POGBA: LET’S MAKE OLD TRAFFORD A FORTRESS!
UNITED BOSS FULL OF PRAISE FOR DYNAMIC DUO IN WOLVES MIDFIELD
JOSE Mourinho praised Wolves midfielders Joao Moutinho and Ruben Neves’ impact in their draw with United at Old Trafford.
Moutinho curled in a 53rd-minute equaliser to give the promoted side a deserved draw against a complacent United, who are now eight points adrift of Premier League leaders Liverpool after six games.
United scouted Moutinho several years ago when he was at Sporting Lisbon and Neves, 21, has recently been linked with a move to Manchester.
Mourinho was impressed by the Portuguese duo’s aggressive pressing and felt United failed to mirror their intensity.
“It’s a situation the players knew perfectly,” Mourinho said.
“That they press in midfield, these two Portuguese boys, they are both the kind of player that likes to bite, that likes to short distance, to press, they don’t give long time for you to have the ball, to turn, one touch, two touches, you don’t have much of that.
“So you concede in a situation that is even harder to accept but that is one goal that you concede and you have 90 minutes to show a different attitude and we have to do better.” United returned to Manchester on Thursday after they were unable to immediately fly home from their Champions League win over Young Boys in Bern on Wednesday – but Mourinho refused to cite that as an excuse and questioned the players’ mentality. “I can’t explain a difference of attitude because I never have a difference of attitude,” Mourinho added. “For me, is difficult to explain that, we won three matches away, come home with a good spirit, because we recover and then you start in a poor way. “And I could say tired, Champions League, awful pitch, the body suffers a difficult impact than a match in actual grass, not coming home after the match, I could go in this direction. “But we have Lingard and Alexis didn’t play, Fellaini played 25 minutes, Antonio Valencia didn’t play, so we didn’t have a team that was in big trouble with accumulation of matches. “So I think is a mental situation and attitude, again one team was coming to play the game of their lives and another was to relax.” United next host Derby in the League Cup third round tomorrow night.
One team was coming to play the game of their lives, the other to relax Jose Mourinho