Juan Mata describes his ‘hurt’ at leaving Manchester United team-mates in the lurch

He knows he messed up.

Manchester United's hopes of playing in next season's Champions League were dealt a significant blow yesterday when they lost 1-0 at West Brom, with Juan Mata's first-half sending off certainly playing a large part in his side's demise. United's ten men fell to a second-half strike from Salomon Rondon that leaves them three points behind fourth-placed Manchester City, who also have a game in hand, and Mata has held up his hand in the form of a blog post this morning. In it, describes the first sending off of his career as a "new and strange situation for me", before admitting that "what hurts more is that my team-mates had to fight with ten men for a long time". The Spaniard also admitted the decisions to show him two yellow cards were correct, if a little "rigorous", conceding that both incidents could have been easily avoided. Here's an excerpt from the full blog:

After almost 500 games as a professional player, this Sunday I was sent off for the first time in my career. As you can imagine, it’s not easy for me to write these lines. The truth is this is a new and strange situation for me, not easy to assimilate, but we learn from everything. I know that, in football, we see things like these every week, but obviously what hurts more is that my team-mates had to fight with ten men for a long time. I have the feeling that both decisions were rigorous; that, in many occasions, we see more serious fouls that are not penalised in such a way, but at the same time I could have avoided them and I take responsibility. It also leaves me with a bad taste for the supporters who travelled to the stadium, and for those who were watching the game from home, but I must carry on as always and from now on I’m already focused on the next game, the derby against Liverpool in the Europa League.