Jose’s blast at poor attitudes of Reds stars
JOSE Mourinho slated his United players’ poor attitude and suggested they should explain their defeat to Huddersfield Town at a press conference.
United suffered their first Premier League loss of the campaign at the newly-promoted side in Yorkshire, where mistakes by Juan Mata and Victor Lindelof contributed to a famous 2-1 victory for the Terriers.
Mourinho refused to scapegoat Lindelof, who replaced the injured Phil Jones, and instead focused on the team’s attitude – and conceded United supporters should be disappointed with their efforts.
“In the first half, I was just waiting for that mistake,” he said of Aaron Mooy’s opener.
“It was Mata and Victor, could be another one because the attitude was really poor. So they beat us on attitude and when I lose matches I like to lose matches because the opponent was better than us. When you lose a match because of attitude that’s really bad. And I heard Ander Herrera is in the flash interviews and he is saying that the attitude and desire was poor. Well, my God, when a player says that and when a player feels that, I think they should all go to the press conference and explain why, because I can’t explain. It concerns me. If it happens today, why can’t it happen tomorrow?”
Mourinho admitted it was the first time he had encountered such a lethargic approach from his players since he took over at United.
“I think so,” he added. “I don’t even remember a friendly match where our attitude was so poor. Then in the second half they tried and play against difficult circumstances, not just the opponent defending a lot but the watch, the wind was tremendous in the second half, we probably could have had a second goal and a draw but it would be an undeserved draw. They deserved to win.
“I don’t like to anticipate the reactions [to this defeat] because in this moment I don’t know what to say.
“We come here to play a Premier League match, to play for three points, you know, I feel really disappointed and if I was a Manchester United supporter, the traditional supporter, I would be really disappointed.
“Because I think you can play and lose football matches because the opponent had more quality than you but you cannot lose matches because the opponent had a better attitude than you. So really disappointed.”