United fell to a 3-2 defeat at Brighton in a lacklustre performance on Super Sunday, leaving some questioning the desire of Jose Mourinho’s men.
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For the first time in almost two years, Jose Mourinho´s men conceded more than twice with all three Brighton goals arriving before half-time through Glenn Murray, Shane Duffy and a Pascal Gross penalty.
Mourinho wanted a central defender in the close season and on the first half evidence at Brighton, it was clear why, yet he also sanctioned the £30 million (Dh140.4m) signings of Bailly and Lindelof. We made mistakes we shouldn’t make.
“Look, when I speak about individual displays and am critical with my players, you don’t accept it”, Mourinho told Sky after the game. “We made mistakes and were punished by our mistakes”. “He can find that stability that makes great players, we try to help [him] and he’s working well”.
I don’t think its right that City have dragged up interviews with Jose and De Bruyne, obviously that was a mistake.
“I think we lived an incredible season with cameras. When you lose your confidence then it’s the normal tendency to lose that confidence and game plan”. Then you can think about selling it or renting it because nobody is going to pick it up off you half-built.
“You hope we can play to some level like we did today”.
The United boss was reportedly frustrated by the inability to sign a centre-back in the off-season, but he refused to discuss transfer window failings on Sunday.
The visitors never settled and Anthony Knockaert took advantage of poor communication in United defence after 22 minutes to shoot wide.
“You can be a rich club and buy all the best players in the world, but you cannot buy class”. A win or even a draw against one of the best teams in the league would go a long way in proving that Brighton deserves their spot. Last year, we had nearly the same attitude as today and it’s not right.
“I know the feelings of players and it’s not so hard to raise your game for this type of game. When I can’t do that, don’t push me to the other side”.
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“Maybe we didn’t have the attitude to break them, to kill them when we had to kill them and to go through the lines”.
