Xherdan Shaqiri has accused Manchester United of underestimating Basel when the two sides met at St Jakob-Park earlier this season.
The Premier League champions needed only a draw to progress to the knockout stages of the Champions League at the expense of their Swiss hosts, but they were dumped out of the competition and into the Europa League after slumping to a shock 2-1 defeat.
The result caused quite a stir around Europe but Shaqiri – speaking ahead of the first leg of his side’s last 16 tie with Bayern Munich – has revealed that Basel’s players realised just before taking to the field that night back in December that they had every chance of springing a surprise.
“They underestimated us,” the Switzerland international declared in a press conference.
“You could feel it in the tunnel and at the warm up: they weren’t fully focused.”
“I’m not sure a United player made even one sprint. And afterwards, you couldn’t even swap shirts, they were gone that quickly.”
Shaqiri, who will join Bayern at the end of the season, is expected to start on the right wing in Wednesday’s clash with the Bavarian giants at St Jakob-Park.
