Man Utd Trophy Drought Has Gone on Too Long, Says Dejected de Gea

David de Gea. (AP)
David de Gea. (AP)
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Man Utd Trophy Drought Has Gone on Too Long, Says Dejected de Gea

David de Gea. (AP)
David de Gea. (AP)

Manchester United have gone too many years without trophies and need a more determined collective effort to end their drought, goalkeeper David de Gea said after they crashed out of the Champions League following a defeat by Atletico Madrid.

A first-half header from Renan Lodi gave Atletico a 1-0 win on Tuesday for a 2-1 aggregate last-16 victory that extinguished United's hopes of a title this season and extended their trophy drought to five years.

"Of course it's not good enough," De Gea, who was part of the United squad that won the Europa League crown in 2017, said. "There are too many years without any trophies, even without fighting for trophies.

"We need to be clear we want to achieve good things and fight for trophies. We don't just want to play for the top four and get out of the Champions League in the quarter-finals.

"So we need much more from everyone because this club is too big for where we are now. We are far from the fighting places for the Premier League, for the Champions League, so we need much more from everyone."

United are fifth in the Premier League with 50 points from 29 games and face a daunting task to make the top four and earn a place in next year's Champions League.

"This is where we are at the moment. It's a difficult situation. We have to keep fighting. I feel very sad. But we were not good enough," De Gea said of the Atletico result.

"We are really disappointed with the result. It's difficult to put into words how we feel at the moment. We did not enough in both games to win it. It's a disappointing day for us."



Forest Wins at Wolves and Closes Gap on Premier League Leader Liverpool

Soccer Football - Premier League - Wolverhampton Wanderers v Nottingham Forest - Molineux Stadium, Wolverhampton, Britain - January 6, 2025  Nottingham Forest's Chris Wood celebrates scoring their second goal with Nottingham Forest's Morgan Gibbs-White and Nottingham Forest's Neco Williams REUTERS/David Klein
Soccer Football - Premier League - Wolverhampton Wanderers v Nottingham Forest - Molineux Stadium, Wolverhampton, Britain - January 6, 2025 Nottingham Forest's Chris Wood celebrates scoring their second goal with Nottingham Forest's Morgan Gibbs-White and Nottingham Forest's Neco Williams REUTERS/David Klein
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Forest Wins at Wolves and Closes Gap on Premier League Leader Liverpool

Soccer Football - Premier League - Wolverhampton Wanderers v Nottingham Forest - Molineux Stadium, Wolverhampton, Britain - January 6, 2025  Nottingham Forest's Chris Wood celebrates scoring their second goal with Nottingham Forest's Morgan Gibbs-White and Nottingham Forest's Neco Williams REUTERS/David Klein
Soccer Football - Premier League - Wolverhampton Wanderers v Nottingham Forest - Molineux Stadium, Wolverhampton, Britain - January 6, 2025 Nottingham Forest's Chris Wood celebrates scoring their second goal with Nottingham Forest's Morgan Gibbs-White and Nottingham Forest's Neco Williams REUTERS/David Klein

Nottingham Forest beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 3-0 away from home and moved within six points of Premier League leader Liverpool on Monday.
First-half goals from Morgan Gibbs-White and Chris Wood and an injury-time third from Taiwo Awoniyi sent Forest to a sixth straight league win, The Associated Press reported. Nuno Espírito Santo’s men are tied on points with Arsenal, which is above them on goal difference.
The game took place on the 50th anniversary of Brian Clough’s appointment at the City Ground and the old maestro would have been thrilled to see his team get off to the perfect start with a goal after six minutes.
Former Wolves midfielder Gibbs-White combined on the counterattack with Anthony Elanga before stroking the ball into the bottom corner from 14 meters.
Both sides looked to play football and Wolves came into the game. However, Norwegian striker Jørgen Strand Larsen rued missing a couple of clear chances and he was punished two minutes before halftime when Wood doubled the visitor’s lead.
The big New Zealander put away Callum Hudson-Odoi’s cut back to grab his 12th goal of the season and his eighth in 13 league appearances against Wolves.
Forest dominated the second half and Wood's late replacement Awoniyi made it 3-0 in stoppage time.
The result set up a mouth-watering fixture between first and third next week, when Forest hosts Liverpool on Jan. 14.
It also brought Forest's European dreams a tiny bit closer. Wood said the squad's focus was keeping up the rich form that would make that happen for the first time since the 1990s.
“It is about consistency and doing what we have been doing extremely well already this season," Wood said. "We’re not giving up halfway through the season, we need to keep doing what we’ve been doing in the first 19 matches.
The defeat was the first for recently appointed Wolves coach Vitor Pereira and left it fourth from bottom.
It was “one of those games where you feel like the result could’ve been the other way,” Wolves defender Matt Doherty said. “Teams are ruthless. You can’t make mistakes and we made a couple of them and we got punished.”