Manuel Akanji was left frustrated after the ‘joke’ decision to award Manchester United’s equaliser in their derby win over Manchester City, but the Swiss international admits his defensive colleagues can help kick-start their stuttering form
Manuel Akanji said: “The Southampton game was totally different to today [vs United]. We didn’t do well in that game, we lost a lot of duels, we didn’t play well with the ball, I think we did a lot better today. We were in a good position for a long time and then we conceded the two goals. For me, it’s a different game today than it was against Southampton. I think our performance was better today than on Wednesday but still in the end in the league it’s the three points that matter. We should have come out of it with these three points, but we made some mistakes, and we have to improve for the next game. Hopefully we can show it on Thursday against Tottenham. It won’t be an easy game, but also when we get the lead, we have to be clear in our heads, we’ve got to finish our attacks, defend together until the last minute and keep a clean sheet. I think in every game if we can keep a clean sheet our attackers are always capable of scoring a goal. If we don’t concede goals, we can make the most of the game – that’s the goal for the next game. There are still 20 games to go, there’s 60 points to get and hopefully we’ll get all of them.”
After Akanji’s initial frustrations with the United equaliser, which he has described as a ‘joke’ in other interviews, he also accepts that City could have defended the move better – regardless of Rashford’s offside influence.
Manuel Akanji said: “Obviously, we should have done better; we cannot lose the game like this. We had to keep our heads, we cannot concede the second goal like this, we can’t just have everyone up front. Also, with the first goal with the clearance we’ve got to be better in position, maybe the communication wasn’t good enough, but we’ve got to be better in position and we concede the second goal quickly after the 1-1. We tried but obviously it didn’t happen in the end. I think we were in control for most of the time in the game. They scored two goals – the first is questionable but also after that we’ve got to stay clear in the head, defend and got to do better against the goal – that is why we conceded the second goal.”
