Patrick Rees
In the aftermath of United’s victory over CSKA Moscow, Jose Mourinho has branded Liverpool as “Luckier” than the Red Devils as Klopp’s men have an extra day to prepare themselves for the upcoming Premier League showdown.
Both United and the Merseysiders will return to the Premier League this weekend, but Liverpool – despite playing on Tuesday – have until Sunday to prepare themselves, while for United – who played their Champions League fixture on Wednesday, will welcome Crystal Palace on Saturday. Mourinho has quite rightly expressed himself over the issue.
“I didn’t see that [PlayStation football] as much, just a little bit of relaxation, a reaction by the home team with the normal pride to try to score, to try to have a different result and we just relaxed a little bit. We had a couple of good chances but I think it’s normal.
“We have a game on Saturday. Liverpool are luckier than us, they play Tuesday and Sunday, we have to play on Wednesday and on Saturday at 3pm. So I think it’s normal, a little bit of relaxation.” Mourinho explained, as quoted by United’s official website.
Premier League clubs always grieve about having no time in between the Champions League games and the weekend Premier League games, but nothing noteworthy has been done so far. Mourinho shares a personal best record against Russian teams. Up until now, the Portuguese has played 11 against a Russian opponent (as a manager) and has emerged victorious in 8 of them with Wednesday’s triumph being the latest one.
Keeping his slate clean, he is yet to lose one against Russian clubs. Speaking of the same, Mourinho addressed that this team was his strongest side.
“This was my best team [which has faced CSKA Moscow]. I came here, of course, with very good teams – Chelsea, Inter, Real Madrid – but I think this was the strongest performance. With Real Madrid and Inter, we came for the knockout phase.
“We came to play for a very specific result that we were happy with. With the away goal, we were happy with the 1-0, the 1-1. Today, we were really strong, it was my strongest performance here.”
It was an utter one-sided game for United as CSKA made some huge defensive blunders at times. Take the first three goals for instance – never mind the fourth. Anthony Martial managed to deliver a high cross which CSKA’s defender failed to connect; Lukaku rose high and bang! It’s in. The second goal; the penalty, was a mis-timed lunge while the third was a complete howler. Had it not been for Igor Akinfeev, United might have easily scored 6 or 7.
Let’s hope that we beat Crystal Palace by a huge margin!
