Belfast Telegraph

Takes a swipe at senior names after Michigan defeat

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He spoke of how disappoint­ed he was with Valencia, despite only recently naming him his new captain, and how Anthony Martial, who wants to leave the club, should have been back with the squad following the birth of his child.

“We play Real Madrid and we have no more players than what we have,” he said.

“Antonio Valencia comes from holiday — I think too much holiday for him. His condition was not good when he was back.

“Anthony Martial has the baby and after the baby is born — beautiful baby, full of health, thank God — he should be here and he is not here.

“So we have Alexis (Sanchez) and (Juan) Mata who play every minute of every match and now we have Real Madrid and after that Bayern Munich and that’s our start.”

Mourinho urged a number of his World Cup stars to come back to work earlier than scheduled to help the team out, as he lamented the lack of senior players available to him.

“I just hope the boys on deserved holidays, they take care of themselves a little bit.

“I hope somebody wants to do what (Marcus) Rashford and (Phil) Jones decide to do, which is to be back a little bit earlier to try and help the team because for the beginning of the season we are going to be in trouble,” he added.

“The majority of the players that played are not going to play — some of them are not even going to belong to the squad.

“I know the ones that are not always ready — sometimes you need them and you don’t have them.

“Eric Bailly was injured, he shouldn’t be playing, but when he saw that (Chris) Smalling in the warm-up was coming out, he made a decision not to let his team play with five kids in the back against (Mohamed) Salah, (Sadio) Mane and company so he put himself there for 90 minutes.

“When we had gasoline we competed, 1-1 after 65 minutes, after that gasoline is gone.

“(Ander) Herrera, (Juan) Mata, Alexis (Sanchez), (Matteo) Darmian, these are the boys we have, they cannot give more. So this match was for nothing.”

 ??  ?? Well played: Jose Mourinho consoles United scorer Andreas Pereira
Well played: Jose Mourinho consoles United scorer Andreas Pereira

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