Chris Smalling: Manchester United have to catch Liverpool

Manchester United defender Chris Smalling has admitted that they need to start winning games in order to catch Liverpool in fourth place or they will miss out on Champions League football.

Chris Smalling reacts after the final whistle against Stoke City

The reigning Premier League champions lost their eighth league game of the season against Stoke City on Saturday, as Charlie Adam scored twice to win the points for The Potters.

The defeat leaves United trailing Liverpool by seven points and the league leaders Arsenal by 15.

“We’ve got to go into it as if we need to win every game,” said Smalling. “We’re the ones who have to catch Liverpool.

“So we’ve got to win the points and put the pressure on them. We’ve not done ourselves any favours with losses like this.

“It seems as if we are taking onestep forward and then one back. But we need to stick together and really get into the next game because time is running out to pick up these points.

“It is only us players who can really get us out of this muddle and so we really need to stick together.

“We don’t really talk about the Champions League, but I think we all know that’s the minimum we need to aim for.”

The 2-1 loss at the Britannia Stadium was United’s sixth in eight matches if you include the penalty shootout defeat to Sunderland in the Capital One Cup.

Smalling also hopes United’s luck with injuries turn as both Phil Jones and Jonny Evans suffered knocks against Stoke.

The England international added: “You get injuries, you get certain decisions against you, you get deflections. I guess it’s how the game goes.

“There have been a few deflected goals this year which have really not been down to us. Hopefully it will turn in time because we are due some good fortune.

“It was massively frustrating. We played quite well for large parts of the game. On another day the chances we had might have gone in.

“We pressed for the whole second half, we had a lot of the ball but it wasn’t going for us.”