Phil Jones is already targeting a return to the Champions League, insisting it’s where Manchester United “need” to be.
Minutes after the Reds’ 3-1 quarter-final, second leg defeat to Bayern Munich, Jones was setting his sights on qualifying again for Europe’s elite club competition. With the Europa League the realistic target for next season, it could be at least 16 months before United are competing with the likes of Bayern again.
Asked how important it was to get back into the top four next season, Jones told MUTV: “It’s huge. United need to be in the Champions League.
“Nights like this don’t come along too often. Teams like Bayern are who you want to be playing; if you want to test yourselves against the best you have to play them. In my eyes Bayern are the best.
“It’s disappointing now, having gone out; you look back on the season and think that if we’d won such and such a game it might have been different.
“But we’ll keep fighting until the end of the season because nights like this might not come around too often and we want to make sure we are in them as much as possible.”
Jones admitted he was “gutted” by how the game in Allianz Arena panned out, as Bayern instantly responded to Patrice Evra’s stunning goal through Mario Mandzukic’s header, and went on to kill off the tie with strikes from Thomas Muller and Arjen Robben.
“It wasn’t the way we wanted it to end,” Jones added. "I thought we more than held our own and stuck to the game plan for the majority of the game. For 65 minutes we snuffed out their chances.
“To concede so quickly after Pat’s goal was the most disappointing thing of the night and we couldn’t quite recover from. The lads put in a really good shift and weren’t disgraced by a top Bayern team. But the game’s gone now
