London
Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho says former club Manchester United will be among the favourites to win the Europa League, but questioned the way in which sides who fail to qualify for the Champions League last 16 drop into the competition.
United will enter the second-tier European competition at the last 32 after losing 3-2 at RB Leipzig in their final Champions League group game on Tuesday.
United won the Europa League in 2017 under Mourinho, who will be looking to guide his current club Spurs to the top of the standings in Thursday’s Group J decider.
“The teams that drop down are always strong teams, teams that normally don’t belong to that level of the Europa League competition,” said the Portuguese.
“Manchester United are one of the top teams. The group was very hard, PSG (Paris Saint-Germain), Manchester and Leipzig, very hard. We all knew it was not going to be easy for any one of them and we all knew from that group a top team would drop into the Europa League.—AFP
