After winning the first three games of the Mourinho era, United are stuck in a rut and looked painfully short of inspiration in their first defeat against Watford for 30 years.
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The United job was a chance for Mourinho to rehabilitate his career after being fired a year ago for a second time by Chelsea.
Substitute Juan Zuniga scored the vital goal with his second touch eight minutes from time on Sunday and Troy Deeney put the icing on the cake with a last-minute penalty. We were showing complete control, intensity, creation.
Mourinho didn’t name names, but Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba failed to make much of an impact with the latter now a source of some concern to United fans. The injury was a long time ago and I’m fine and try and help the team when I get a chance to do it.
The England worldwide has enjoyed a meteoric rise to fame at United since making his first-team breakthrough in February with two goals on his debut against FC Midtjylland in the Europa League, before following that up with two goals on his Premier League debut against Arsenal three days later.
Mourinho admitted United had also failed to close down City’s Aleksandar Kolarov before City’s opening goal in the Manchester derby. It’s a mistake that goes against our plan and against our training because our intention was for the wing-backs to be pressed and not let them progress. In a couple of weeks, everything like this becomes flawless.
“I always say to my players “We go where we are needed”, Raiola told the Daily Mail.
The manager blamed mistakes – collective, individual and refereeing – for the defeat, which saw his side condemned to a third straight defeat – something that has not happened to Mourinho in a single season since 2002.
“The third thing is what is my hands, which is the improvement of the team and the individuals”.
As Manchester United were looking to turn around their poor start to the season when they travelled to Watford for a Premier League clash.
And he knows he still has plenty to do to turn things around at Old Trafford, despite what was a promising start to his first season at the helm.
“I can split this into three factors – one is the referee’s crucial mistakes, it’s not in my control”, he said.
“At the moment heads are down but, as I said, we must stand together and fight and show that we are confident”.
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Nordin Amrabat cut past United defender Luke Shaw and released Roberto Pereyra, who fed Zuniga with a cutback, allowing Capoue’s replacement to restore Watford’s lead.
