Jose Mourinho is Manchester United's 'biggest asset' for Champions League, says Frank Lampard

The United manager is a two-time winner of the competition and has never been knocked out at the group stages

Samuel Lovett
Wednesday 13 September 2017 15:00 BST
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Jose Mourinho has a proven record in the Champions League
Jose Mourinho has a proven record in the Champions League

Former Chelsea player Frank Lampard believes Jose Mourinho is Manchester United’s “biggest asset” for their Champions League campaign.

After a nearly two-year absence, United made their return to Europe’s elite competition on Tuesday night as they beat Swiss champions Basel 3-0 at Old Trafford.

Marouane Fellaini, Romelu Lukaku and Marcus Rashford were all on point as United got their campaign off to a positive start – despite Mourinho’s insistence that he wasn’t happy with his side’s “PlayStation” performance.

After Tuesday night’s win, Lampard has backed his former manager, a Champions League two-time winner who has never been eliminated in the competition’s group stages, to take United into the knockout stages.

Writing in his column for the Evening Standard, the former Blue described Mourinho as United’ “biggest asset”.

"They will comfortably get through their group. With the squad they have now and how manager Jose Mourinho is, you have to say they will get to the last eight at the very least," he said.

"Mourinho is their biggest asset. You saw it in the Europa League last season. They had a very average Premier League season, but when it came to the crunch in the cup games, Mourinho did the business.

"People will say it’s the players that do it on the pitch, but you only have to look at how Mourinho set the team up against Ajax in the final - he was very pragmatic about it, dealt with their threats and worked on his team’s strengths. Mourinho comes up with a way to win games."

United take on CSKA Moscow in their next Champions League fixture as they bid to finish top of Group A.

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