LONDON, England, February 26- Manchester United striker Robin van Persie has accused his team-mates of getting in his way following a horror showing in front of goal during the 2-0 Champions League defeat at Olympiakos on Tuesday.
The Red Devils managed just one solitary shot on target over the entire 90 minutes of their last-16 tie, meaning goals from Alejandro Dominguez and Joel Campbell have left the Premier League champions with a mountain to climb in the return leg.
Speaking after the game, a clearly frustrated Van Persie lashed out at his colleagues, saying: “It was quite difficult because my team-mates are often in the area where I want to play,” he said.
“That’s why I have to change my tactics. Unfortunately, they are often in my area.
“It was much too slow and we only had one shot on target in the whole match against Olympiakos, which is far too little. Everyone is very disappointed.”
Meanwhile, United manager David Moyes believes his side produced the ‘worst’ European night of their season on Tuesday, but admits the responsibility lies solely with himself.
The Red Devils saw their hopes of progressing to the Champions League quarter-finals severely dented as Olympiakos recorded a 2-0 win in the first-leg of their last-16 encounter.
The shock result is the latest in a long line of below-par outings from United this term following the appointment of Moyes as manager, and the Scotsman admits the Old Trafford outfit are just not performing as they should be.
He said: “It’s the worst we’ve played in Europe, that’s for sure. A really poor performance tonight. We never got going from the start and we didn’t deserve anything because of the way we played tonight.
“We just never really got to grips with things. To a man, you could hardly pick anyone out, we just didn’t perform. We came into the game in good form, a good mind set, but we didn’t show that tonight.
“I still didn’t think we were necessarily two goals worse off in the game. We had a shot that gets deflected, but we didn’t offer enough on the night.
– TEAMtalk Media