‘Live or die’ week for United as Mourinho puts Liverpool in past

JOSE Mourinho believes Manchester United’s ‘live or die’ meetings with Sevilla and Brighton this week will have a greater impact on his side’s season than the weekend’s victory over Liverpool.

Marcus Rashford’s first-half brace at Old Trafford on Saturday proved enough for a 2-1 win as second-placed United moved five points clear of their historic rivals in the Premier League table.

The victory left Mourinho’s side nine points clear of fifthplaced Chelsea with eight games remaining in the battle for a top-four place and boosted their hopes of finishing as the ‘best of the rest’ behind Manchester City.

However, ahead of two knockout ties at Old Trafford in the space of a week, Mourinho claimed that victory on Saturday was not as important as progression in the Champions League and FA Cup,

United host Sevilla in the second leg of their last-16 European tie on Tuesday night, before Brighton visit in the Cup quarter-finals on Saturday night.

“Seville and Brighton are more important games than Liverpool,” Mourinho said on Saturday. “Liverpool is Liverpool, it is a big match, it is a match against a di- rect competitor for the top four but nothing is decided yet.

“We have eight more games and 24 points to play for, but Seville and Brighton are ‘live or die’ games, so the next two are much more important than this one.”

Mourinho also claimed that, even after three successive and important league victories over Chelsea, Crystal Palace and Liverpool, the progress made by United recently will be forgotten if they end the week without any hopes of silverware.

“In modern football you have to live day-by-day, week-by week and match-by-match,” he said. “We have a match in two days and I can imagine that if we lose against Seville on Tuesday everyone will have forgotten what we did in the last couple of weeks.”