While Manchester United Manager Jose Mourinho makes a lot of salient points with his postgame comments yesterday, at the end of the day, “you are your record,” as the saying goes. The Old Trafford outfit got off to their worst start ever after their first 13 games, even worse than during the David Moyes disaster year, and Mourinho needs to answer for that.
Results and results, and your point total is your point total, but Mourinho has tried to put a massive spin on that, by claiming United are in a position in the table that is falsely indicative of who they are and what they deserve.
While yes, the team has had some misfortune, bad luck and a few breaks that didn’t go their way, you do make your own luck to some extent when all is said and done.
Mourinho told Sky Sports: “When my teams win matches playing a different style then the style matters, not results.”
“Now [other] teams are playing defensive and getting results and are praised.
“When my team plays extremely well, results are more important. But I am happy my team is playing really well. We have a position in the table [sixth] that has no relation to our football.”
Yes, he’s right in a lot of ways, and makes some great points, but being nine points adrift of the final UEFA Champions League spot, and already pretty much out of the league title race, is totally unacceptable at Manchester United. With this team, one that has a roster boasting a ludicrously high wage bill, it’s EXTREMELY UNACCEPTABLE.
United picked up their third consecutive 1-1 draw yesterday after blowing a 1-0 lead at Everton and thus dropping two points that they had in hand when Marouane Fellaini came on in the 89′. The Belgian, almost immediately, made a cheap challenge that gave Everton a penalty, and Leighton Baines equalized for the hosts.
Mourinho defended his decision to sub Fellaini on as did club icon Gary Neville, who also called Fellaini “garbage” and “pathetic.”
I do agree with both Mourinho and Neville on this, but I’m not a huge fan of Mourinho’s post game press conference comments, which seem to exist in a different universe at worst, very delusional at best.
“When my teams are playing pragmatic football and winning matches and winning titles you say that is not nice and not right,” he said.
“Then my team play very well — and it is a huge change to the last two or three years [at United] — and now you say what matters is to get the result no matter what.”
Yes, Jose Mourinho, results do matter, no matter what. It’s the Barclays Premier League; not exactly a land of participation trophies and “everybody gets a ribbon” type culture.
While Mourinho does make some good points about how the media cover United, every team thinks they have had bad breaks and deserve to be higher up than they currently are. It’s like how everyone in prison thinks that they’re actually innocent.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.