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Jose Mourinho described Manchester United's defending as 'awful' for Lionel Messi's and Philippe Coutinho's goals in their Champions League humbling by Barcelona.

United suffered a 3-0 Champions League thrashing at Camp Nou to bow out of the competition at the quarter-final stage and end a second successive season trophyless.

Both Messi and Coutinho were allowed to move inside and curl efforts beyond the reach of United goalkeeper David de Gea either side of half-time in a 4-0 aggregate triumph.

Mourinho urged United to sign a central defender last summer but, despite interest in Milan Skriniar, Kalidou Koulibaly, Toby Alderweireld, Jerome Boateng, Harry Maguire and Diego Godin, United ended the window without a central defensive reinforcement. By the time of Mourinho's last game in charge at Liverpool on December 16, United had conceded more league goals than they had in the entirety of last season.

United have invested just £76.9million on three centre-backs since Sir Alex Ferguson retired, whereas Manchester City have spent £182.7m on that area and Liverpool £127.7m. Three of United's back four at Barcelona - Phil Jones, Chris Smalling and Ashley Young - were signed by Ferguson.

"Lots of mistakes, lots of goals with awful defending on the inside foot," Mourinho told Russia Today. "You look to Coutinho goal, even to Messi goal."

While speaking specifically about the United match, Mourinho explained: "I think United's approach was different. I think in the first game they tried to occupy that central zone because Messi's position is easy to understand but is not easy to create a cage to control him. Because he comes from the right, then stays in the middle, and then [Ivan] Rakitic defends on the right and allows him to stay in the middle between the lines. It's very difficult.

"Manchester United in the first match, zonally, they occupied that central area very well. So when he came into the inside he was finding Fred, he was finding [Scott] McTominay coming to the inside all the time. In this match, maybe because Man United were losing 1-0, they tried to start the game with a different perspective.

"And then it was [Paul] Pogba wide on the left and McTominay much more on the right and Jesse Lingard playing as a number 10 behind the strikers. And in front of the defensive line was only Fred.

"And that's the area where Messi comes and gets the ball and when Messi has the ball. One, one, one. You are dead. That’s why I never liked individual man-on-man against Messi. Messi's a cage. You have to create a cage.

"Barcelona is Barcelona, they are a better team than Manchester United, they have better players than Manchester United. I think it’s normal they won."