Mourinho claims Pogba is set to miss France duty
JOSE Mourinho insists Paul Pogba will not link up with the France squad for their November internationals after he missed the derby.
The 25-year-old sat out United’s 3-1 defeat to City at the Etihad Stadium with an unspecified injury he suffered in the midweek Champions League win over Juventus. Pogba attended the derby to watch his team-mates lose their fourth league game of the campaign.
France travel to Rotterdam to face the Netherlands in the Nations League on Friday before they host Uruguay in a friendly at the Stade de France in Paris the following Tuesday. At his postmatch press conference, Mourinho confirmed off-mic that Pogba would not report at France’s Clairefontaine training base.
“Is not for me to lose a game and speak about this other player that was not playing,” Mourinho said of Pogba’s absence. “I don’t like very, very much.
“But it is important for us in many aspects of the game because we had to play Fellaini. Fellaini was not ready to play for 90 minutes. I can just imagine when the result was 2-1 to bring a fresh Fellaini to the pitch, I think they would be in big, big trouble.
“But when the result was 2-1 and we had that final push, Fellaini was doing an incredible effort to stay on the pitch, not fresh at all, risking his injury and condition and to give everything for the team.
“But clearly one thing is to bring a fresh Fellaini and another thing is to bring him on fresh for this match. For different reasons we missed Paul but that doesn’t mean with Paul we win the game. “So it is not an excuse.” Mourinho said before the game he was ‘not a big fan’ of certain aspects of Sergio Aguero’s game but refused to speak about the City striker after he scored the winner.
“Ask Pep,” Mourinho replied. “Ask me about one of my players.” JOSE Mourinho refused to criticise United’s defenders after they were ruthlessly exposed by City.
The 3-1 derby defeat leaves the Reds 12 points adrift of Pep Guardiola’s pace-setters and seven off Tottenham in fourth going into the November internationals.
Individual errors from Luke Shaw, Jesse Lingard and Nemanja Matic contributed to City’s goals, and United have now let in 21 in 12 Premier League games.
The Reds have conceded first in seven of their 12 Premier League games this term, and conceded JOSE Mourinho has opened up on his full-time team talk to the United players after they lost to City.
The Blues inflicted a 3-1 defeat on United, who have now lost four Premier League matches this term and trail the Premier League leaders by 12 points.
Mourinho recently said he expected United, who are seventh on inside the first 20 minutes in six of their last nine games in all competitions.
Mourinho wanted to sign a centre-half in the summer amid interest in Tottenham’s Toby Alderweireld and Harry Maguire of Leicester, but United’s only defensive addition was full-back Diogo Dalot. After the Reds’ fourth league loss of the campaign, Mourinho was asked whether he felt vindicated, given United’s defensive form, over his insistence they needed a centre-back.
“But I don’t think today was the game to touch on that point,” Mourinho said. 20 points, would be in a more flattering position in the league table at the end of December and was upbeat, despite the latest loss.
“There was a fantastic character from the team and a great effort by everybody,” Mourinho said.
“Fellaini shouldn’t play for 90 minutes because it was too much for him.
“He should be on the bench and come on later in the game. But he
“I think Victor Lindelof and Chris Smalling had a positive performance.
“A kid [Shaw] that made a mistake for the first goal is playing so, so, so, so well and last season he was playing one match every three months and in this moment he is playing every game for 90 minutes.
“And when I speak about physical fatigue, mental fatigue, that leads to mistakes during the game, that’s what I mean.
“The game against Juventus was hard by the physical and mental point of view, I am with my players and even with my players that today made mistakes that lead to Manchester City goals.
“We are together, we are not going to be affected by this, I am just sorry we don’t play the next match soon and have to wait 13 days for that but we are improving, we are together and go together until the end.
“If the third goal is scored in one of the moments where they were dominating, I probably would say had to play because of Paul (Pogba’s) absence.
“So it was not an easy week for us but I just told the players they’re playing much better than before. We are much stronger, we are much more compact.
“Now we have to not let the defeat disappoint us.
“Sad, yes, but not too disappointed. In two weeks’ time we play at home against Crystal Palace [the score was a fair reflection] but the third goal comes in a moment where we were in a fight to try to get the equaliser.” Mourinho also complained City had an ‘easier’ preparation for the derby than United did due to the fixture scheduling. The Blues thrashed Southampton 6-1 a week before the match and hosted Shakhtar Donetsk in a 6-0 Champions League thumping on Wednesday night. United’s previous league game was at Bournemouth last Saturday, which preceded their European victory at Juventus on Wednesday. Earlier this month, Mourinho lamented that United’s trips to Juve and Valencia were scheduled before weekend fixtures at City and Liverpool, where United travel to next month. After the derby loss, Mourinho claimed City developed mental and physical advantages going into the game. “One thing is they won in the league,” Mourinho said. “First United boss Jose Mourinho and, from that game, we have to try to get the points.”
When it was pointed out to Mourinho at his press conference that United are closer to Cardiff than they are to City, he replied: “I think we are not going to be relegated.”
United host Crystal Palace in their next match on November 24 and face Young Boys in their penultimate Champions League group game three days later.