Jose Mourinho criticises Everton: the Man United gaffer took a pop at his opponents after his side's disappointing draw at Goodison Park today.
Jose Mourinho was a frustrated man after his Manchester United team drew away to Everton in their Premier League clash at Goodison Park today. United went ahead through Zlatan Ibrahimovic after the Swede capitalised on an error from Maarten Stekelenburg in the Everton goal, but with a couple of minutes left on the clock Everton old boy Marouane Fellaini gifted the home side a draw by needlessly fouling Idrissa Gueye in the penalty box.
The stats would seem to suggest it was an even enough match - United had ten shots to Everton's thirteen while Everton had twice as many corners, though United had 55% possession - but Jose Mourinho clearly felt his team were the far better side and more deserving of the three points. His post-match interviews were reminiscent of Anders Herrera's after last week's match against West Ham United, when Darren Randolph performed absolute heroics to rescue a draw for the Hammers.
The only difference being that Herrera complimented Randolph's performance whereas Mourinho took a pop at Everton's playing style.
Mourinho was asked about his reasoning for bringing on Marouane Fellaini.
The answer is obvious. Everton is not a passing team anymore, like they were. Everton is a team that plays direct. Everything is direct. Goalkeeper direct, Ashley Williams direct, Funes Mori, direct.
And when a team is losing and plays direct...when you have a player with two metres you play them in front of the defensive line to help the team to win the match.
It was a tense atmosphere at the press conference, Mourinho responding "I didn't see" to two questions about Marcos Rojo's two-footed tackle (for which he was lucky not to get sent off) and the penalty incident. He also criticised the press for what he saw as their uneven criticisms of himself and his side:
When my teams are playing pragmatic football and winning matches and winning titles you say that is not nice and not right. Then my team play very well - and is a huge change to the last two or three years - now you say what matters is to get the result no matter what.
Mourinho said his team "were not getting the results we deserve" despite their attacking performances against defensive teams:
When you play bad, you can try to play well...when you play well, there is nothing more you can do. This is what we are doing for long, long, long, long time. Playing well, playing better than the opponents. Getting draws but deserving victory.
