He seems to have taken the appointment of Jose Mourinho as a challenge to prove himself under the successful Portuguese manager all over again, as he did under United’s legendary coach Sir Alex Ferguson.
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United have acknowledged reports of their pursuit of Paul Pogba, but while Mourinho did not mention the Juventus player by name, he said there was still time to land a quality player.
“To be fair I don’t think I can analyse our players with this difference of power”.
– Reuters picMANCHESTER, July 22 ― There is space for Juan Mata at Manchester United but the midfielder must fight to break into the first team, manager Jose Mourinho has said.
‘I feel for the fans, for the club and the players (that something exciting is coming) – you feel like (it is) a new era.
“First of all, I think maybe all of you misunderstood what happened in our previous club because I never told Mata to leave”.
The Spaniard said: “He is a strong character”. If you don’t feel you can do it, you go to America, China; stay in the French League one more season. We were not with this old-fashioned idea of, “I don’t sell players to my direct competitors inside of my own country”.
“He is a strong character but he makes jokes”.
“Well, I think by the motivational point of view it is very important to forget the past three years and to focus on good times”.
“It was a good game against Manchester United and a great feeling”.
“There are different tours”, said Mourinho.
The extreme heat and humidity has not stopped Mourinho’s men from often training twice a day in sweltering Shanghai, where on Friday they lost 4-1 to a Borussia Dortmund side admittedly far more advanced in their pre-season preparations.
“We had no (Zlatan) Ibrahimovic, (Anthony) Martial, (Marouane) Fellaini, (Morgan) Schneiderlin – lots of them aren’t here yet”.
A double from Gonzalo Castro plus strikes from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Ousame Dembele earned the Bundesliga outfit an impressive pre-season victory. They are a very good team, they played fantastically and we missed some chances.
Next up in the International Champions Cup for Dortmund are Manchester City in Shenzhen after Pep Guardiola’s team play rivals United in Beijing on Monday.
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“Sometimes people say the team has no leaders, it’s this, it’s that, but what we need is everybody with the same kind of mentality”, he added. Ibrahimovic continues to score goals and win games at a high level, and now, he can do it the Premier League with United and his favourite manager.
