Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has insisted that there are a lot of positives for him to read into this season despite finishing 19 points behind Manchester City in the league table, after the Red Devils ended their season with a 1-0 win over Watford.

The fixture had the end of the season feeling about it and the game lacked intensity in the first half-hour with both teams creating little to nothing to threaten each other’s goals.




Marcus Rashford’s pace up front meant the Watford defenders had to be mindful about their defensive line, but other than Michael Carrick trying to find the Manchester United forward with some diagonal balls, little was being offered in terms of threat by the home side.

However, Carrick, playing the last league game of his career, did make an impact when his lobbed pass found Juan Mata, who managed to beat the offside trap, and squared the ball to Rashford, who executed an easy finish to give Mourinho’s side the lead in the 34th minute.
 


Watford has their own chances to score towards the end of the half and Richalirson forced Sergio Romero into make a great save when his header looked destined for the goal.  

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And just a minute later Gerard Deulofeu drove a fierce shot straight at Romero, but the Manchester United goalkeeper didn’t make any mistake to safeguard his side’s lead going into the break.

The second half had the same lack of intensity and the game only picked up pace in the final quarter when Watford looked for the equaliser and spaced opened up.

But both teams again created very little and while Watford showed more intent, Romero had a quite game after the break.

As the minutes rumbled on Manchester United looked content with the one goal and they closed out the game for all three points and breached the 80-point barrier in the league for the first time since they won the title in 2013.

It is Manchester United best finish in the league since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement and Mourinho stressed that there are so many positives to look into this season for the Red Devils.

The Manchester United manager told MUTV: "If you want to see the positive side then this is the best position for the past five years, a huge amount of points that normally would give a fight for the title, lots of clean sheets, the Golden Glove, more goals than last season and the second best team in the country.

“Also we are one of the two best teams in the FA Cup, if you want to read the season in a positive way, you can.”

However, Mourinho is not too pleased with Gary Neville saying that Scott McTominay is not good enough to play in the Manchester United midfield moving forward and he took a pointed dig at the former club captain.

"If you want to be negative, you can be negative until the point that you can say that Scott McTominay is not good enough.”