During a press conference ahead of Manchester United ‘s clash with Leicester City, the Portuguese boss was asked how hard it would be for Saturday’s opponents to regain their Premier League championship.
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To be honest, he did not even play against Feyenoord, so he was directly involved in the last two matches. I know that some football Einsteins, they tried to delete 16 years of my career and delete an unbelievable history of Manchester United Football Club and focus on a bad week and three bad results.
“The critique is part of the evolution”, he said. But I am a good man.
However, despite Rashford’s big impact, Merson thinks there’s too much pressure heaped upon the young England striker.
Both Leicester City and Manchester United need a win to get the mojo back in their Premier League seasons. “I listen to my coaches and my teammates, the people around me, and I don’t really listen to what a lot of people out there are saying because a lot of it is rubbish”, Rooney told MUTV.
“It’s a learning process”.
He says it was one he organised himself: standing alongside his friend Andrea Bocelli, the blind tenor, while he sang at the King Power on the final home game of the season, an affecting and emotional end to an incredible nine months. At the moment it looks to me like Rooney has lost a little bit of his hunger and is not quite sure where he wants to play.
“I love my players and I don’t change them for other players. I tried to employ heat shields to deflect criticism from a player who had misplaced a pass that gave away a goal, or another who had missed a sitter that could have won us a game”.
“In spite of not being English – I am for here many years – I know one of the reasons of the English disaster over the years in the Euros and in the World Cups, but I still think it’s part of the job”. Critics have said that he’s played poorly and that the accommodations that the Red Devils make for him hurts the rest of the team, but Jose Mourinho doesn’t want to hear it. We have a lot of big players and a lot of players in my situation as well who are not getting the minutes they probably thought they deserved to get. You have to cope with it, you have to realise you are very lucky to be in our position.
One player he continues to support is captain Wayne Rooney, who has taken the brunt of criticism during United’s poor run.
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Mourinho said that Anthony Martial would not be fit to face Leicester on Saturday lunchtime because he had a contusion in his “calf an ankle area”.
