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The evening at Rotterdam had already turned sour for the Manchester team after they slipped to a 1-0 defeat to Feyenoord, but things were made worse for stand-in captain, Chris Smalling, who almost missed the flight home.
Smalling along with Ander Herrera were selected for routine testing by anti-doping officers. The defender spoke to club channel MUTV after the game, and was then asked to give a urine sample for dope testing but had a hard time in producing one due to dehydration.
The former Fulham player was then escorted by the police to the airport, which enabled him to make his flight in the nick of time.
After the entire incident, the Dutch police who had helped the player with his departure posted a photo on social media saying, “End of service. 1 player of MU in the nick (of time) put on the plane. Could not urinate at the doping control.”
Smalling and his Manchester United teammates, could not help United bounce back from their derby defeat against city rivals Manchester City, and lost their second consecutive game.
Smalling urges teammates to do better
The 26-year-old urged his teammates to pick up their form as they look to avoid a third consecutive defeat. He asked for his team to show more character on Sunday in order to avoid a repeat of the recent run of results.
The defender, who was making his first start of the season, felt that the team did play with more intensity in the second half of the game but felt that they were outmatched comprehensively in terms of desire by the Feyenoord team.
Speaking to MUTV, the defender said that the team were confident of a result, "I think we came into this game very confident and we thought we'd get a good result. We wanted to give ourselves a good start to the group but unfortunately, we didn't play up to our usual standards."
“They didn't create too many chances but we didn't do enough either to win the game. I think our urgency was there in the second half but we needed to have that in the first half as well.”
In a bid to shake things up, Mourinho made eight changes to the team that had started on the weekend. Marcus Rashford was given a start ahead of Zlatan Ibrahimovic in this game as Rooney was rested for the trip to Rotterdam.
United who had started off their campaign by winning the Community Shield against Leicester City and their first three Premier League matches, tasted defeat for the first time this season against Manchester City.
United next face Watford at Vicarage Road on Sunday.
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