Jose says sorry to Mkhitaryan for substitution
JOSE Mourinho felt it was ‘unfair’ to substitute Henrikh Mkhitaryan at half-time during United’s FA Cup win over Derby.
The midfielder was recalled to the starting XI after he was dropped at Everton and lasted just 45 minutes as his poor form continued.
Mourinho moved Marcus Rashford from the striker’s role to the left wing to accommodate substitute Romelu Lukaku and the United No.9 sealed a 2-0 victory with his 16th goal of the season in stoppage-time.
There is mounting speculation over Mkhitaryan’s future amid interest from Internazionale, but Mourinho issued a public apology to the playmaker, having said sorry to him in the dressing room.
“Unfair, and I told that at halftime,” Mourinho said. “I didn’t like what I did, unfair, he didn’t deserve it, he was playing well, he was not playing bad, he had a couple of mispossessions, but he was giving a good dynamic to the team and my feeling was that Rashford is not going to score a goal.
“And because of that I am not going to lose time and I am going to play Romelu and I am going to sacrifice a player and Micki was the one I sacrificed.
“But it is not something I normally do and at half-time I apologised to him in front of the people because he didn’t deserve it.”
Jesse Lingard struck in the 84th-minute to make it eight goals in his last 10 and the academy graduate has scored as many this season as he has in his previous three for United. Despite a frustrating evening, Mourinho was confident the Reds would get the breakthrough.
“I was confident because the team never stops to play and to try,” he added. “But at the same time it happened, for example recently against Southampton, that we kept trying and the goal was never arriving.
“But I think we played well, Derby gave us a different game because they defended very, very well but we deserved the victory. I don’t think we need a replay, they don’t need a replay but that’s the rules of the competition and we almost had to go for a second game.”