Crisis over. For now.
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However, Chris Smalling has backed Rooney and claimed he remains the “main man” for both Manchester United and England.
The win at the weekend was a huge moment for the team as everything clicked together in a brilliant first-half in which they scored four goals in a 20-minute spell.
“It was a good performance and result”, Mourinho said. It’s obviously a very good result, it’s not easy to win against them and even more hard to win in such a comfortable way.
Mourinho refused to speak about any more of his players and said that it was the team as a whole that performed brilliantly rather than individuals. This time we analysed and we coped.
“I think we had that today with [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic dropping, Paul Pogba going and finding the spaces”.
“Rooney politely applauded back when he was sent out to warm up for the first time, and the home fans’ reception was enthusiastic when he ran on to the field after replacing Rashford near the end”.
After labelling his critics in the media “Einsteins” following the heavy censure of Rooney, Mourinho took their advice and dropped him to the bench.
After the doom and gloom of last week, things look a lot brighter for Manchester United now, and Smalling believes this team have the capability and talent to play any side out of the park.
Speaking in an interview with MUTV after Saturday’s game, Mata said: “I think we needed something like this”.
No arguments there, Jose.
Asked if Rooney appeared down when he was told, Smalling replied: “No”. When the team plays well it’s easier to have good individual performances so I don’t think it was because of the changes.
“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”.
The victory was self evidently significant.
“What we want to do is play with freedom and express, we follow the manager’s instructions and then we have to do what we feel”.
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“It was a nice goal between Daley, me and Marcus”.
