Jose: Lukaku was not ready to start

JOSE Mourinho said Romelu Lukaku told him he was not fit enough to start the FA Cup final.

The striker began the game on the bench, coming on in the 73rd minute for Marcus Rashford as United suffered a 1-0 loss.

Belgium international Lukaku had spent the last three weeks sidelined with an ankle injury and returned to United’s Carrington training complex on Tuesday after undergoing treatment at the Move to Cure centre in Antwerp.

Mourinho insists it was an easy decision not to start Lukaku after their pre-match chat.

“When a player tells you he is not ready to start the game, then the question is how many minutes you think you can,” Mourinho said. “But how can I convince a player who tells me he is not ready to play?

“It was not a difficult decision, was an easy decision. I knew the opponent I was going to play against, I knew they have a compact low-block [in midfield] with lots of physicality where they try to close everything.

“I knew without a target man it would be difficult for us.

“My opinion on my team’s performance was every defeat hurts.

“But, for me personally, the ones that hurt less are when you give everything and go without any regrets.

“So I prefer to lose like today than to lose like we did for example at Newcastle, I leave my players happy with that. And for me that’s really important.”