As Jurgen Klopp could joke that Liverpool's Champions League pairing with Man City is a "dream draw for Man United fans", over in Manchester, Jose Mourinho launched a robust defence of his and United's Champions League failure against Sevilla.
Mourinho arrived at the press today and began his press conference by saying "Hello, I'm still alive", and then spoke for 12 and a half minutes straight.
The answer Jose gave lasted 12 and a half minutes. He brought notes with him.
— Simon Stone (@sistoney67) March 16, 2018
His defence was utterly surreal, in which he ran through United's poor recent record, doubling down on his weird post-match comments on Tuesday in which he recalled all of the occasions that he knocked out United in Europe, as if this kind of thing was the norm for a club of United's standing.
When asked about being booed at Old Trafford on Tuesday, Mourinho came out fighting, and ranted on at "them", who are presumably his critics. "I am not going to run away or disappear or to cry because I heard a few boos, I’m not going to disappear from the tunnel, running immediately, the next match I will be the first to go out. I am not afraid of my responsibilities", said Mourinho.
All of that is fair enough, Mourinho has a glittering CV and is entitled to defend himself.
But then.
When asked to respond to fans who were unhappy with the performance against Sevilla, Mourinho spouted on about United lacking something he terms "football heritage". This is, of course, the club that are the most successful in the history of the country that invented the game.
Mourinho seemed to define heritage as recent history, and was essentially critical of the quality of his squad.
He also randomly spoke about the Champions League pedigree at Real Madrid when he took over.
What a manager inherits is something like the last time Manchester United won the Champions League which didn’t happen a lot of times, was in 2008. Since 2011, 2012, out in the group phase, the group was almost the same group we had this season, Benfica, Basel and Galati from Romania.
Out in the group phase in 2013 out at Old Trafford in the last 16, I was on the other bench. In 2014, out in the Quarter Final. In 2015, no European football. In 2016, comes back to European football, out in the group phase, goes to Europa League and on the second knockout out of the Europa League. In 2017, play Europa League, win Europa League with me and goes back to Champions League.
In 2018, win the group phase with 15 points out of a possible 18 and loses at home in the last 16. So in seven years with four different managers, once not qualify for Europe, twice out in the group phase and the best was the quarter final, this is football heritage and if you want to go to the Premier League, the last victory was 12-13 and in the four consecutive seasons United finish fourth fifth, sixth and seventh.
So in the last four years the best was fourth. This is football heritage. Means that when you start the process you are here, you are there or you are there, is heritage.
And if the fans that I will always respect, always respect, if the fans and many of them are the ones you speak with, many of them are the ones I speak with and I am very lucky but the ones who speak with you are very disappointed and the ones I speak with know what is football heritage, what is a process and when I arrive.
When I arrived in Real Madrid, do you know how many players quarter final of the Champions League? Xabi Alonso with Liverpool, Casillas with Real Madrid and Ronaldo with Manchester United. [This ignores Kaka with AC Milan, along with the fact that a host of his squad had won the Euros and World Cup with Spain].
All the others not even a quarter final, that’s football heritage.
Mourinho then channelled his inner Rafa Benitez, albeit listing off stats rather than facts.
Those stats are real. I give you a couple more, in the last seven years the worst position of Manchester City in the Premier League was fourth, in the last seven years Manchester City was champions twice and if you want to say three times, they were second twice.
That’s heritage. Do you know what is also heritage? Is that Otamendi, Kevin De Bruyne, Fernandinho, Silva, Sterling, Aguero, they are investments from the past, not from the last two years, do you know how many of United players that left the club last season?
See where they play, how they play, if they play. That’s football heritage and one day when I leave the next Manchester United manager will find here Lukaku, Matic, of course De Gea from many years ago, they will find players with a different mentality, quality, background, with a different status, know-how, and for some reason you go to the Champions League quarter final like today and there are four clubs that are always there, always there.
Barcelona is always there in the past seven, eight years, Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich and then of course appear now and again, another club like my Inter, like some other clubs like Monaco last season, but the ones that are always there is for some reason and the good thing for me and the amazing feeling for me is that I am exactly on the same page as the owners, as Mr Woodward, Mr Arnold.
We are on exactly the same page, we agree on everything, on the investments, that we have what we have, the investments that we are going to do will be season after season, we are exactly on the same page, so life is good. I have an amazing job to do.
It's clear that in Jose Mourinho's world, the problem is not Jose Mourinho.
You can watch it below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqf1xCLmTqE
