Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho claimed over the weekend that he had not given Wednesday’s Manchester Derby EFL Cup tie a moment’s thought. Mourinho said the matchup against local rivals Manchester City was of little concern to him. He might be changing his outlook now, in the wake of Sunday’s humiliating homecoming at Chelsea.
United got thrashed 4-0 at Stamford Bridge, a match which marked Mourinho’s first visit back to the Blues as an opposing manager.
Given the harshly disappointing result, Mourinho now hopes his players respond “like men.”
“We are really, really sad, but again this is not for kids, this is for men and … we have to be men and work for the next one,” Mourinho said in an interview with MUTV.
“I would prefer to play [next] in the Premier League. It’s a bad feeling in the Premier League. With the combination of results the gap to the top is six points,” he continued.
“We have had a very difficult period of matches. We lost points this week and, even in the match when we played phenomenal against Stoke, we lost points then. Now we need to win matches.”
“I am not saying they are easy ones, but we have Burnley, we have Swansea, West Ham, Sunderland, Middlesbrough — matches that we need to win and the top four, the top five, they have to play between themselves like we did this week against Chelsea and Liverpool.”
“They are going to lose points too, so we are in the run, but there is no way to hide because I think our faces speak by themselves,” Mourinho said.
The last time Manchester United and Manchester City met, both teams were undefeated and the pregame hype was off-the-charts. That Manchester Derby last month, arguably the biggest in history, was shown in 190 countries. This meeting, in the EFL Cup round of 16, will have significantly less hoopla.
Here’s the link to the injury report to this match. It will be interesting to see how Mourinho decides to approach this one.
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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