Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho seemingly mixed up the current West Bromwich Albion manager and his predecessor tonight during his post-match interview after he led United to a 2-1 win at The Hawthorns.
Tony Pulis was sacked on November 20th, with Alan Pardew assuming the position nine days later. Mourinho said “Tony” in answering his first question during the interview. He was apparently aware of his mistake, without outwardly acknowledging it, as he made sure to use the name “Alan” a few times in later responses.
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“I think we deserved to win,” Mourinho said.
“I think we were the best team, but I knew and the players knew before the game and at half-time that this team are really dangerous on set pieces. I think Tony is an expert on that, his teams are very strong physically. They are very powerful from set pieces and we knew that at any time they could cause us that problem.”
He then made the correction.
“I think we controlled the game for a long, long time and then of course Alan reacts, Alan made a few changes to give his team more quality with the second striker in the middle,” Mourinho continued.
“We had a few chances to kill the game but when we didn’t kill it, I knew that they would react.”
“So when they scored the goal that’s normal, Alan tried and tried everything but I think we deserved the victory overall.”
When Pardew’s name is mentioned to a United fan, they might first think of the 2016 FA Cup Final, in which he was then boss of Crystal Palace, and he engaged in a ridiculous celebratory dance, when his Eagles went up 1-0 on United at Wembley Stadium (pictured above). The dancing machine was soon switched off as United would equalize and then go on to win 2-1, making Pardew’s boogie fever look all the more silly.
That game was coincidentally the last one prior to Mourinho taking over at United, as then boss Louis van Gaal was shortly sacked thereafter.
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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