United have rebuilt considerably since last season; bringing in Jose Mourinho, Eric Bailly, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, and Paul Pogba this summer. But this is football.
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“Sometimes you play a home match and it doesn’t really feel like home”, Mourinho said.
The United manager said: “We made a bad start with players below their normal level”.
“I thought, because of the characteristics of the game, I thought we could hurt them playing with some individuals with some qualities”.
“I always want to be in the position of emotional control because for me it is just a game against a very good opponent”.
The Citizens produced a strong first-half showing, racing into a two-goal lead thanks to efforts from Kevin De Bruyne and Kelechi Iheanacho.
They replaced Anthony Martial and Juan Mata, but both were disappointed as United were overrun in the first half.
And he tips Zlatan Ibrahimovic, as well as Marcus Rashford, to get the crowd excited as the team attempt to win their first Premier League since 2013. “The big players don’t have to understand the league or need time”. But the team paid for that start.
“If there was a penalty and red card with 30 minutes to go, we’d be speaking about a completely different match”.
“Derbies that I’ve played elsewhere are also a big deal to the fans so you have to take that into consideration also”. “Last year we played it and it was a hard game”.
“We were not in control [in the first half] and the team was not improving – and it is hard to improve only by words on the touchline”. We won things together when we were younger and we will win together again when we are a little bit older.
José Mourinho who’s the new head coach of Manchester United said every player is available to play today.
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“I like the keepers to attack the ball and after what happened (with Ibrahimovic’s goal), the second half he continued to play and that’s a good thing about his personality”. He did it 20 times during the game. “Some of the boys, they felt the dimension of the game”.
