HERR DRYER
United lacked ‘mad dogs’ as Jose blasts his lucky stars for making bad decisions in dire draw
JOSE MOURINHO moaned that Manchester United lacked ‘mad dogs’ as a two-goal fightback saved their skins at struggling Southampton.
The Portuguese admitted his side got out of jail after Saints raced into a two-goal lead inside the opening 20 minutes before Romelu Lukaku and Ander Herrera struck back.
But then the United boss slammed his midfield: “We needed better decisions – we
needed to move the ball faster.
“They created chances because we lost the ball. We didn’t have any continuity going forward.
“We didn’t have any mad dogs. I love dogs – it’s a football expression. It means aggressive on the ball, fighting hard to recover the ball.
“For me, only Marcus Rashford had that appetite, that desire. We needed to recover the ball faster and higher up the pitch.”
Mourinho added that he was unhappy with the result, despite the fightback.
He again used three men at centre-half and it almost cost the visitors who were all at sea during the opening half-hour.
“I cannot be too critical,” he said, ‘the spirit and desire was good. We had a situation of fragility in defence and we tried to compensate by playing the back three. It wasn’t easy for the team to go into the match with only one central defender.”
Speculation is rife that Saints’ boss Mark Hughes is to be replaced by Paolo Sousa.
He said: “People keep on talking about the pressure on me. That comes when results don’t come. There are other clubs around us that are under-achieving.
“There is a perception we should be doing better. We finished 17th last season, so I don’t know.”