Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho blamed his side’s “sloppy” attackers after Anderlecht grabbed a late equaliser in the teams’ Europa League quarter-final first leg.
United led 1-0 in Belgium until the 86th minute, when the hosts equalised with their first effort on target.
“If I was a Manchester United defender, I would be very upset with the attacking players,” Mourinho said.
“They did the serious work. The people who had to kill the game didn’t.”
Henrikh Mkhitaryan tapped in for United in the 36th minute, but it was the only successful effort of their 16 shots at goal.
The visitors’ attack lags well behind the rest of their top-four rivals in the Premier League, having scored only 46 goals. Chelsea, Tottenham, Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal have all managed more than 60.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic is the team’s top-scorer with 28 goals in all competitions, with Mkhitaryan and Juan Mata the only others in double figures.
“It is the same problem,” added Mourinho. “We had control, we had chances, but we do not score enough goals.
“In my poor English, I cannot find a better word than sloppy. You have to play more seriously.
“Put the performance of two or three of our attacking players together and you squeeze not much juice out of it. Marcus Rashford, Jesse Lingard, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Anthony Martial – they were very similar.”
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