Manchester United defender Chris Smalling believes his side will hurt teams if they replicate the same tempo shown against Leicester City at Old Trafford.

Jose Mourinho’s side cruised to a 4-1 victory over the defending Premier League champions at Old Trafford on Saturday.

Smalling scored the opening against the Foxes in the 22nd minute before Juan Mata, Marcus Rashford, and Paul Pogba extended United.

However, the Foxes did pull a goal back when substitute Demarai Gray scored a stunning consolation from 25 yards on the hour mark, but it wasn’t enough as Leicester suffered their third defeat in six games this season.

Following United’s impressive first half performance, Smalling feels it is something the team should try to reproduce in order to start dominating matches.

‘If we can start games with that tempo there won’t be many teams that can live with us,’ Smalling told the Manchester United website.

‘By winning games and dominating games like that, I think everyone gets their confidence back and you could see we really put that game to bed in the first half and hopefully there is more of that to come because everyone really enjoyed that.

The 26-year-old believes that his side now has to find more consistent performances in order to remain in the top half of the Premier League standings.

‘It’s now about finding that consistency so we stay at the top end of the table. We don’t want any more blips, hopefully, we have had our last blip for quite a while now,’ he added.

Manchester United now turn their focus to the Europa League when they face Zorya Luhansk on Thursday.

The match at Old Trafford kicks off at 21:05.

Image: Manchester United website