Manchester United suffered their first defeat of the Jose Mourinho era at the hands of local rivals, Manchester City led by Pep Guardiola. It was the Red Devils first league defeat of the season as well. However, at the post-match interview, Mourinho seemed to indicate that he was let down by his own players during the match.
United went down to a feisty team of City players 2-1 and despite the close scoreline, the men in red were always a step behind their neighbours. United never looked like they were anywhere close to the form they had been showing so far under the new Portuguese manager. But then, he did include two new players in the starting lineup instead of playing the same team that had shown so much promise so far.
Mourinho had been playing Anthony Martial and Juan Mata this past month but changed that up in favour of starting Jesse Lingard and Henrikh Mkhitaryan. While it might seem justified to play one of your star signings of the season, Mkhitaryan seemed unfit to start a game from the very beginning and Lingard looked clearly out of his depth.
Maybe, if it wasn’t for Claudio Bravo’s goof ups, United might not have even had a goal.
All the goals of the match came in the first half with goals from Kevin de Bruyne and Kelechi Iheanacho for Manchester City and Zlatan Ibrahimovic for Manchester United. Once the second half started, United were unable to build on the momentum they had created after their goal at the end of the first half.
Despite substituting the disappointing pair of Mkhitaryan and Lingard, Mourinho’s men made little headway.
After suffering yet another defeat at the hands of his old rival, Pep Guardiola, Mourinho was quite obviously upset about the result. He told Sky Sports, “Sometimes players disappoint managers. Sometimes players give us great surprises.” He claimed that if he’d known the outcome of the match, he would have made very different choices regarding team selection.
“Honestly, I had two or three players in the first half that, if the game is now and I know what is going to happen, I don’t play them,” said Mourinho. “We could play with some individuals with some qualities who didn’t give me what I want. Is it their fault? Is it my fault? It’s my fault because it’s my choice.”
