Former Manchester United defender turned pundit Rio Ferdinand has questioned the professionalism of the current squad, stating that Wednesday's late 1-0 defeat to Basel was "not professional" from the Red Devils.

Didn't trouble them at all, says Ferdinand

It has been a good start to the campaign in José Mourinho's second season in charge at Old Trafford, especially upon their return to the glitz and glamour of the Champions League having triumphed in the Europa League the previous campaign.

United remained unbeaten in Group A going into the away leg in Switzerland, winning all of their clashes which put them atop of the group heading into penultimate group stage clash.

This wasn't first time that United had come unstuck in the St. Jakob-Park, but they failed to put in a convincing performance with a late goal Michael Lang sealing the points for Raphaël Wicky's side.

United are set to still finish top of the group barring a major disaster in the final group clash, but Ferdiand and former Chelsea midfielder Frank Lampard were less than pleased with their performance on Wednesday night.

"It was like basketball, an end to end game," Ferdinand told BT Sport "It was not professional on Manchester United’s part at all."

"They gave Basel confidence to get back in the game," Lampard proclaimed "It wasn’t so much end to end in the second half, United didn’t trouble Basel at all."

"Basel deserved to win the game," the former midfielder stated "This was a bad performance by Manchester United."

"United will go through, and there will be much better performances than we saw in the second half," Lampard added "It was certainly a bad 45 minutes."

One of the few positives to take

There will have between little positives to take away from the trip to Switzerland for United, but one big boost will have been the return of defender Marcos Rojo.

The clash was the Argentine's first senior appearance since sustaining knee ligament damage back in April, it has been hinted at for some time the defender was close to a return which included being an unused substitute in Saturday's 4-1 defeat of Newcastle United.

Rojo certainly made an impact alongside Chris Smalling making a crucial on Dimitri Oberlin and even hitting the crossbar just before half-time, and Mourinho was full of praise for the defender post-match.

“[Marcos] Rojo played very well," Mourinho told manutd.com on Rojo's return "I think he could be playing a couple of weeks ago"

"We didn’t need to rush him, push him into that situation," the coach admitted "But he was training with the team for quite a long time."

“He had 45 minutes with the Under-23s team [last week in the Premier League International Cup tie against Athletic Club]," he said. "We knew Marcos was ready, the doubt was 90 minutes and lasting 90 minutes."

"But [in the] first half [it was] very easy," Mourinho added. "He had a lot of the ball, he didn’t have to be physically demanding.”