Manchester United picked up their first road Premier League win since September, with a 4-2 decision at Watford tonight, but manager Jose Mourinho believes the score should or could have been a lot more lopsided than that. Mourinho lamented the blown scoring opportunities in the second half versus the Hornets, and utilized a victory cigar analogy to express his disappointment.
Mourinho felt that his side dominated the contest, to a point that was not truly reflected by the final box score. United got a brace from Ashley Young, and goals from Anthony Martial and Jesse Lingard.
For the home side, Hornets captain Troy Deeney converted a penalty in the 77′ to close the gap to 3-1, while Abdoulaye Doucouré brought it to 3-2 in the 84′. Jose Mourinho believes it never should have been that close, he thinks his side United should have run away with this one, and won decisively in a total laugher.
“The second half should be five or 6-0. It was even even easier to score goals in the first half than the first but we missed the chances and this is football,” Mourinho said in an interview with BT Sport.
“Out of nothing a penalty and 3-1 and then the game is a different one. It was easy match comfortably and in the end, with the 3-2, the game is in a grey zone,” he continued.
“Jesse (Lingard) had that fantastic initiative and killed the game. We scored great goals, but we missed the 4-0 in a great action at the end of the first half and in the second half we had great high pressure to recover the ball high and (Romelu) Lukaku had that one with an open goal and then Paul Pogba’s header is also a free header.”
“Lots of chances but then out of nothing it’s 3-1 and then the game is different.”
Then Mourinho threw a bit of shade at the Hornets, who were perhaps being a bit overlooked as United have two big games coming up against Arsenal and Manchester City.
“They are full of confidence, they have nothing to lose, they have no pressure. For them, to lose 3-0 or 5-0 is exactly the same,” Mourinho added.
“So after the 3-1, they come to the game and there were a few minutes where we should be smoking cigars but we are a bit in trouble.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune corporation blogging community Chicago Now.
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