Mourinho vents fury at his ‘childish’ players
Jose Mourinho launched a stinging attack on his own players accusing them of being “childish” and “lacking maturity” after they ignored his instructions to re-organise around the injured Chris Smalling and conceded a late equaliser to 10-man Leicester City.
The Manchester United manager placed the blame firmly on his players for Harry Maguire’s injury-time goal having told, Mourinho said, Ashley Young, to tell the players to change their formation after Smalling was left injured and immobile in the centre of defence.
With substitute Daniel Amartey dismissed for two yellow cards, United attempted to soak up the pressure but, having used all their substitutes, left Smalling at centre-half. The result leaves United 13 points behind leaders Manchester City at the halfway point. Juan Mata scored twice after Riyad Mahrez’s opener. Mourinho said: “I had the chance to speak with Ashley Young and to tell him the way the team had to be in position because of Smalling’s difficulty but there was a lack of maturity.
“I cannot stop the game and give a team talk. For the last two minutes the players had to immediately adapt, to read the game, which they didn’t so we had childish decisions in front of goal and bad decisions as it was not just about the goals we missed, or dribbling or hitting the post.”
He added: “Some players they have childish decisions and time helps them to have maturity and to decide better but some other players stay with childish decisions until the end of their career.”
In television interviews, Mourinho lamented the chances United missed: “We didn’t win because missed incredible chances. I would say joke chances. We made a big defensive accumulation of mistakes in an easy match to win. I talked to the players at half time when it was 1-1 that it was an easy match to win.”