Diogo Dalot has warned his Manchester United team-mates to never take European football for granted ever again after being stuck on the outside looking in this season.
While Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Liverpool, Manchester City and Nottingham Forest all prepare for knockout stage competition in Europe, Dalot and Co are stuck watching from home in what will be their shortest season since 1914-15.
United, who rose to third for the first time since 2023 after beating Crystal Palace on Sunday, haven’t featured in the Champions League since 2023-24 when they crashed out in the group stage.
Now, Dalot believes this feeling of emptiness inside the United dressing room must be remembered so they don’t get complacent when they return to Europe’s top table.
‘I think seasons like this are good for you to know that when you’re playing Europa League and especially Champions League, those are the best years, those are the best seasons,’ he said in response to Daily Mail Sport’s question.
‘This year we play, I don’t know, maximum 40 games because we came out of the cups even in the early stage, so this is nowhere near what the club should be and the competitions that we should play in.
‘So when we are there, when we get the main goal that I really believe that we’re going to do next season, if we’re playing Champions League, we cannot take for granted.
‘We need to put the club back in there.’
United are well placed to do that having taken 19 points from a possible 21 under Michael Carrick’s watch.
With England’s UEFA coefficient expected to be strong enough for the top five teams to get into next season’s Champions League, Dalot lifted the lid on the growing confidence in the dressing room.
‘That’s the goal,’ he said. ‘We are very conscious that for us to be able to do that, we have to do games like today, where you don’t control for 90 minutes, where sometimes you don’t play like you should, but you find ways to win.
‘And I think that’s what defines sometimes those who stay at the top of the table and those who start dropping points and dropping places.
‘We’ve been there, so I think this season, if we want to get to the end of the season and have the goal that we want, we need games like this.’
United were helped in no small part from a man of the match performance from Bruno Fernandes, a player Dalot thinks continues to be taken for granted.
‘A little bit, I think,’ Dalot added.
‘When you’re so consistent, when you play for many years at a very high level, sometimes when you’re not there for one game people start doubting and people start always thinking that you should do that all the time.
‘But that’s the most difficult thing in football, for you to be consistent during the whole season, whether you’re going to have ups and downs, but he’s always a player and person who shows up all the time and he never hides, so I think that’s what this club needs.’
On Fernandes’ leadership lifting team-mates in moments of strife, Dalot said: ‘It’s important because it keeps you alive during the game at every moment.
‘He’s a player who can read the game really well and can read pretty much all the positions on the pitch. So he always likes to guide you on that.
‘If he has something that he believes that he can help you with, he will say it no problem.’
