Jose Mourinho appeared to have a message for his critics at full-time on Saturday.
Manchester United recorded a valuable victory over Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford, a win that cements their place behind Manchester City in the Premier League. It wasn’t a classic match, but Mourinho and most United fans won’t care.
The home side mirrored Spurs’ back three, and a stalemate looked on the cards from early in the match. Dele Alli and Romelu Lukaku came close to scoring late on, but otherwise very few chances of note were created.
However, in the 81st minute, United made a breakthrough. David de Gea kicked the ball long towards Lukaku, the Belgian striker headed it into the path of Anthony Martial, and the French forward scored.
The goal gave United victory and the chance for Mourinho to hit back at his critics. The former Chelsea manager came in for criticism for his negative tactics in the goalless draw against Liverpool two weeks ago, and his team’s loss to Huddersfield Town last Saturday. On both occasions, Mourinho’s approach was questionable, and they dropped five points in the games.
However, he appeared to feel that the win over Spurs justified his approach. He hasn’t enjoyed a victory this much since United beat an Ajax team of youth-team players in the Europa League final.
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Mourinho explained his gesture after the match.
“Some people speak too much, calm down, relax a little bit,” the United manager told reporters.
“Don’t speak too much, speak, speak, speak, relax. Relax a little bit, don’t be so nervous. Don’t be so excited.”
He also stressed that the gesture had nothing to do with the Spurs coaching staff.
“No. The opposition bench did their job, super correct… Mauricio, my staff and his staff have no problem, we played against each other so many times since Spain, and we have a really good relation, we lost, we win, I don’t know if we draw also, and we are always correct with each other.”
The man is fired up.
