He said: “They had a right-back who I thought was Rory Delap but it was not, it was (Luis) Hernandez throwing balls 50 metres into the box”.
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“I know it would end with long balls, throw-ins, so I don’t pick [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic or [Marouane] Fellaini for sure”.
“I would not be ambitious if I said we had a fantastic performance, because it was not a fantastic performance”.
However, Mourinho insisted the reasoning behind Mata’s substitution stemmed from a desire to make all six available changes before the final whistle, and with Leicester piling bodies forward, the 53-year-old chose to bring off Man United’s shortest player, which was inevitably the 5’7 28-year-old. He is the smallest one.
“Zlatan is not a very fast player to play 50 metres away from the box like where Vardy can be unsafe”.
“It hurt me to see people like Depay, Jones, Ashley Young, all of them there”. “We recovered the balance, and when you score nearly at the end it is always a bit lucky but we were nearly in control”.
Ibrahimovic made the decisive impact on his competitive debut for United seven minutes from time at Wembley with a looping header from Antonio Valencia’s cross to seal a 2-1 victory for Jose Mourinho’s men. He said: “I want to dedicate this victory to eight persons”. This is why I came and hopefully I can win many more than this.
But the Portuguese was keen to point out that had his former boss Van Gaal not won the FA Cup in May, just a few weeks before he was sacked, Mourinho would not have been a contender.
Manchester United will now turn their attentions towards preparing for their Premier League opener against Bournemouth next Sunday. I have to confess because it is an impossible ambition.
“That will start at Bournemouth next week and then the next game and the next if we win”.
“But our desire to do well and work and improve (is our biggest strength). In this moment, we are not a super team, but we are a team with a super desire”.
Here are the key quotes from his interviews with BT Sport and MUTV and post-match press conference. First official game, we play for the trophy and we win, that’s what it’s all about, winning trophies.
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“I lead many trophies to other managers to win after me and no one remembers that they were there because of me”. Now, [it] is against Bournemouth, which is a hard game. “We are still in pre-season and we played against a big team”. They were very strong. “He comes because he knows the club, he knows the city, he knows numerous players, he wants to be an important part of the Man United project so hopefully everything goes well and he comes to our team”. We begin with a trophy.
