Jose Mourinho is playing games in the media again.
There’s been plenty of talk about Manchester United attacker Marcus Rashford in the last few days, with some debating how good he truly is, how much playing time he’s earned, and whether he’s rotting away on the Old Trafford bench. So, the Manchester United manager has resorted to the oldest deflection trick in his book to take the pressure off his young England international - make it all about the boss instead.
When asked if he believes Rashford has earned more playing time after scoring twice for England over the international break, Mourinho gave a sarcastic response, making his feelings towards the media well known. “I think I can expect that Sunday I’m going to be highly criticized for not playing him,” Mourinho said, knowing that Rashford is suspended this weekend due to his sending off last time out, “because some of the boys are really obsessed with me and some of them have a problem with some compulsive lies.”
“I can expect that Sunday some of them will wake up in the morning and the first thing they think is Jose Mourinho, so I can imagine on Sunday I am going to be criticized for not playing Marcus but it’s not my fault, he’s suspended,” Mourinho said. “Probably you should remind them he is suspended and cannot play.”
Mourinho came with a prepared list of statistics he read off to the media highlighting his belief that Rashford has played a significant amount of time. He noted that Rashford eclipsed 3,000 minutes in the 2016/17 season across all competitions, and then accumulated another 2,676 minutes in the 2017/18 season. Last campaign, Rashford made 35 Premier League appearances - 18 of them starts - completing at least 80 minutes just 10 times. He also appeared in all eight of Manchester United’s Champions League games, although he started just three of them and averaged just 43 minutes a game.
The Manchester United boss also took an interesting shot at a trio of Chelsea youngsters who happened to at one time be England youth international teammates of Rashford, seeming to subversively criticize Chelsea’s sparing use of its youth products. “Marcus Rashford is not Dominic Solanke. He is not Ruben Loftus-Cheek, he is not Dominic Calvert-Lewin. He is Marcus Rashford, a Manchester United player, with an incredible number of appearances and an incredible number of minutes played at the highest level in the best possible competitions. So Manchester United supporters, for you and just for you, to know what we are doing with Marcus Rashford, that’s what we are doing here.”
Mourinho says he felt the need to read off numbers because the media doesn’t paint a fair picture of Rashford’s role within the squad.
“But for the Manchester United supporters it is important they have the right idea of how things are in reality but the most important thing of all is that the kid is a good kid, a good player, knows what Manchester United did for him. Since I was here, he was never one day out of selection because of my decision, only if he was injured or suspended. He was never ever out of a selection, so he knows and that’s the most important thing.”