Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho warned in the preseason that if no new summer transfer window additions arrived, the team would be in for a very rough season. Well, the club signed no new players after July 3, and sure enough ended up losing two of their first three matches.
They head into the fourth clash, at Burnley FC, floundering in 13th place. They badly need a win here to try and square their record heading into the international break.
“I said that (a difficult season was in store) in the summer before the competition started. It’s not especially now. Two defeats are two defeats,” said Mourinho.
“We still have 35 matches to play. It’s not because we lost six points that this is going to change. I knew this was going to be difficult because I knew that last season was going to be very, very difficult.”
“Win at Burnley. Then win against Watford. That is the target we have.”
In addition to mentioning United’s domestic schedule and objectives, he also discussed their European ambitions. United learned on Thursday that they will one of the most iconic players in their club history, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Juventus, in the UEFA Champions League group stages.
“We have matches to play every week and the target is always to win,” Mourinho continued.
“We know that in the Champions League, we have to play the biggest candidate in Juventus. They were always a big candidate but they transformed themselves into the biggest candidate. They don’t hide the fact their investment made was really to win the Champions League. But even against that big team, we are going to try to win.”
“Last season we had a fantastic start and we won the first three matches. We got nine points from three matches, scoring 10 goals.”
“Then we lost a couple of matches. Maybe this time we started with two defeats and who knows if we will have a good run that gives us consecutive victories and consecutive points.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, is currently a regular contributor to SB Nation, WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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