Paul Pogba finally ended his wait for a first goal for Manchester United since his world record transfer in Saturday’s 4-1 win against defending champions Leicester.
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When asked about Pogba’s brilliant performance that saw him score his first goal for the Red Devils since his much-publicized return from Juventus, the ex-Chelsea boss revealed that the 23-year-old has to be consistent in the upcoming matches.
Jose Mourinho has disclosed that he dropped Wayne Rooney because he wanted to inject more pace into the attack.
Asked what compelled him to drop the second highest goal scorer in club history, the manager was curt but comprehensive in his response.
“You can only pick 11 men”, Mourinho added.
Asked if it was the flawless answer to recent struggles, he said: ‘I think so. If I leave out Rooney you ask me why, but I can not pick them all.
“I have a squad of players and I thought the best option against a quick-breaking side like Leicester was to play with two fast players out wide with Juan Mata in the middle”.
Rooney’s decimated speed has certainly become more acute since the arrival of Zlatan Ibrahimović, who has never possessed any particular thrust, unlike Rashford, another scorer against the champions.
“The pair complement each other in midfield”. The last thing that the team achieves is consistency because the process starts with playing well in spaces and the last thing you achieve is to play well consistently.
“This result was about the performance, the security of the fans, and I don’t know the last time they had such a good performance and such a result at half-time”, he said.
Mourinho said: “Myself and Mr Van Gaal think football in a different way so it is normal that in their football brains there is still moments of contradiction about what they used to do and what I want then to do”.
“It was a good performance, the intensity of our pressure, our counter-attacks, the way we reached when we lost the ball”.
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“I could have been much more defensive in my words but I made a decision to go in another way and I don’t regret that because this is the way we have to think”.
