MOURINHO: SOME PLAYERS CARE MORE THAN OTHERS
Manchester United manager questions attitude of squad ahead of Champions League clash
Jose Mourinho has claimed some of his Manchester United players “care more than others” over their poor start to the season.
United’s 3-1 defeat at West Ham United was their third in seven Premier League games and equalled their worst start to a campaign for 29 years.
While denying he was worried about his job security, Mourinho claimed that he felt the reaction to the problems on the field contrasted among his squad.
Speaking yesterday ahead of tonight’s Uefa Champions League Group H game with Valencia at Old Trafford, the United manager said: “Every player is different, no player is the same.
“I see different reactions, but what you see is not really inside. I see upset people, some people that don’t look like they lost a game.
“I see so-so but in the little two sessions of training we had [since Saturday] everything was normal, desire to work and play.”
When asked if he was accusing some players of not being bothered by the difficult opening to the campaign, he added: “I think that some care more than others.”
Saturday’s defeat to West Ham came after they had been knocked out of the League Cup by Championship side Derby County in midweek.
United are 10th in the table and are already nine points adrift of leaders Manchester City.
Left-back Luke Shaw had said after the game against West Ham that the loss was “awful” and “horrendous” and that the players have to take responsibility.
Mourinho echoed that view and said everyone pulling together was the key element to the club finding their form and returning to winning ways.
He said: “It’s the responsibility of everybody,” he added. “The performance is the consequence of many factors. I agreed with some of what Luke Shaw said, I like that perspective but I don’t agree totally.
“It’s all of us. Everybody in the club has a role to play, the kit man and the nutritionist.”
Mourinho is confident that his future as United manager is not in jeopardy despite the poor results.
“No, I don’t think so,” he said when asked if he feared being removed from his role by United’s board. “What I can do to improve things I do and I will improve the things that depend on me and my work.”
Mourinho refused to answer a question about whether he had spoken United’s executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward since losing to the Hammers.
“That’s a private matter,” he said. “I’m not asking who you speak to. That’s a private matter.”
Tonight’s match at Old Trafford sees United take on a Valencia side who have one win in eight matches in all competitions this season, although that came against Real Sociedad on Saturday.
United go into the game depleted as Ashley Young picked up an injury during the loss at West Ham, while Marcos Rojo, Ander Herrera and Jesse Lingard are also sidelined.
Midfielder Nemanja Matic said the West Ham defeat was one of his worst games for United and he expected an immediate reaction.
He said. “We have spoken between us and we know the situation is not good and we can do better.
“When you play for Manchester United, everyone expects you win the games.
“When you don’t win two games in a row, there is more attention on you – we know that.
“This game was really bad. I don’t believe any player goes onto the pitch and doesn’t try.”
United will be looking to build on their convincing victory in their opening game in the Champions League against Young Boys last month.
And Mourinho said: Everybody wants to play Champions League and not everybody can do it. We are here and we have the chance to play a big match.”
For Rafa Varane and Luka Modric, Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium will always evoke greatness. Two and a half months ago, these serial European club champions contested a World Cup final on its turf.
As rain tipped down on them after the final whistle, the Frenchman Varane had his hands on the trophy and the Croatian Modric had his compensation medal, as Player of the Tournament.
They both looked back on a cascade of goals, six over the 90 minutes of the final, the sort of attacking potency their Real Madrid could use right now, as the Uefa Champions League holders prepare to take on CSKA Moscow at Russia’s most fabled arena.
Madrid need their favourite competition to stimulate morale.
Saturday’s goalless draw in the derby against Atletico followed a 3-0 defeat to Sevilla, setbacks in the tussle for leadership of the Primera Liga softened only because table-toppers Barcelona have had an equally ordinary run of recent form.
Madrid have registered just two goals in their last four domestic matches. Their new manager, Julen Lopetegui, was encouraged by the resilience of his team after Atletico had begun the derby the stronger of the two sides.
He urged his players to “follow the path we showed in the second half against Atletico and against Roma”.
Madrid started the defence of their Champions League title with a 3-0 win over Roma to gain early leadership of Group G.
But they go to Moscow without two of the season’s three leading scorers, the injured Gareth Bale and the rested Sergio Ramos, and with Karim Benzema, who started the season in impressive fashion, is now without a goal in five outings.
Privately, Lopetegui knew the moment would come when the absence of Cristiano Ronaldo, now of Juventus, would be noted amid much head-shaking and pessimism about what his departure entailed.
But through August, Lopetegui could imagine Madrid were finding ways of restyling their game so that the vast gap left by Ronaldo – goal-machine and match-winner supreme – would gradually close, the stitches barely visible.
The Bale injury, a thigh problem, has come at an awkward time. But, alas, not at time that will especially surprise the manager or his support staff.
In five of his six seasons as a Madrid player, the Welshman has suffered a fitness setback at around this time of year, when summer shifts towards autumn. There is no longer any real expectation that his body can bear an entire campaign without significant interruption for muscle strains or pulls.
Lopetegui lobbied Madrid for the purchase of an established, elite striker in the summer, once Ronaldo’s €100 million (Dh426m)-plus sale to Juve was agreed. In the end, Madrid signed Mariano Diaz, a former graduate of their academy, and a much-developed player in his season at Lyon.
Mariano, 25, is still an up-and-coming footballer, though. He scored a wonderful goal from the bench against Roma and may get his first start in the Champions League in Moscow.
There might also be some minutes for Vinicius Junior, too, the 18-year-old, €45m winger signed this year from Flamengo in his native Brazil amid much hype and given his Liga debut as a very late substitute against Atletico.
With Marcelo also recovery from a calf injury, and Isco coming back from having his appendix removed, it will be a makeshift and very likely a youthful Madrid on show, with, in the absence of Ramos and Marcelo, an unfamiliar captain urging the team to not let a dip in form turn into a trough.
Lopetegui already owns one uncomfortable rarity, a sequence of successive Liga games without a Madrid goal, unprecedented since
September 2011. The detail he will have analysed more closely, meticulous student that he is, will be the decline in shots compared with the Ronaldo era.
There have 118 of them so far this term, a full enough number but a great deal less than even last season, when Madrid began erratically in defence of previous manager Zinedine Zidane’s 2017 league title and still had attempted 145 shots at the same stage of the campaign.
Their 12 league goals from the first seven fixtures so far in 2017/18 represent their lowest yield of goals for a decade.
And the man looking to keep Madrid black tonight, in goal for CSKA, will be one Igor Akinfeev. He has known some heavy defeats in his long Champions League career. But more recently celebrated a famous last-16 triumph for Russia against Spain, on penalties, at the World Cup, in Moscow.
He will be content there is no Ronaldo, and no Bale to bear down on him at the Luzhniki.