Lukaku tells of Mourinho’s message
Romelu Lukaku has revealed what Jose Mourinho told his Manchester United team at halftime during the 2-1 victory over Watford. The Red Devils scored two goals in three minutes in the first half to record back-to-back victories and inflict a first defeat of the season on Watford.
Lukaku gave United the lead, diverting an Ashley Young cross home with his chest, before Chris Smalling’s impressive volley made it 2-0.
Andre Gray reduced Watford’s deficit with a crisp strike past David De Gea midway through the second half but United held on for the victory, despite Nemanja Matic’s late red card.
“The manager said to us we were playing well but not great, he made us humble at half time,” Lukaku told BT Sport. “We ground the result out, that’s what we need to do, to catch the teams above us. Credit to Watford. We were too sloppy but it’s another win and we have to keep going.
“We had a few good runs from Lingard, Sanchez and myself, I scored, Chris (Smalling) scored, we had to try and score a third but we were sloppy, we have to look again at the images.”
Watford goalkeeper Ben Foster said the Hornets had got ‘carried away’ after their superb start to the new season.
“I think we maybe got carried away with four out of four, thinking we’re something we’re not.
“But in the second half we played to our strengths, we looked like we were the only side going to score as the game went on. Fair play to the goalie, producing some world class saves.
“‘De Gea is top class. Any young goalkeeper out there just watch him, you’ll learn a lot.” Manchester United’s victory sees them climb to eighth while Watford remain fourth.
LIVERPOOL, CHELSEA ON THE GO
Liverpool and Chelsea maintained their 100 percent starts to the Premier League season on Saturday, while Manchester City thumped Fulham 3-0 to move into third place.
Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool beat an out-of-sorts Tottenham 2-1 at Wembley, before Eden Hazard scored a hattrick as Chelsea came from behind to thrash Cardiff 4-1.
Elsewhere, two second-half goals saw Arsenal edge out Newcastle 2-1while Bournemouth easily saw off 10man Leicester 4-2 and Wilfried Zaha gave Crystal Palace 1-0 victory over struggling Huddersfield. Zaha’s winner was a contender for goal of the season . Granit Xhaka’s opener for Arsenal was also a superb strike, with the Switzerland international firing in a wonderful long-range free-kick. Mesut Ozil added a second before Ciaran Clark’s last-gasp reply.
In the day’s early fixture, goals from Georginio Wijnaldum and Roberto Firmino put Liverpool in control before Erik Lamela’s late reply for Spurs. Manchester City made the fastest start with Leroy Sane scoring inside the first two minutes. David Silva and Raheem Sterling added further goals as the champions coasted to victory.
Cardiff took a surprise lead against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge before Hazard took centre stage, although Willian’s strike that rounded off the Blues’ victory was arguably his side’s best of the game.
Ryan Fraser scored two first-half goals to put Bournemouth on their way to victory over Leicester, with Joshua King adding a third before the break from the penalty spot.
Things got worse for the Foxes when Wes Morgan received his second booking after 68 minutes but, after Adam Smith made it 4-0, James Maddison and Marc Albrighton pulled back two goals in the last three minutes.