Jose Mourinho has issued a defence of sorts over Wayne Rooney’s struggle for form.
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The Manchester United captain was again poor at Northampton Town on Wednesday night, and while Mourinho’s men won, Rooney again didn’t escape criticism.
He started the season as a No. 10 and scored one goal and assisted a further two in three Premier League games.
United go into the Leicester game after suffering consecutive league defeats by City and Watford, but beat Ranieri’s team the last time they met – in the Community Shield in August.
The 31-year-old England skipper ― who on Thursday had said he didn’t pay any attention to outside criticism of his form ― has failed to sparkle and was anonymous in the two Premier League defeats United suffered last week.
Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho claims that Wayne Rooney has been affected by the criticism he received following England’s match against Slovakia. The Belgian returned for his side’s 2-1 EFL Cup win but couldn’t see out the game, and left the field in injury time after City had made all three of their substitutions. “The football is different, they play one shape, we play another shape”.
“It’s prehistoric”, Ranieri told reporters at a news conference.
“But all of this is good for the squad because everyone is competing in training and it’s improving us as players and as a squad”. They can’t coach, they can’t sit on the bench, they can’t win matches. We were punished by other people’s mistakes.
A hard victory in the EFL Cup against Northampton sparked an angry retort from Mourinho at the “footballing Einsteins” of the world, suggesting that the Portuguese is starting to feel the pressure ahead of the champions’ visit.
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“(Garcia) played good, and I want to congratulate the young players. “On a personal level, scoring a lot of goals is the main objective”, Rashford said. We like to say really good start to the season, probably better than we could have expected. Not many teams during the Premier League history they could do that. It [their relationship] is fantastic, very good, no problems. “I would love to protect my players, but from you (the media) I can’t”, Mourinho said. The Foxes, meantime, have already lost at Hull and Liverpool this term and have lost 11 and won one of their last 15 against United.
