Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has defended his side’s performance in their 3-1 loss to rivals Manchester City on Sunday.
United were completely outclassed by a City side that boasted 65% possession and had 17 shots compared to United’s six, yet, Mourinho insisted that he does not look at statistics when analysing football.
“The way people who don’t understand football analyse it with stats,” he said after the game.
“I don’t go for stats. I go for what I felt in the game and it was there until minute 80-something. I consider the performance of my team one with mistakes. It is different from a bad performance.”
Mourinho’s comments come less than two months after he used detailed statistics to support his use of striker Marcus Rashford.
The forward had scored against both Switzerland and Spain for England in September but was on the outer at United to start the season and Mourinho read off a detailed sheet of statistics to defend his use of the 21-year-old.
“On the season 16-17 Marcus Rashford played 32 Premier League matches, 11 Europa League matches, including the final, three FA Cup matches, six League Cup matches including the final and the Community Shield. He had 53 appearances but if you want to take to the minutes of play, he played 3,068 and if you want to divide that by 90 minutes of the matches, he played 34.2 matches of 90 minutes.
“In 17-18, he played 35 Premier League matches, eight in Champions League, five in FA Cup including the final, three League Cup matches and the European Super Cup final. He played a total of 52 matches with 2,676 minutes, if you divide that by 90, it gives 29.7 matches, so with me, in two seasons, he had 105 appearances, 5,744 minutes, 63.7 matches of 90 minutes, including five finals, so the people that is speaking about these minutes, I think they are a bit confused.”
That wasn’t the only time he’s used statistics either.
Jose Mourinho here using stats in a time before he understood football. pic.twitter.com/OBbt5Qmn3z
— Stephen Drennan (@babuyagu) November 11, 2018
Hi there 👋🏻 pic.twitter.com/653srTGmIF
— N Jamo (@nevjamo) November 11, 2018
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