The good news for Jose Mourinho tonight is that he has a game on, and thus has a reason to get out of his hotel room and quit fiddling around with the remote with its inexplicable numbering of tv channels.
The bad news for Jose is that he is under quite a bit of pressure heading into tonight's game with Manchester City, given that he is coming off a couple of limp attacking performances away to Liverpool and Chelsea; a couple of games greatly worsened by the defensive implosion during the latter.
Ahead of the visit of City, Mourinho has used his programme notes to apologise to Manchester United fans over the weekend's collapse at Stamford Bridge. United's support were quite impressive during their side's worst Premier League defeat since the 6-1 reversal at home to City, outsinging the Chelsea fans to the extent that Antonio Conte spent the closing minutes gesticulating towards his supporters, urging them to make more noise.
Here's how he kicks off the programme notes, presumably going to print after Jose spoke them into a dictaphone in his hotel room, Alan Partridge-style:
As the leader of this squad I want to start by start by saying sorry to all the Manchester United fans around the world.
Sunday's 4-0 defeat at Chelsea was not a United result; it was a result that has all extremely sorry for all our supporters and we all apologise for it.
He was also full of praise for the "sensational" United supporters, which marks a change for Mourinho, who spent much of his Chelsea reign complaining about how quiet Stamford Bridge was:
Once again at Stamford Bridge our fans were sensational. I cannot think of another set of supporters who would be singing for 90 minutes like that when their team was losing.
They were a credit to the club and I feel so sorry for them that the result could not match their performance.
Mourinho does also drop in the fact that City are also on a poor run - no wins in five, including a 4-0 hammering to Barca - but then does admit they have a "very good manager" and "very good, experienced players".
The progamme has quite a nifty cover:
Mourinho uses tonight's programme notes to say "sorry to all the #mufc fans around the world" for the loss to #cfc pic.twitter.com/bexcLJnlNA
— Henry Winter (@henrywinter) October 26, 2016
Elsewhere in the programme, Zlatan Ibrahimovic proves that what he is currently failing to offer the goals tally he is continuing to offer the noble realm of content creation:
Zlatan Ibrahimovic asked in programme if he's met any City fans yet: "I've met a lot, but they became United supporters when they met me!"
— Tom Williams (@tomwfootball) October 26, 2016
See Also: Culture Shock? The Wright-Phillips Brothers Give Brilliantly Honest Interview To Tubes
See Also: 7 Things Bastian Schweinsteiger Has Been Doing With All The Free Time Mourinho Gave Him
