Nemanja Matic warns Man Utd have ‘no excuses’ not to launch title challenge

Nemanja Matic has warned that there are no excuses if Manchester United fail to mount a title bid this season.

Matic, 32, the Serbian midfielder who lifted the Premier League twice in his time at Chelsea, believes Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s men must challenge Liverpool’s dominance at the top of the table.

United finished third last season to return to the Champions League, but the message from inside the dressing room is that the team must improve.

Matic said: “From the next season there is no excuse.

“We have to go with everything. We have to fight for the title because I felt that this year we dropped some points too easy.

“We allowed Liverpool to win, I don’t know, ten games before the season finished.

“They won the league, so we cannot allow that. We need to fight to the end.

“We have to play with more confidence, with more responsibility.”

Matic seemed on his way out at Old Trafford before Solskjaer urged the club to hand him a new deal.

He signed a three-year contract last month.

In an interview with the United Podcast, he added: “My personal target is to win the league with United – and I am sure that everyone wants to do the same.

“We have to promise our supporters that we will do our best – exactly what we have done after corona when we started to play again.

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“That’s United. We have to win five, six consecutive games then you can drop some points, then again you have to do that run.

“Like that we can win the league.

“In the beginning of the season we were not stable, we won one or two games then we lost and we drew.

“Proper United is exactly what we did after corona and I hope we can continue like that next season.”

***You can listen to the rest of the interview from Monday evening here