Sports: Jose Mourinho reveals the Manchester United weakness he wanted Tottenham to exploit
Mourinho has revealed that he allowed Manchester United to have more possession in their 1-1 draw with Tottenham as he believes Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side are ‘not very good’ at build-up play. Spurs went in front in the first half through Steven Bergwijn’s excellent individual solo effort.
However, United escaped with a point after Eric Dier brought down Paul Pogba inside Spurs’ box and Bruno Fernandes scored the penalty. Mourinho, who managed United for three years, admits he was wary of United’s threat on the counter and says he was comfortable with allowing Solskjaer’s players to have the ball, even though they had Bruno Fernandes and Paul Pogba, who came on in the second half, in midfield.
‘We analyse United [before the game] but I don’t think it’s for us to speak about them,’ Mourinho said after the match. ‘I’ll just say that I think we gave them what I think they are not very good at, which was to give them the opportunity to have the ball and to play in organised attack.
‘I think they are much more dangerous in counter-attack situations. They have fast people in attack and they can be really dangerous, but we managed to control that in an amazing way.
‘I can even remember when the game was broken in the end where Marcus Rashford had a long ball [from Pogba] in the space and this kind of action but we controlled him very, very well. ‘We wanted to be dangerous in counter-attacks but we knew that would be difficult for 90 minutes.
‘You ask me better today the options than the last part of the league before the lockdown, of course much better as in that period we had zero attacking players and today we had four.
‘We played with Bergwijn, Lamela, Kane and Son, and our bench was very strong in defensive options. We had Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen on the bench but we didn’t have Lucas or Dele or Lamela or Bergwijn.
‘Imagine Bergwijn on the bench and Lucas playing and coming out minute 60-65 and Bergwijn coming for the last period, I can imagine the impact that we could have. ‘So a bit of frustration but at the same time really happy with the players.
‘Really happy to see people like Harry, Sonny, Moussa four months without playing, Harry six months without playing, and then giving us 90 minutes, I think from the boys I can only be really happy with them.’
Metro sports
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