Morgan Schneiderlin: Fight for the Shirt

Manchester United’s 4-0 win against visiting Everton on Sunday drew a range of reactions from fans and pundits.

Some viewers saw a marked improvement from Thursday’s disastrous visit to Atalanta, and an Everton side that stood to-to-toe with the Red Devils until capitulating to let in a few late goals as the Toffees pressed for an equalizer. The effort and organization were a big step forward for some, and gave them optimism as Everton emerge from their brutal opening stanza of matches.

For others, however, the 4-0 result was just more of the poor defending and flaccid attacking play that has led to a string of multiple goal defeats, all by shut out.

Experienced players like Morgan Schneiderlin, they see both sides of the coin.

Speaking to evertonfc.com the Frenchman was quite pleased with the way the Toffees played against his former team -

“Of course [we felt like we were in the game up until the second goal].

“We knew that coming to Old Trafford, we had to keep good possession of the ball and then we could create some chances.

Schneiderlin noted that his side were able to achieve those goals, and barely missed out on a number of chances to even the match back up after Antonio Valencia’s wonder strike.

“Wayne Rooney went close right at the start of the second half and then Gylfi Sigurdsson had a chance in the second half, too. We could have scored and got it back to 1-1 but we didn’t do that.

Besides the tactical improvements, the holding midfielder was also happy with the resolution and fight the Toffees showed in response to Thursday’s lackluster performance.

“We have to take the positives after our performance compared to Thursday, which was horrendous from our point of view. We knew before the game we had to find the fighting spirit that we lacked in the past couple of games.

“It was a case of showing our fans that we are here, that we fight for the ball and fight for the shirt. I think we showed that for a long period of time.

Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images

Of course Schneiderlin, having given away a penalty himself for a handball, knows that Everton must prevent major hiccups to compete in a match against a side with quality like Man United.

“We can’t make the mistakes we did because you get punished.”

All-in-all though, the midfielder knows that the only thing that will turn around the mood at Goodison Park is winning, with Wednesday’s Carabao Cup match with Sunderland the first chance to rebuild the teams confidence.

“Yes, we’re disappointed and nobody wants to lose 4-0 but whether it’s 2-0 or 4-0, it’s still a defeat. We found some aggression back today and we need to look forward to the next game.”

Schneiderlin put in a much-improved performance himself yesterday after looking out-of-sorts since returning from his red card against Manchester City, we’ll look forward to seeing if he can sustain that going forward.