Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho was in a relieved mood on Sunday evening after his team finished a difficult pre-season campaign in Germany. His team were outplayed by Bayern Munich in the Allianz Arena, losing 1-0 and there are injury concerns over Ander Herrera and Eric Bailly, but the United manager is clearly glad that he can now focus on the Premier League curtain raiser with Leicester City on Friday night.
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“Finally, it’s over. Finally, such a difficult pre-season is over,” said Mourinho to MUTV. “The players were, once more, brilliant, they could not have done better than what they did. Fantastic experience for the boys. There was a moment I was looking to [Ander] Herrera and there was Axel [Tuanzebe] centre-back to left, Demetri [Mitchell] left wing-back, [James] Garner on the left of midfield, and [Tahith] Chong. And, at the same time, [Robert] Lewandowski on Axel, [Arjen] Robben on Mitchell, [Leon] Goretzka on Garner and Sulle on Chong. It was fantastic, absolutely fantastic. We were playing against their best team, their complete squad apart from [Corentin] Tolisso.
“Once more, a fantastic experience but difficult to make it transfer to do what we want to do in the Premier League, just playing for this kind of pride. We don’t want to come here and lose badly by four or five. We want to get a certain image, a certain competition, which we did for our boys.
“In the week, we have to organise the week in a way so we can be fresh for Friday because, on Friday, the Premier League starts. We play for points and it’s with the players we have. There is no time to cry. Players are not going to be here on Friday and we have to go with best possible team and with a great mentality.”
Mourinho had some fantastic quotes from the pre-season, all was not well at certain times of the tour, he did not beat around the bush on many of them including:
“The pre-season is very bad. The positive thing is only for the young boys that have a fantastic opportunity to train with us.”
“Do you want him [Alexis Sanchez] to be very happy with the players he has around him?
“We are not playing here to improve the team or our dynamic or routines. We are playing here just to try to survive and to have some not-very-ugly results.”
“Antonio Valencia comes from holiday – I think too much holiday for him. His condition was not good when he was back, then injury and also go back.”
“Anthony Martial has the baby and after the baby is born – beautiful baby, full of health, thank God – he should be here and he is not here.”
He even went on during the World Cup regarding Paul Pogba, stating: “I don’t think it’s about us getting the best out of him, it’s about him giving the best he has to give.”
