Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho met the media a few minutes ago to preview tomorrow’s massive home clash against Arsenal. We have video of the entire session, which was just short of ten minutes, embedded for you below via YouTube.
The first four minutes covered Liverpool winger Mohamed Salah, the remarkable season he’s having and his tenure at Chelsea while Mourinho was his manager. The very first question of the session was a follow up on Mourinho’s Salah comments from an ESPN Brazil interview he did yesterday.
Mourinho took credit for bringing the Egyptian to Chelsea in 2014, and blamed the club board as the responsible party for jettisoning the Egyptian in 2016.
“It’s easier for you to say negative things about me and not positive things,” Mourinho said.
“Everybody knows I bought Salah, I was at Chelsea, he was at Basel and I am responsible for the players I bring to the clubs and he came to the club in my period.”
“We played against Basel, he played against me, before I play matches, especially international matches, I spend a lot of time analyzing the opposition I don’t know as well, I watch and I told the club to buy that fantastic young player.”
“You know that, but you prefer to say negative things and not the positive things; this is the reality. He was not playing a lot, and that is my responsibility as a coach, and we decided with him it was better to have a loan period to play, to grow up to become stronger and we thought Italian football could be good for him to develop.”
“He went to Fiorentina, after that I left Chelsea and I am not responsible for the process. But just to end as I am not comfortable speaking about a Liverpool player, credit to him, to Jurgen [Klopp], the team, and I am very, very, very happy for him, that’s why we keep a good relationship.
“He is a fantastic boy, he knows I have a great care for him and I’m really happy for the things that are happening for him.”
After the Mo Salah rant, which was more than a bit contentious as Mourinho once again hit out at what he says are misperceptions about himself. A reporter then tried to follow up by asking Mourinho about “people” having the wrong impression of him, and the United manager cut the journalist off by saying it wasn’t “people” who hold these misnomers, but the media, journalists, reporters etc. The whole exchange was less than congenial.
After this back and forth, the Q&A then turned to matters of the game, and there was some pretty interesting conversation relation to Mourinho’s fractious relationship with Arsene Wenger, the struggles of Alexis Sanchez and the future of David de Gea.
All in all, it was a very action packed session.
United FC Starting XI Prediction: go to this link
Arsenal FC Starting XI Prediction: go to this link
Injury and fitness report for both teams: go to this link
Odds via Odds Checker: United 6/13, Draw 50/13, Arsenal FC 15/2
Prediction: United 2, Arsenal FC 1
As always, feel free to post your own starting XI predictions for both teams, and well as your final score predictions
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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