Manchester United have just emerged victorious 2-1 at AFC Bournemouth, and thus handed the south coast club their first loss at the Vitality Stadium of this term. United got off to a very slow start, but were the embodiment of the proverbial “second half team” in the result today.
Let’s take a look at some notes and quotes, news, nuggets and tidbits that emerged from this result. Also, here is the link to the first compilation post of United news and notes from this match.
United manager Jose Mourinho is obviously very happy to post back to back Premier League wins for just the second time this season. However, he had a lot of harsh words for his defense today. You could see his frustration on the pitch when he kicked a batch of water bottles.
In the postgame media opportunities, Mourinho revealed what he said in the halftime speech and it was not flattering to his back line.
“I said at half-time I was the luckiest manager in the Premier League, to be 1-1 in a half where it should be like 5-2 or 6-2 — we were really lucky because we were really poor,” Mourinho told BT Sport after the match
“Defensively awful. Absolutely awful. And when I say defensively, I don’t just look to my defenders, I look to the team. As a team we didn’t start pressing up, the work that we did during the week — I felt like people watching this game, they don’t believe how hard we trained this week … The first half was a disaster.”
“Then in the second half was exactly the opposite. We created lots of chances, we pressed higher. We had much more aggression, intensity, intention. We deserved to score before the minute 90-something. And in the end, we have this goal that gives us important points.”
Although Mourinho didn’t single out anybody there, anyone watching the game closely would have noticed that centre back Chris Smalling was just atrocious. United fell behind because Chris Smalling was caught advancing up too soon after the Red Devils regained possession of the ball. Smalling then got absolutely torched by Junior Stanislas. His overall performance was so dire that he drew a ton of criticism on social media, with plenty of tweets that looked like this, being posted:
You ever seen a baby horse trying to stand for the first time? That's how Chris Smalling is playing right now.
Looks like he can barely walk, never mind run or kick a football
— Hi, My name is Joeogo – Dalot's Uncle (@SayNoMore33) November 3, 2018
And what was one of the major keys to getting it turned around in the second half? Ander Herrera, who put in a performance that was almost as stellar and consequential just about anybody on the pitch.
Said Mourinho: “I was happy bringing Ander Herrera into the game. I felt we needed him to give more balance and to recover the ball faster. I was happy with that change. It was much better.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Lineups.com and Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.