," said the 55-year-old.
"We deserved to finish second in spite of what you can say, the critics you make, you all say the third, fourth, fifth, sixth are better than us, but they are not better than us because we have more points than them.
"We are going to fight every match. Seven matches to go, we are going to fight to try and finish second."
With seven games to go, United have 68 points having scored 60 goals.
At the same stage of last season, they were fifth in the table with 60 points and just 48 in the goals scored column.
Manchester City can claim the title by beating United at the Etihad Stadium next weekend. But even if that nightmare scenario plays out, Mourinho insists his team have still made progress.
"We have more points than last season," he added.
"We have more goals scored, we have less goals conceded, we finish sixth, we're going to try to finish second, so the season is not as bad as you try to say."
The United boss was in positive mood after the game but is understood not to have been keen for his players to share their thoughts, despite saying Paul Pogba should explain his drop-off in the build-up to Saturday's match.
Mourinho recalled the club-record signing against Swansea and believes his performance reflected that of the team.
"I think he played like the team,'' the Red Devils manager said of Pogba. "Team played very well in the first half, he played very well in the first half.
"The team in the second half went a little bit down and Paul also went a little bit down, but he played 90 minutes [for France] in Russia and it's normal to go a little bit down with the rest of the players.''
Information from Press Association Sport was used in this story.