• ‘I’m not happy with just fourth, I want to fight for trophies’ • David Moyes says Sunderland players have not accepted likely relegation

José Mourinho and humility often appear strangers but Manchester United’s manager exuded a definite sense of relief that his team are still in the race to finish in the top four following their 3-0 win at Sunderland on Sunday, with the Portuguese stating that his side will not stop “fighting” to finish as high as possible.

Sunday’s victory left United only four points short of the Champions League places with eight games to go and a game in hand over Manchester City in fourth. “We’re still there, trying to put some pressure on to go into the last month still fighting,” Mourinho said. “We’re still fighting for the top four and we can win the Europa League – although it’s as difficult as finishing fourth. But we have to fight for it. I’m not happy with just fighting for fourth, I want to fight for trophies.”

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United visit Anderlecht in the first leg of the Europa quarter-finals on Thursday and on this evidence Luke Shaw may start for them at left-back. The young England player has found himself the subject of sustained criticism from United’s manager but Mourinho made a point of praising Shaw’s performance and pointed out his withdrawal in the second half was precautionary due to an earlier yellow card.

“He played really well, played solid,” said the Portuguese. “The opposition was not creating big problems but he was confident with the ball, went forward with some danger, he was reading the game well. It was a good hour for him. I thought about changing him at half-time because he’d been booked and I needed to be sure he’d be available for the next game but then thought that would be too harsh.”

Mourinho felt the word solid could be applied to his side in a collective senseon a day when Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s 28th goal of the season preceded efforts from the impressive Henrikh Mkhitarayan and Marcus Rashford, who scored his first league goal since September after stepping off the bench.

“It was an important win and a solid performance against a team that is sad,” United’s manager added. “When you play a team that is sad, if you score first the game is almost over because it is difficult for them to react. You could feel that negative feeling that is around a team that is close to relegation.”

David Moyes’s efforts to get the better of the Old Trafford club who sacked him three years ago were not helped by Seb Larsson’s controversial 43rd-minute sending off by Craig Pawson for an admittedly slightly high challenge on Ander Herrera.

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“I didn’t think it was a good decision and I also think Victor Anichebe might have had a penalty after he was impeded when he was about to shoot,” said the Sunderland manager, whose side are still bottom, 10 points adrift of 17th place, and have not scored in their past seven games. “We have to fix our own faults but I certainly didn’t think the decision helped us today. I don’t want to really focus on the referee and I don’t want to make out it’s the referee’s fault but I think the decision had an impact on the game.”

Moyes, who is expected to face censure by the Football Association this week for the unfortunate comments he directed at the BBC’s Vicki Sparks last month, also rebutted suggestions that his players might already have surrendered.

“We keep fighting, we keep going,” he said after suggesting he will consider attempting to overturn Larsson’s impending suspension by appealing against the sending-off. “We need to give the supporters and everybody else here that little bit of hope. Scoring goals is a problem but no, I don’t think the players have accepted relegation. We’ll keep going until it’s mathematically impossible to stay up.”