Mourinho insists it's 'not fair' that Man Utd will drop into the UEL with Spurs

Jose Mourinho insists Manchester United should not be rewarded for their failure in the Champions League with an invitation into the Europa League.

United will join UEFA's second tier competition at the last-32 stage and will be among the favourites to lift the trophy according to Tottenham boss Mourinho.

Spurs, having fought through two qualifying rounds, a play-off game and secured qualification from Group J with a game to spare, are also sure of a place in the knock-out phase.

'It's a point of principle,' said Mourinho. 'If it happened to my team, I would feel exactly the same.

'It is the way it is and honestly brings more quality to the competition. We cannot forget that. when you have eight new teams in the competition and eight teams that belong to another level, of course the level of the competition is going to improve, no doubts.

'When the quality improves, the attention improves, and that's a good thing for the competition but from the sporting point of view it's not fair that a team that doesn't succeed in one competition drops to another.

'It's just the principle. In football, when for some reason we don't succeed unlucky, next season. But it is the way it is and it's not a problem.

Tottenham face Royal Antwerp in London on Thursday and must win to top Group J and be seeded in the draw for the last-32.

As a seeded team, they will avoid at this stage the other group winners and the eight teams from the Champions League, which include Manchester United and possibly Real Madrid and Ajax.

'Manchester United become one of the top favourites to win the competition,' said Mourinho. 'The teams that drop from the Champions League are always strong teams; teams that normally don't belong to that level of the Europa League competition.

'Manchester United is one of the top teams. Their group was very hard: Paris Saint Germain, Manchester United, Leipzig, very hard. We all knew it was not going to be easy for any one of them and we all knew that from that group a top team would drop to the Europa League.'

Tottenham lost in Antwerp and the Belgians will win Group J if they avoid defeat at White Hart Lane.

'From my experience they will face this competition seriously with the progression to the knock-out phase,' said the Spurs boss, who criticised the attitude of some of his players after last week's 3-3 draw at LASK.

'Overall, in the group of six matches, they think we are going to qualify, we can lose a match or two, or we can draw two or three, that we are always going to qualify because we are a team with good potential for this group.

'That puts the focus and energy more in the Premier League than in the Europa League - and this is what happened.

'At the same time, maybe there's a sense that some players think, "I'm playing this match but I should be playing against Arsenal, or Chelsea" and instead of facing the game really professionally and saying "this is my game, this is the game I have to perform in", there is a little bit of relaxation.

'But in the end, no drama because we did good enough to qualify and hopefully we win the game and finish first.'

Serge Aurier and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg did not train with the team on Wednesday and are in line to take a rest against Antwerp.