Jose focused on
HIGH STAKES
Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho accepts the club’s season will be judged a failure if they do not beat Ajax in the Europa final on May 24.
Mourinho says he has worked “harder than ever” during his maiden United campaign, which has already featured a League Cup triumph and victory over Leicester in the Community Shield. But with United needing to beat Ajax to secure a place in next season’s Champions League, he knows he will not be spared by the media if his side succumb to defeat at Stockholm’s Friends Arena.
“I think you, the media, have the right to say (that) and I think it makes sense to say,” he told reporters after United completed a 2-1 aggregate win over Celta Vigo in the semifinals on Thursday. “But I don’t feel like that. I don’t want the players to feel like that. I don’t think the board feels like that. Because we work very hard. I probably worked this season harder than ever. In my personal analysis, I don’t think that way. But if I was on your side, in your chair, I think it is (fair).”
He added: “We won a League Cup. We won the Community Shield. Until the injuries arrived, we fought for the Premier League top four. We had a fantastic record of 25 matches (unbeaten).
“We did things that nobody did in this club in the first season, like winning a trophy, like having the Manchester United record in the Premier League for unbeaten games, like reaching a European final. We had good things.
“But if I was on your side and you are always looking for this kind of capital-letters big headlines, I accept if you say that.”
Mourinho said trying to restore United to former glories, after three largely disappointing seasons following the retirement of Alex Ferguson, had involved significant unseen work behind the scenes.
“Sometimes you get into big clubs in difficult moments and the work is harder than when you get a smaller club in a moment of positive explosion. Very hard season. Some invisible work to your eyes. But when I analyse my work, I analyse it in the globality because better than anyone, I know what I did.,” he said.