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Christian Eriksen has admitted that there is “massive pressure” on Manchester United to beat Real Sociedad on Thursday in order to keep alive their hopes of playing European football next season.
United enter the Europa League last-16 second leg at Old Trafford with the tie poised at 1-1 after last week’s game at the Anoeta Stadium. After Sunday’s 1-1 draw with Arsenal in the Premier League United are 14th on 34 points, 11 behind Aston Villa in seventh – the last place that may earn a Europa Conference place, depending on who wins the domestic cups. United are out of both.
“It’s massive [the game against Sociedad], we know the pressure, we know the situation we’re in in the league,” Eriksen said. “To get into Europe next season we have to win a lot of games in the league or go through the Europa League, so we know there’s a lot of pressure on that game. But it also comes with being at this club. You play for trophies so we have to play well to go through.”
“It’s where they [United, in Europe] belong, but we don’t belong in the lower half of the Premier League either,” added the Dane. “We will try to do our best to get up the league, we’re not in a position we want to be in. We want to be higher. We’re at United, so we have to be higher. But in the end the ball is still rolling on the pitch so we have to focus on the football and look at the table hopefully at the end of the season when we end up higher.”
Rasmus Højlund failed to score against Arsenal, a 20th consecutive appearance without doing so for the 22-year-old striker, who only has seven goals in 37 appearances for United all season, his last coming against Viktoria Plzen, in the Europa League, three months ago.
Eriksen defended his compatriot, backing him to come good for United. “There’s a lot of players on the pitch, me included, that should score some more goals, it’s not him. But he’s a striker, he lives for the goals, and tries to score goals,” said the 33-year-old. “He’s in these situations [with getting chances today], now it’s about getting the belief of scoring, but he’s a hard working guy who tries his best and wants his best for the team. At some point it will click and it will go the other way.”
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