José Mourinho Press Conference - 9th August 09:30 BST | Embargoed quotes in OP - on Martial, Pogba

Kush said:
That was a good presser, and he looks up for it. Loved that he called out the media for their shitty coverage, the sarcasm when he dropped the greatest achievement bit was great to see too.

For mighty top reds who're repeating 2nd place finish is nothing to be proud of, because Manchester United stands for something more and demands more need to be brought to reality. It's not something to celebrate about but it's not something to scoff at either, we're a different club than to what we were under Fergie and 2013 closed a chapter of a great era and we had to start afresh. Something we've clearly struggled with as 5 years have suggested, despite that we've CL football for 2 consecutive seasons for first time since Fergie retired, we also had our highest point tally since 2013 too and most importantly we finally have some stability. We may not be progressing at the rate like many of us want but at least we're moving in the right direction. People forget so quickly how bad things were under Moyes and van Gaal, we were constantly whopped by any decent side we came up against under Moyes while under van Gaal we played the worst football at OT in living memory and looked resigned to losing anytime things didn't go our way.

Also, things are always relative, a 81 point league campaign might've won you a PL title few seasons back but now we're living in a time where there is a side which can rack up 100 points in PL. While we ourselves have spent obscene amounts of money since 2013, jury is still out as to how the best part of that spending has been fruitful. Clubs in and around us haven't stood still since Fergie retired either, Spurs have a top quality first XI with likes of Eriksen, Kane and Son developing into top players in their position. Liverpool have managed to turn around a squad which contained players like Benteke, Kolo Toure, Joe Allen, Lucas, Origi etc. into Salah, van Dijk, Keita etc. Chelsea too have managed to hold onto their star player in Hazard while adding quality in form on Kante, Alonso etc.

People have every right to have a go at Mourinho for his brand of football and failure to get the best out of the players at his disposal but at the same time keep some perspective as to where we are things are relative to other clubs year on year.
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Simple question are we a big club or not?

Too many excuses on here. We Should spend big money because we are a big club.. but we should be happy finishing second because we aren’t quite big enough yet.

Mourinho’s got into your head lad. You don’t know what do believe. You want to be angry because you have to watch crap every week but you also want to believe we only play like this because we haven’t got Willain, Savic and Jerome Boateng yet.

The manager doesn’t really want to play Fellaini but he has to play Fellaini otherwise he has to use Pogba and Matic everyweek. He can’t do that though because they will expose his back line and we will leak goals. Which is why McTomminay gets minutes. But he’s a kid and even though he’s the managers young player of the year he’s not ready. But if he doesn’t play him he will have to play Periera who has no top level experience.

It’s okay I understand you.
 
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Mainoldo said:
Well maybe if we looked like a dominating team all season the press wouldn’t be on our back about ‘boring’ football and parking the fecking bus.
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That fad will pass.
Wait and see how thrilling their football is when they're under pressure to win something.
Somehow I don't think Klopp will leave themselves as open v the top 6 as he did last year nor play in such a way that they give away stupid points v smaller sides.
I do think we'll open up a bit more if Sanchez has settled, Jose has nothing to lose after the way this summer went.
 
Mainoldo said:
Simple question are we a big club or not?

Too many excuses on here. We Should spend big money because we are a big club.. but we should be happy finishing second because we aren’t quite big enough yet.
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Yes we are a big club, but we are just another one of five-six big clubs in the Premier League and not the juggernaut we were under Fergie. We are capable of spending money but so do other clubs in and around us. Like I said all things are relative, compare our seasons year on year and if you don't think we're progressing since 2013 then I don't know what to tell you.

Mourinho’s got into your head lad. You don’t know what do believe. You want to be angry because you have to watch crap every week but you also want to believe we only play like this because we haven’t got Willain, Savic and Jerome Boateng yet.

The manager doesn’t really want to play Fellaini but he has to play Fellaini otherwise he has to use Pogba and Matic everyweek. He can’t do that though because they will expose his back line and we will leak goals. Which is why McTomminay gets minutes. But he’s a kid and even though he’s the managers young player of the year he’s not ready. But if he doesn’t play him he will have to play Periera who has no top level experience.

It’s okay I understand you.
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What are you even waffling about? :wenger: I know full well what to believe and nowhere did I say we're playing dull football because we didn't have Willian, Savic or Boateng. Don't put words in my mouth. I even said in my post, that people are right to call out Mourinho for his brand of football and his failure to get most out of some of our players.

All I am saying is people want too much too quick, Mourinho has been here 2 years and he's done a good job so far imo. He has given us some stability which we were in desperate need of, he's brought players of the required quality here and most importantly he's instilled fight in the players which was lacking since Moyes stepped into the managerial chair in 2013. Criticism about his football is valid, but again every single one of us knew full well what kind of football we were to expect under him, so I don't understand this constant moaning and whining for 1 year now. Mourinho's method has brought him success in his career, including here so he's not going change it just to appease some fans on a forum.
 
Kush said:
Yes we are a big club, but we are just another one of five-six big clubs in the Premier League and not the juggernaut we were under Fergie. We are capable of spending money but so do other clubs in and around us. Like I said all things are relative, compare our seasons year on year and if you don't think we're progressing since 2013 then I don't know what to tell you.



What are you even waffling about? :wenger: I know full well what to believe and nowhere did I say we're playing dull football because we didn't have Willian, Savic or Boateng. Don't put words in my mouth. I even said in my post, that people are right to call out Mourinho for his brand of football and his failure to get most out of some of our players.

All I am saying is people want too much too quick, Mourinho has been here 2 years and he's done a good job so far imo. He has given us some stability which we were in desperate need of, he's brought players of the required quality here and most importantly he's instilled fight in the players which was lacking since Moyes stepped into the managerial chair in 2013. Criticism about his football is valid, but again every single one of us knew full well what kind of football we were to expect under him, so I don't understand this constant moaning and whining for 1 year now. Mourinho's method has brought him success in his career, including here so he's not going change it just to appease some fans on a forum.
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I was being tongue and cheek. I agree with you points especially the Mourinho bit. But for me to progress further it’s time to give the job to another type of manager. Mourinho has done well but unfortunately for him Pep has succeeded at City; I’m quite sure we would have won the league if he wasn’t the City manager. The club or shall I say bored have clearly without saying highlighted how they want to move forward and I don’t think there methods are achievable with how Mourinho wins things.
 
Interesting about him changing tactics. The young and hopefully part of me still hopes it's got something to do with McKenna, Carrick and hopefully some attacking football. The Bayern-match kind of killed off any enthusiasm about that though, but you never know.
 
Mainoldo said:
I was being tongue and cheek. I agree with you points especially the Mourinho bit. But for me to progress further it’s time to give the job to another type of manager. Mourinho has done well but unfortunately for him Pep has succeeded at City; I’m quite sure we would have won the league if he wasn’t the City manager.
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We cannot afford to constantly sack managers every second season, entire forum is up in arms due to our limited spending this year but if you take a look at our squad it doesn't surprise me one bit. We wasted tremendous amounts of money under van Gaal, to make matters worse he absolutely butchered our squad in his second and final season. Some of his signings we're still struggling to get rid of, I also think it's a major reason as to why he wasn't able to get the players he wanted this summer. As far as winning the PL part is considered, it's not that black and white. Pellegrini won the league in his first season in PL and he's hardly an elite manager, City's squad is too stacked to not be considered favorites for PL.

The club or shall I say bored have clearly without saying highlighted how they want to move forward and I don’t think there methods are achievable with how Mourinho wins things.
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This is pure conjecture, it makes zero sense for the board to sabotage the current manager. It'll only end up making more mess down the line, bringing in a new manager means lot of money again needs to spent to shape the squad to the managers want. Something which they are reluctant to spend due to huge outlay in the last 5 years. Our board is looking for a manager to offer the club some stability i.e. continuously shepherd us in Champions League places to get the money flowing. As long as Mourinho does that, they'll be happy.
 
Bastian said:
Is there an embargoed bit?
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Don't know about that.

He did clarify that Martial only missed the Munich game because he'd missed 9 days training so wasn't fit enough and had to start his pre-season preperations from scratch, and specifically stated there was no issue other than that...which conveniently didn't make it into any of the initial press quotes.
 
AR87 said:
I think Woodward has somehow managed to make Jose look like a more sympathetic figure than I imagined possible with how poorly he handled this transfer window.
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Aye. Would do him a world of good to hire a proper football man as DOF. Someone who knows their onions. He’s been left looking rather amateurish this summer, if not always.

Gets good commercial deals though, as it happens. But I wouldn’t know a thing about that - I have never seen the money with my own eyes.
 
Full transcript
The full transcript of the presser - including the embargoed bit from ROM
 
Sounds promising that a couple of the world cup stars can make the bench tomorrow.

Missed news of Herrera's injury before today though. Midfield looks certain to be Pereira Fred McTominay, with Matic and Herrera injured and Pogba and Fellaini just returning from the world cup.
 
P-Nut0712 said:
Sounds promising that a couple of the world cup stars can make the bench tomorrow.

Missed news of Herrera's injury before today though. Midfield looks certain to be Pereira Fred McTominay, with Matic and Herrera injured and Pogba and Fellaini just returning from the world cup.
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So no chance of Ander recovering? Do you know what type of injury he picked up?
 
DatIrishFella said:
No mention of Martial? Is he even back training?
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He did mentioned him actually.

"There is no story," said Mourinho. "He had three days of pre-season. Then he had nine where he did no training and no football. Absolutely nothing [about it]. If you do that, you have to start again with the other people."
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Kostov said:
This will be interesting. He either backs Woodward and says he is happy despite no transfers, or he throws a fit and starts a war.
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He already said while in the US that if they don't get reinforcements, he will work with the players he has and fight for it. He said the right things. But the press ignores it (likely intentionally) and instead uses very misleading headlines which paints a much more negative picture.
 
Burrow said:
Interesting about him changing tactics. The young and hopefully part of me still hopes it's got something to do with McKenna, Carrick and hopefully some attacking football. The Bayern-match kind of killed off any enthusiasm about that though, but you never know.
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I think he was referring more to switching to a wing back system, rather than stylistically.
 
Siorac said:
It means "I am brilliant but my players are shit".
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Thomas A.Anderson said:
And he's not exactly wrong.
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ErranMorad said:
"Tactics to be changed" - did he expand on it? Can someone please explain what is he talking about here?

I have a feeling we are going to see 442 diamond or 352 predominantly this season.



This is not very encouraging. If he thinks he performed a miracle last season with the squad available, what can we expect this season? Another miracle if we finish second or does he hope to improve on that with the addition of Fred and Dalot? Sounds to me that the excuse is already in. We are being prep'd for a tough season ahead. If we fail this season, it will be because this genius of a man couldn't perform the same wonder twice. Never his fault.
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abdo99 said:
I don't get why he's bigging himself up for finishing 2nd. I mean 2nd itself is not bad but we finished 19 points off City. 19. Teams below us didn't spend as much as we have but were much closer to us then we were to City which indicates that we didn't get extract the maximum potential out of ourselves. This season it's a lot different though because Liverpool have gone out and spent big. They have to challenge for the league
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You're not understanding the context of the full quote.



He's not being serious at all. He's just attacking the media for their love of Liverpool and Spurs despite them finishing below us last season. The second being a great achievement is a joke based on that. He's joking that it must have been a miracle that such a rubbish side as ours could have finished above the brilliant Tottenham and Liverpool and that counts more than all the trophies he's won that he named. Gotta actually watch the press conference sometimes. Some journalists don't present all the information as well as Simon Stone does i.e Luckhurst.
 
The embargoed bit of that presser is very revealing and somewhat reassuring. I like Jose's comments about Pogba, Martial and how he (Jose) plans to enjoy the season. He is clearly trying to rally the troops and fight. Let's hope it works and the players (and fans) respond positively. If we start the season with good results, that might just give us the momentum needed to compete for the title.
 
pocco said:
People just don't seem to understand how Jose works. All the shit we've had to read on here about how Jose is in meltdown and it turns out they're wrong yet again. Honestly, people need to stop listening to Jose because they're not cut out for his mind games.

Time to get behind the team because the negativity is ruining our club. The manager is at peace with the situation so the supporters need to be on side now.
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It's going to be kind of fun to root against certain (many) posters on here along with Liverpool, City, etc... I really think they would want Jose to fail which means United failing. I know it's a message board but I'll never understand that mentality.
 
pocco said:
People just don't seem to understand how Jose works. All the shit we've had to read on here about how Jose is in meltdown and it turns out they're wrong yet again. Honestly, people need to stop listening to Jose because they're not cut out for his mind games.

Time to get behind the team because the negativity is ruining our club. The manager is at peace with the situation so the supporters need to be on side now.
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Whilst I tend to agree that a lot of his mind games go straight over people's heads, doesn't that mean they may also go over a lot of the players head, hence why he doesn't get the reaction he was expecting?
 
Siorac said:
I did. Doesn't really change anything. He says getting 2nd was one of his biggest achievements. It can mean two things: he considers the teams that finished below us to be absolutely brilliant - or he thinks his squad is nowhere near "2nd place good". I'd say the latter explanation is far more likely, considering his constant moaning about his players in the last six months.
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It freaking means, given where the team was in the previous seasons, it needed a lot of work and he is proud and he and the team "together" achieved it.
 
Cantonagotmehere said:
It's going to be kind of fun to root against certain (many) posters on here along with Liverpool, City, etc... I really think they would want Jose to fail which means United failing. I know it's a message board but I'll never understand that mentality.
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Exactly. Absolutely baffling.
 
P-Nut0712 said:
Whilst I tend to agree that a lot of his mind games go straight over people's heads, doesn't that mean they may also go over a lot of the players head, hence why he doesn't get the reaction he was expecting?
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You actually believe that he speaks to his players in the same manner he speaks to the press. Really?
 
Lj82 said:
He already said while in the US that if they don't get reinforcements, he will work with the players he has and fight for it. He said the right things. But the press ignores it (likely intentionally) and instead uses very misleading headlines which paints a much more negative picture.
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That's to be expected from the press since Jose has a history with these things.
 
People really need to stop allowing manipulative journalists tell them what to think.

Selective quoting and using quotes out of context are two of the media's oldest and dirtiest tricks. They do it to Jose all the time.

Couple these with the lack of tone in text based media and the fact that Jose uses English in a slightly unconventional way due to it not being his first language, and you have all the ingredients for extra manipulative fake news.
 
Jinn said:
You actually believe that he speaks to his players in the same manner he speaks to the press. Really?
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No I wouldn't say the same manner, but do you really think he suddenly just cuts out all the mind games when he speaks to his players?
 
GM K said:
The embargoed bit of that presser is very revealing and somewhat reassuring. I like Jose's comments about Pogba, Martial and how he (Jose) plans to enjoy the season. He is clearly trying to rally the troops and fight. Let's hope it works and the players (and fans) respond positively. If we start the season with good results, that might just give us the momentum needed to compete for the title.
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Maybe one positive about Ed’s snide little briefing is that Jose getting thrown under the bus by his own board will reignite his own fire and spur him on.
 
Really reassuring presser. Waiting to see what happens. As he says - we will probably know by Christmas if the outcome of the window was terrible or ok
 
P-Nut0712 said:
No I wouldn't say the same manner, but do you really think he suddenly just cuts out all the mind games when he speaks to his players?
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I suppose it's based on the individual he speaks to. Not every player is the same (mentally). As we heard plenty of times in the past, some of them need an arm around the shoulder and some of them need a kick up the backside.
When it comes to the team as a whole, it has to be one message one voice, so to speak. I truly believe Mourinho is doing just that. He would never have been as successful as he has been doing it any other way.

Yes, I believe he is a totally different person with his players compared to what we see in interviews. In the interviews he builds a wall around himself. Me against them attitude.
It's true SAF had a different way with the press, but that only changed as he got older and been with the club for decades. There's plenty of material out there to see what SAF was like in beginning.
 
sugar_kane said:
Maybe one positive about Ed’s snide little briefing is that Jose getting thrown under the bus by his own board will reignite his own fire and spur him on.
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Yes, you have a point there.
 
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