Many could hardly wait for Jose Mourinho to take the microphone after one of Manchester United’s worst performances under the mercurial manager.
Unless they were hoping for a small jab at referee Kevin Friend for not letting United send one more ball into the fray, Mourinho was a bit of a letdown by design.
[ MORE: Match recap | Pogba reacts ]
“When I speak of individual performances you don’t accept it,” Mourinho said on NBCSN. “The players, the pundits are very critical when I’m asked to go in that direction. I’ll be happy to analyze my players’ performances when they are good. ... When I cannot do that, don’t push me to the other side.”
Mourinho also rejected any comment on United’s inability to purchase one of his center back targets.
“The window opens on the first of January. It’s closed.”
What he did say was that Brighton did not let United off the hook for a number of mistakes in the defeat at the Amex Stadium.
And he did not have a clue United would have a bad day.
“I was not expecting obviously big mistakes because we are not speaking about small mistakes,” he said. “Big mistakes, we made big mistakes and we were punished by that. There’s a normal tendency to lose a little bit of the confidence and the direction of the game plan.”
“You go into halftime where the players were really, really, really down.”
United and Mourinho could be in a huge hole if after their first Top Four test of the season next week, when the Red Devils host Spurs on Monday, Aug. 27.
With all due respect to crafty Brighton veteran forward Glenn Murray, Harry Kane would’ve had a field day on Sunday.
