Mourinho laments United loss to Bristol City
21 DEC 2017
Jose Mourinho, the Manchester United boss, has lamented the club’s 1-2 loss to Bristol City, a championship side in the quarter final of the Carabao Cup, saying the loss was underserved.
United are the defending champions.
Manchester United’s Portuguese manager Jose Mourinho reacts after the UEFA Europa League final football match Ajax Amsterdam v Manchester United on May 24, 2017 at the Friends Arena in Solna outside Stockholm. / AFP PHOTO
Here are excerpts of what Mourinho said about the heartbreaking loss at Bristol’s Ashton Gate Stadium on Wednesday night.
‘WE DIDN’T DESERVE TO LOSE’
“I think we don’t deserve to lose but we lost because the opponent was lucky. I think they scored when nobody expected them to score; they scored when we were the strongest team. In the first half we lacked the intensity that they had.
Physically and mentally. But we were the team with the opportunities [in the second half]; everyone was waiting for our goal. We hit the post twice. We were the team with the strength in our legs – even to go to a strong extra-time – and they scored when we didn’t have time for a reaction.”
BIG DAY FOR BRISTOL CITY
“For them, it was a big day and big teams against teams of lower divisions, this is always a risk and you advise, advise, advise but in the end, the players are in a different level of intensity and motivation than the opponent and sometimes this can happen.
They played brilliantly; they fought like it was the game of their lives, which probably it was. A beautiful day for football. A team from the lower division won. A big day for them.”
‘THEY FOUGHT TO BE LUCKY’
“It was in our best period that we lost the game. Of course we don’t want extra-time, of course we try to win the game in the 90 minutes – which is why I say they were lucky. They had the luck of the game but they fought to be lucky.
Sometimes you think that luck comes from nowhere, but normally luck comes from effort, from belief, which they had. It was a big night for them and probably for some of my players it wasn’t a big night – it was just one more day in the office and when you play against teams who have that extra motivation, you also need that extra motivation – so congratulations to them.”
‘THE PLAYERS WERE PROFESSIONAL’
“The reality is that the ones [players] that were on the pitch were the ones that were not in the last match [against West Bromwich Albion] and are the ones that not going to be in the next match. I think they lost a good opportunity also to play semi-finals and also to have two more matches to play.
But I don’t want to blame the players at all because I think they were professional – it wasn’t a case of ‘we don’t care about the game’ or ‘we don’t have responsibility’ or ‘we don’t have pride’. I think they showed they had that after the 1-0 and they had that until they scored the second goal in the last few seconds and we had no chance to react.