EPL teams more defensive this season: Man United coach Mourinho
Manchester, Feb 6 (IANS) Manchester United coach Jose Mourinho has said that clubs in the English Premier League football this season are more defensive and looking to counter attack.
He said this after winning 3-0 over defending champions Leicester City.
“Look, my team is playing very well. For many years in my career, especially in this country, when my teams were ruthless, phenomenal defensively and very good on the counter-attack, I listened week after week that it was not enough, despite winning the title three times,” Mourinho told the club’s official website on Sunday after his team’s win.
“It looks like this season to be phenomenal defensively and good on the counter-attack is an art – it is a big change in England.”
The Portuguese said he doesn’t want his side to be creating a lot of chances but not scoring goals. United had Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Juan Mata scoring the goals that beat Leicester.
“My Manchester United, I don’t want to change the profile of our play – this is the way we, the fans and the club want to play. But I don’t want to be the manager of a team that plays very well, creates a lot of chances and does not win matches. We need to score goals and today we did.”
On his star Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s rich form, Mourinho said, “Normally when strikers score goals we say ’22 goals – 14 goals and eight penalties’, or ’21 goals – 14 goals and seven penalties’. With Zlatan we need to remind ourselves it’s 20 goals – 19 and one penalty.”
Mourinho said there were many individual performances which impressed him.
“There were many good performances. The overall performance was very good and there were many good individual performances; obviously Mkhitaryan with the goal and assist and some amazing actions come into the eye, but I could name many players with very good individual performances.”