Jose Mourinho in the dugout at Bournemouth

Jose: Win was deserved, despite poor first half

Saturday 03 November 2018 15:32

Jose Mourinho feels his Manchester United team were fortunate in the first half against Bournemouth but ultimately deserved to emerge victorious in Saturday's Premier League match.

The Reds fell behind on the south coast as early as the 11th minute when Callum Wilson opened the scoring for the hosts but the in-form Anthony Martial levelled matters 10 minutes before the break with his fifth goal in four league games. Both sides had chances in the second period before substitute Marcus Rashford, in the week of his 21st birthday, netted an injury-time winner to give United a 2-1 victory at the Vitality Stadium.

Here, you can read the manager's key comments from his post-match interviews with BT Sport and MUTV...

WE WERE REALLY POOR IN THE FIRST HALF
"It wasn't just the start [that was bad], it was all of the first half. At half-time, I thought I was the luckiest manager in the Premier League, to be at 1-1 in a half in which it should be 5-2 or 6-2 [to Bournemouth]. We had a big chance with Fred but they had five or six big chances.

"We were really lucky [it was 1-1] because we were really poor. Defensively awful, absolutely awful, and when I say defensively, I don't just look to my defenders but to the whole team as a team. We didn't start pressing up, the work we did during the week. We worked really hard during the week to press them high, we were ready to play against all of their possible systems - five at the back, four at the back, everything - but we started really, really badly.

"I felt like people watching this game wouldn't believe how hard we have worked this week, because our pressure on this opponent in the first half was a disaster. If I was David [De Gea], I would be really upset because he made two great saves and, even so, we kept conceding chances to the opponent and we didn't keep a clean sheet."

SECOND-HALF TRANSFORMATION
"You can question the spirit of the guys at the beginning, you can question the spirit of how bad the first half was. We can keep asking ourselves why. I have no answer but yes, in the second half, they showed all of the desire. It was exactly the opposite [to the first half].

"We were able to transform a game from one where the opponent was the best team by far to a game where we were the best by far. We created a lot of chances, we pressed higher, with much more aggression, intensity and intention. We deserved to score before the 92nd minute. We should have scored five or six goals but the goal came when it came. In the end, we got the goal which gave us the important points."

'We should have scored six!' Video

'We should have scored six!'

Hear Jose Mourinho's thoughts on our dramatic 2-1 win against Bournemouth in his MUTV interview...

WHAT I SAID AT HALF TIME
"Strong, but calm words [at half-time]. I started by being positive by saying that it was impossible to play worse than we did in the first half, so the second half is going to be better for sure and it was, obviously. As a team, the team performed much better.

"I think I was happy with bringing Ander [Herrera] to the game because normally the intention is, when you look for a better result than you have, it is to play attacking players or in theory to make attacking changes. But I felt that the team needed a player like Ander to give us balance in that position, to give us more pressure, recover the ball faster and also to project Ashley Young, so I think I was happy with that change.

"The team was much better and we created lots of chances. That double chance, Ashley Young's free-kick and Marcus Rashford's rebound, I cannot believe that we didn't score in that situation. The two points we lost in the last minute against Chelsea, we got them back today."

'THE BEST WARM-UP OF THE SEASON'
"I wasn't in the warm-up but my assistants [Michael Carrick and Kieran McKenna] came to me and said 'this is the best warm-up of the season, everyone was focused, great intensity'. I said that it was a phenomenal week, a very good week of work, so I cannot believe how bad we started. I think a few mistakes created some instability in the team - defensive mistakes which made us unstable to attack.

"I love the song 'attack, attack, attack' but you need to know that when you lose the ball, you have stability. We're not showing this stability. There was a feeling of instability and today it happened again against a good team.

"Tactically, we were prepared for everything. During the season, Bournemouth played a couple of matches with five at the back and we were ready for that. We were ready for this situation - [they played] 4-4-2. We knew that [Josh] King wasn't playing, we thought they could play the way they did.

"We were ready for everything but I really cannot understand the kind of [early-match] mentality that brings me more white hair!"

Mourinho sits between Kieran McKenna and Michael Carrick in the dugout.
WINNING GOAL WAS AMAZING FOR MARCUS

"I was very upset with him [Rashford] before that [the winning goal] because I was upset with the chance he missed after [Ashley Young hit] the post. He has to smash it, he has to bring everything inside the goal - the ball, the opponent, everybody. I was also sad because I think he has to win that run with Nathan Ake but then, of course, he scored the winning goal and that was amazing for him and for us."

A GOOD START TO A TOUGH WEEK

"Yes, now there are two more matches. It was three difficult matches, now we have only two so one is done and today is a day where one - or maybe both - of Arsenal or Liverpool is going to lose points so we hope for a week where if any of our top opponents lose points, we get them."

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Watch Jose's press conference Video

Watch Jose's press conference

See what the manager said to the media after United's victory at the Vitality Stadium...

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'It's the best feeling!'

Marcus Rashford talks us through his last-minute winner at Bournemouth...

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