Chris Smalling believes Manchester United will fight back from their recent setbacks next weekend against West Brom.

Everton earned a convincing 3-0 win over the Red Devils via goals from James McCarthy, John Stones and Kevin Mirallas at Goodison Park yesterday.




Manchester United were being praised for their slick football over the last few weeks but were second best against Roberto Martinez’s team.

Smalling admits that Everton were the deserving winners and believes Manchester United’s performance should serve as a wake-up call for a team which seemed to have sealed their passage to next season’s Champions League before yesterday.
 


“Right from the first minute we were off the pace and they had a pressure that we usually have", he told MUTV.

relatedNewsStory

"We were second best. This is a massive wake-up call for us.

“I think it was always going to go down to the final couple of games. We’ve got four big games now in which we’ve got to make sure we were better than today.”

The Manchester United defender stressed that they will identify their mistakes and try to make sure that they don’t happen again by working hard on the training pitch.

While he admits that they were second best against Everton yesterday, Smalling believes it has not been the case too often that Manchester United have been outplayed this season and believes they will respond to this latest setback in a positive fashion next weekend against West Brom.

“I think we’ll go back and look at the video tomorrow and, come the next training session, we’ll be eager to put this right.

"We haven’t been the second-best team in games this season, even when we’ve lost, we’ve always had that aggression and those tackles but today we were far from it.

“I think we’ll see a different Manchester United next Saturday against West Brom."

Don't bet on football until you've visited Inside Bet! Interesting markets, top tips, betting facts – get all the info before you bet.