TAKE MAT
Jose’s happy with his midfield enforcer.. despite trying to ‘tap up’ Spurs rival Dier
NEMANJA MATIC and Eric Dier go head to head today, with Jose Mourinho claiming he landed the one of them he really wanted.
The Manchester United boss was accused by his Spurs rival Mauricio Pochettino of tapping up Dier in the tunnel at Old Trafford last season. Pochettino wrote in his diary Brave New World that the Spurs star’s form dipped after a discussion he had with Mourinho following a 1-0 defeat in December. The Argentinian suspected the chat was the prelude to a £50million bid which arrived in the summer. It was rejected and instead United bought midfielder Matic from Mourinho’s former club Chelsea.
Mourinho said: “I have the player I want to have. Probably I have the player I didn’t think it was possible to have but we got the player I really wanted.”
On Pochettino’s claims about Dier he added: “No, I don’t know if it is Mauricio’s words or it is his ghost writer’s, I really don’t know.
“What I do know is that during the summer, before every season, he calls me and I call Mauricio and we ask about each other’s players to see if they are or not available.
“I don’t know why I should speak to Dier on a football match day in the tunnel.
“Maybe it is to try and sell books. Maybe his ghost writer wants to make some money.”
Mourinho also brushed off United defender Luke Shaw’s ‘love in’ with Pochettino, the man who gave him his chance at Southampton.
“He used to call me his son,” Shaw said of Pochettino. “I do hope that I can play for him one day. And I think he really wants me to play under him again.”
Asked if praising an opposition manager would count against Shaw as he battles to make an impact with the Reds, Mourinho replied: “I would be very disappointed if his words were any different.
“I am always disappointed with a player when the new manager becomes the best and the old manager becomes very bad. Football is full of examples of a lack of character. Luke Shaw was just honest. “The manager that helped him come to the first team, the manager that helped him develop in the best moment of his career, is the manager he doesn’t forget.
“A manager he likes a lot, a manager that maybe one day he would like to be reunited again. So for me the perfect words that show Luke Shaw’s character in relation to the people he was happy with.
“He has a future here but the situation is not easy because he comes from injury after injury after injury.
“He needs two, three, four, five or six matches in a row to play, to make mistakes, to get into condition, to get match fitness and I cannot give him that.”
Mourinho insisted the lack of hunger and poor attitude exhibited during the shock 2-1 defeat at Huddersfield last week was a one off.
“To lose again, I think it’s going to happen, but in terms of the attitude we didn’t like and knowing the players and what good people they are, I believe it was an isolated case,” he said.