Manager Jose Mourinho spoke to the media ahead of the AFC Bournemouth clash on Sunday. (Here’s the link to our starting XI prediction for the season opener) Happy Premier League season kickoff eve everybody!
Here’s a link to the video of his press conference Friday. One particular Q&A stood out today. Mourinho was asked about having to win with style, about how Manchester United is a team that’s been known to not just win but with an aesthetically pleasing manner.
“I grew up in football as a manager since 2001 more or less, especially when I came to England in 2004, and I saw Manchester United as a winning team, not as always an attacking team,” Mourinho said.
“I played sometimes against Manchester United and they were a defensive team. I played Real Madrid-Manchester United in Madrid and they crossed the midfield line twice … Wayne Rooney played outside-left to defend my right-back.
“I saw them always as a winning team with an attacking philosophy, but a winning team. The winning team needs to score more goals than they concede but, if you want, to concede less goals than the goals you score.
“That’s the challenge for Manchester United, to try to be a winning team in a new era of the Premier League that is much more difficult than before. So our job is really difficult but we want to win matches, we want to win competitions, and to win isolated matches you can play bad but to win competitions you need to play well.”
It’s substance over style; that’s basically what Jose Mourinho is saying here. He’s a defensive minded manager. You’ve seen him park the bus on several occasions. His predecessor, Louis van Gaal, was notorious for his dreadfully dull, obsession with possession approach. The results weren’t great, but the manner in which he got those unimpressive results just served to hurt his regime so much more.
The iconic Sir Alex Ferguson was known for having many swashbuckling teams. However, he’s a legend because of all that he won, not because he won in panache. Style matters a lot of course, but results matter so much more. Mourinho gets that, and he’s making sure, on the eve of the regular season kicking off that he understands this.
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.
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