Manchester United heads to Yeovil Town tomorrow night for a FA Cup fourth round clash. Tomorrow will mark both the 55th birthday and the 100th game managed at United for boss Jose Mourinho. Coinciding with these milestones was the announcement of Mourinho receiving a contract extension.
For more on that go to this link. For the match preview go to this link. For the MUFC injury report and starting XI prediction go to this link.
Mourinho gave a news conference today ahead of the match, and we have video of the whole session for you embedded below:
Mourinho was asked what he said to Alexis Sanchez in order to recruit him. “Nothing,” he responded. Sanchez has also publicly disputed the idea that he left Arsenal to join Manchester United due to anything Gunners club legend Thierry Henry told him to do.
The United boss did confirm that Sanchez will be in the squad tomorrow, and he spoke about the bolstered depth and competition for places in attack now that the club had added the Chilean.
“This is life in big clubs. In big clubs you have big players, you have competition, you have responsibilities, you have to perform always. The players in big clubs know the squad is 20 something where everybody wants to play,” Mourinho said.
“I think is absolutely fundamental and we want to improve all the time, do better and better and better. We want to achieve big things and will not stop until we do that. We want to be fighting for titles and so it is a very, very important addition for us.
“Now we have five attacking players of high quality — Mata, Rashford, Lukaku, Martial, Alexis — and it is fantastic for me and for the team.”
-Finally, here we go yet again with the “Cristiano Ronaldo wants to leave Real Madrid, and he wants to return to United, and this time he means it, no, really this time it actually could happen” routine.
It won’t, and Mourinho also believes that the 32-year-old superstar of superstars will stay in the Spanish capital. Mourinho spoke of all the struggles that the two time European defending champions are going through, and how that could be fueling Ronaldo speculation. Mourinho will not add fuel to that fire.
“I think with the moment Real Madrid is having now I think I should be the last one to add some fuel to the fire,” Mourinho said.
“Madrid is on fire, the results are not good and it’s a club where I worked three years, I cared about the club, I am the last one to add fire. To put some water on the fire, Cristiano is the kind of player every manager and club wants but only one can have. That’s Real Madrid, that’s my feeling.”
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 company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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