Manchester United manager, Jose Mourinho has taken another approach at analyzing his player’s performance, as in his post-match interview, he praised the team for taking a draw at St Mary’s, after a poor performance from his team.
The game at St Mary’s which was against struggling Southampton was the second time Manchester United will be dropping two points after they were held to a goalless draw at home by Crystal Palace a few weeks back.
Jose Mourinho and Manchester United are quickly losing ground against the top four teams, and their neighbours, Manchester City who are playing some fantastic football, and looking like those already running away with the title.
Speaking Manchester United MUTV after the 2-2 draw at St Mary’s, Jose Mourinho praised the fight back from his team after going two goals down. He said:
“Yes [it was two points dropped]. The result is not good so I have to say we dropped two points. If you are losing 4-0 and you get to 4-4 I would say maybe not. I think the comeback is good from 2-0 down to 2-2 in normal conditions everybody says it is a point gained, you have the game lost and you get a point, so normally you say it is a positive point, but it is a match that we want to win. It is a match where because of that good reaction in the first half we had 45 minutes to win the game. It was not like we had 10 minutes to win it, we had 45 minutes, so for me obviously it was not a good result.”
Jose Mourinho said he wanted a win against Southampton:
“Somebody told me many years ago that simplicity is genius and I agree totally with that old manager that had that brilliant phrase. I think many years after in some areas of the pitch, simplicity is genius and in the second half we want to win, the players showed that desire. What we did so well in the last 15-20 minutes of the first half was that we chose to connect with the attacking players by transporting the ball, leaving the ball in the right moment, the right choice of pass, playing simple, accelerating the game. In the second half we went back again to that dynamic where we lose too many balls in midfield and the players, they don’t understand that simplicity is genius, especially in some parts of the pitch. They keep and keep and keep going to complicated football.”
On his defensive line, with McTominay Matic and Phil Jones as back three, he said:
“I think Scott [McTominay] and [Nemanja] Matic did a very positive job for two midfield players and Phil Jones led that group of three in a way where we were totally in control. I would say that the only problem that we had was that the two attacking players didn’t have enough continuity, because in midfield we lost too many balls.”
“I would say Marcus Rashford was a mad dog. He was let’s say very, very tired with little problems. [He had] That appetite, that desire, that fire that you need to recover the ball faster and to recover the ball higher on the pitch, but these are just details. Overall I am not happy with the result, but I cannot be critical, I think the spirit was good, I think the desire was good. I think if they were not doing better than what they did it is because they were not able to do it. In the Premier League to play a football match with only one central defender is hard.”
Injury concern:
“He [Rashford] was injured, he was asking to come off. Not that kind of injury, but some players with that kind of injury do not play for two weeks, but Marcus no, Marcus I am pretty sure he will be fine for the next one [against Arsenal]. It is one kick here, one kick there, one fall here, one fall there, fatigue, lots of running, lots of movement, 75 minutes and he was done. We tried then with Martial replacing him.”
Lukaku’s goal at St Mary’s
“I think a goal is always important in a striker. But I have to say I am super happy with Marcus Rashford’s performance and he didn’t score a goal. So sometimes goals are not everything, but for a player that has not scored goals for quite a long time, I think to score a goal, a good goal, I think is always nice. I can imagine he goes with the better feeling with this match than previous matches.”