WAR OF WORDS
Mourinho hits out at Neville over his ‘outspoken’ comments
JOSE Mourinho has reignited his row with Gary Neville by quipping that he considered substituting goalscoring hero Marcus Rashford at half-time against Liverpool because of comments made by the TV pundit.
Rashford scored twice in the first half in United’s 2-1 win on Saturday but former Manchester United legend Gary Neville said during the interval live on Sky Sports that the forward could have been sent off.
Neville thought Rashford could have been punished for a challenge on Trent Alexander-Arnold having already been booked for fouling James Milner.
“I have to say about thirty seconds before that, Marcus Rashford did this. He’s got to be very careful, Marcus Rashford.” said Neville.
Mourinho, who eventually took his scorer off after 70 minutes, said: “At half-time someone told me Gary Neville was asking for Marcus Rashford to get a red card.
“I was scared because I thought the referee was watching and would be influenced by Gary.
“Where Liverpool brought a lot of players to the central area of the pitch, Marcus was defending the corridor (against AlexanderArnold).
“With the yellow card and the pressure of Gary, I decided to make a change and bring a player on who could make a foul.”
While tongue-in-cheek, the comments from Mourinho highlight the strained relationship he has with Neville.
The United manager hit out at the pundit earlier this week after Neville had called Paul Pogba a park player because he goes where he wants on the pitch.
Rashford took his chance of a rare start for United by scoring his 12th and 13th goals of the season as a replacement for Pogba who suffered a contact injury with an unnamed teammate in the final minute of Friday’s training session.
Neville has been a repeated critic of his former club’s manager and, during United’s dramatic victory at Crystal Palace last Monday, in which they trailed 2-0 before recovering to win 3-2, did not hold back in his comments.
“I’ve never seen a Jose Mourinho team as inefficient as this,” said Neville. “They are always efficient teams, they always do things really calmly, they are usually solid in defence.”
But Mourinho, who hit out again at media pundits, responded with criticism of his own, especially in the case of Neville who had a brief, unhappy spell in
charge of Spanish side Valencia.
“Some of the guys with an opinion couldn’t resolve their own problems when they were managers,” Mourinho told reporters on Friday. “So they are giving opinions like they have solutions for everything but is not like that.”
The former Chelsea manager added: “But they are in a position where they can give opinions about everything, sometimes I read and listen, sometimes I don’t.”