Manchester United midfielder Ander Herrera expressed his sympathy for United fans after their Manchester derby defeat to neighbours City.
Kevin de Bruyne and Kelechi Iheanacho’s goals gave City a two-goal lead midway through the first-half, before Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s volley pulled one back after City keeper Claudio Bravo had spilt the ball from a free-kick.
Despite an improved performance in the second half, which saw the introduction of Herrera, José Mourinho’s side were unable to find an equaliser and it was Pep Guardiola that drew first blood in the newest chapter of his heated rivalry with Mourinho.
After the match, Herrera spoke to MUTV and said:
We lost the derby against our local opponents and tomorrow our fans are going to face friends who are City fans. I feel sorry for them.
We are trying to win every game but it cannot happen. We knew it [not winning] was going to happen sooner or later. Ideally, it could have happened later but this is football and we are going to get stronger.
The Spanish midfielder also said that the Reds could not make any excuses about their poor first-half performance and they had to turn their attentions to their first Europa League group game against Feyenoord on Thursday:
City won the game in the first half. We cannot make excuses now. We just have to think about the next game and try to win at Feyenoord.
We must look forward, be balanced in our minds and not go crazy – it’s only the fourth game of the season. But of course, when you lose a derby against your local opponent it’s painful.
The good things that I can take from this game is that even though it wasn’t our best performance we put them under pressure in the second half.
They (City) wanted to finish the game from ten minutes after half-time, so we did some good things but we want to be champions and when you want to be champions you have to play well from the first minute.
