As a difficult week draws to a close, Jose Mourinho has spoken. And how.
The Manchester United manager has been on the receiving end of plenty of criticism following his side’s shock Champions League departure to Sevilla on Tuesday. Having drawn the first leg 0-0 in Spain, Mourinho’s players appeared to be sticking to the overly-cautious approach they’d adopted in the first leg for much of the return at Old Trafford. They abandoned this late on, but by this stage they were 2-0 down and the damage was irreversible.
Immediately after the game, Mourinho was quick to remind reporters that being knocked out of the Champions League was nothing new for United – even adding that he had been responsible for two of their exits (with Porto in 2004 and Real Madrid in 2013).
Days on and Mourinho has continued with this theme, speaking at length about his club’s relative lack of success in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era. In European competition, he pointed out that United’s best performance since reaching the 2011 final was to reach the quarter-final stage once (in 2014).
He spoke for over 12 minutes without interruption and, as was pointed out by the BBC, had even brought notes to help support the points he wanted to make.
Clearly, the reporters there to witness it were left stunned.
Extraordinary performance by Jose at his presser just now: listed Utd in Europe post-011 to make point no recent tradition of doing well…
— jamie jackson (@JamieJackson___) March 16, 2018
Mourinho, "In 7 years with four different managers, twice out in the group phase and one quarter final. This is Football heritage. In the Premier League the club's victory was 2013, since then they've finished 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th. In the last four years the best was 4th."
— Chris Winterburn (@cmwinterburn) March 16, 2018
Wow. Jose Mourinho has spoken, with passion, for about 10 minutes non-stop, maybe even longer. Highlighted @ManUtd – relative – lack of success in recent years and @ManCity success. Called it 'football heritage'.
— Simon Stone (@sistoney67) March 16, 2018
The answer Jose gave lasted 12 and a half minutes. He brought notes with him.
— Simon Stone (@sistoney67) March 16, 2018
Describing it as ‘footballing heritage’, he also appeared to pay tribute to Manchester City – although he did appear to suggest that the fact some of their key players had been there for more than two years contributed to their success.
“In the last seven years the worst position of Manchester City in the Premier League was fourth, in the last seven years Manchester City was champions twice and if you want to say three times, they were second twice.
“That’s heritage. Do you know what is also heritage?
“Is that Otamendi, KDB, Fernandinho, Silva, Sterling, Aguero, they are investments from the past, not from the last two years, do you know how many of United players that left the club last season?”
