During their preseason summer exhibition tour of the United States, Manchester United manger Jose Mourinho consistently whined about the quality of his squad, which was largely composed of youth team products. It wasn’t good for the youngsters as they were basically insulted by their own leader.
This week, in an interview with Univision, Mourinho hit out at the younger players on his senior team squad. He slammed some big names too, some of which he has publicly thrown under the boss previously.
“They are spoilt kids now, the kids of today have a different life, an easier environment and I’m talking about the people around the players,” Mourinho said.
“These people give them too much affection and too many excuses. People mature much more slowly now. We’re talking about Luke Shaw, Martial, Lingard, Rashford – young, big potential, but at the end of the day it results in the word I cannot say, but you use it a lot here… character, personality, they lack a little,” he concluded.
It was certainly every stereotype of a middle-aged man giving the cliche “kids today….” speech.
That came ahead of his weekly news conference on Friday with the media that usually cover his team regularly. This topic came up as the very first question in the session. Have a watch below, as Mourinho refuses to be drawn into a conversation about his own commentary.
Mourinho says here he won’t play the media’s supposed game and seems to claim there were issues about the context of his statements. However, when given the opportunity to clarify his comments and/or the context, Mourinho refused. Perhaps some of his remarks were mistranslated, but the United boss would refuse to either confirm or deny that.
Manchester United vs Crystal Palace FYIs
Kickoff: 3pm local, Old Trafford, Saturday Nov 24
Odds via Oddschecker: Man United 2/5, Draw 4/1, Crystal Palace 8/1
MUFC Starting XI Prediction: go to this link
Injury Report for both teams: go to this link
Score Prediction: United 3, Palace 1
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Lineups.com and Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.