Herrera Reveals Mourinho Meeting

Ander Herrera has revealed to MUTV that a conversation with new Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho led to his deeper position in central midfield, with both agreeing he could be an “important player” this season.

The 27-year-old Spaniard started last Sunday’s 3-1 win at Bournemouth as a combative deep-lying midfielder and earned plenty of his praise for his performance at the Vitality Stadium, with Reds legend Gary Neville even naming him his personal Man of the Match on Twitter. During an interview with MUTV ahead of Friday’s match with Southampton, Herrera was pleased with his display.

“I had to do a different role in the team and I think I can be important there for the manager,” Ander explained. “I have spoken with the manager and we are agreed with that, that I can be an important player for the team and that I can help the team in that position. I think I can win a lot of balls back for the team. My instinct is to try to win the ball back for the team as quickly as possible.

“I felt really, really good and not only with the ball, but also without it. The team was very compact, you can feel that always you are pressing the ball when you have two or three team-mates close to you, helping you, so I want to keep doing the same and helping the team."

Herrera also spoke about how much the team has already improved this season and outlined how Mourinho had instructed the players to beat Bournemouth by several goals so that United could sit at the top of the Premier League after the first round of fixtures last weekend.

“I feel that the level of the team has gone up,” he said. “I think we can get good things together, we can do something important this season, not only because we have won the last two games. I think if you can see our training sessions every day you feel something special, everyone is happy, we want to play as quickly as possible, we want to keep winning games, we want to be top of the table.

“I remember before the game against Bournemouth, the manager said if we score one goal we have to try to score the second goal because we want to be top of the table right now. So that’s a good mentality I think. But of course we have to keep our feet on the floor because the season is long.”

Looking forward, Herrera is relishing the prospect of playing alongside new signing Paul Pogba, a player he has a lot of admiration for. “I think he’s a top player, maybe one of the best five players in the world that we have with us so it’s very important. He can recover the ball, he can shoot on goal, he can dribble and he can defend so he has everything. We are so lucky because we have him.

"When you think about the best players in the world they are very good but maybe they are very good at specific things. But Paul is good at everything so we are going to enjoy him. As a midfielder I will feel very good if I have the chance to play with him."