Show me respect: Mourinho
Even his heaviest home loss wasn’t enough to defeat Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho’s fighting spirit.
After losing 3-0 to Tottenham in the English Premier League at Old Trafford yesterday, the Portuguese manager defiantly held up three fingers at his news conference as he took aim at the media.
‘‘Do you know what this means? 3-0. That also means three Premiership [titles] and I won more Premiership alone than the other 19 managers together. Three for me and two for them,’’ he said.
Mourinho then left his seat repeating ‘‘respect, respect, respect’’ as he walked out. But the scale of the defeat was implicit with Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino recording his first goal at Old Trafford in four EPL visits, and his first win.
Spurs now have a perfect record after three rounds helped when Harry Kane and Lucas Moura struck twice in a threeminute span early in the second half to get them ahead at Old Trafford. Moura grabbed a second with six minutes left.
Raising media speculation over his future, Mourinho cut a lonely figure as he took to the field at the end to shake hands with his players and went out of his way to applaud the home fans who had remained inside Old Trafford, holding up a scarf thrown to him by a supporter.
Tottenham fans had chanted: ‘‘You’re getting sacked in the morning.’’
This is just the second season in Premier League history that United have lost more than one of three opening three matches. After beating Leicester in their opener, United lost to Brighton 3-2 and now have three points after three rounds.
In the first half, Romelu Lukaku had numerous chances to give United what at the time would have been a deserved lead, including dragging across the face of an open goal after rounding goalkeeper Hugo Lloris.
Shortly after halftime, Spurs punished some feeble defending.
Kane all too easily got free at a corner and directed a super header into the top right-hand corner.
Kane’s 50th-minute opener was soon added to as Christian Eriksen ghosted behind to send in a cross directed home by Moura.
Moura added his second of the evening in the 84th, superbly beating Chris Smalling and firing into the bottom corner after a swift break to seal a 3-0 win.
Despite the result, Mourinho said ‘‘by strategy we didn’t lose, tactically we didn’t lose, but we lost the game’’.
He praised United fans for their attitude at the end of the game, saying ‘‘all our fans don’t read papers, all our fans don’t watch television, all our fans are more intelligent than that and answered in an amazing way’’.