Sunday 24 December 2017 16:00, UK
Juan Mata says Manchester United need to soldier on through their festive fixtures after back-to-back disappointments against Bristol City and Leicester.
The League Cup holders were knocked out at the quarter-final stage of this year's competition by Sky Bet Championship side Bristol City on Wednesday after Korey Smith's injury-time winner.
United conceded another stoppage-time goal at Leicester on Saturday as Harry Maguire's strike rescued a 2-2 draw for the 10-man hosts to leave Jose Mourinho's side 13 points behind Premier League leaders Manchester City.
United have little time to lick their wounds, however, as they host Burnley on Boxing Day and Southampton on December 30 before travelling to Everton on New Year's Day, and Mata hopes they will bounce back in their remaining festive fixtures.
"You have to keep going and especially in Christmas time," Mata said.
"You play every two or three days and obviously now we feel frustrated and angry.
"But we need to keep going and, from (Christmas Eve), rest and think about the next game - obviously with the will of finishing the game with a much better feeling."
Mata scored twice at the King Power Stadium to put United ahead after Jamie Vardy's opener but Mourinho's men missed numerous chances to kill the game before Maguire's late intervention.
"We didn't kill it - and we should have killed it," Mata told MUTV. "It's easy to say now.
"If we instead of drawing, win at the end, we would have been saying that it was a fantastic game, that we came back and we did the most difficult thing which is to score twice after they went ahead.
"But that's football, you know, and in the last second they put the ball into the box and they scored.
"But we have the feeling that we should have killed the game before.
"It feels like a defeat. We get a point but it feels like a defeat because we were so close to winning and we had a chance to kill the game.
"They were with one less player (after Daniel Amartey was sent off) so it feels like a defeat."
