A glum and tetchy Jose Mourinho has admitted Manchester United’s dismal run of results is unacceptable for a club of their stature.
United are nine points adrift of leaders Manchester City and second placed Liverpool after just seven matches and face Newcastle United at Old Trafford on Saturday evening on the back of a four-game winless streak in all competitions.
United have only once gone five successive matches without a win in 20 years. Mourinho’s side have also failed to win any of their past four games at Old Trafford and the last time they were winless in five at home was 29 seasons ago.
“Yes, I accept,” a surly, stoney-faced Mourinho replied when asked if he recognised that such a run was not good enough.
In an awkward press conference lasting barely three-and-a-half minutes, Mourinho refused to answer, instead staring straight ahead, when asked if he could reassure the fans he was doing everything he could to turn around United’s ailing fortunes and he offered a monosyllabic response when asked why things were not working.
“For many different reasons,” he said before refusing to elaborate.
Mourinho uttered a total of just 262 words in response to six questions and also made a strange attempt to sugarcoat United’s wretched form at Old Trafford by again refusing to acknowledge his team lost their Carabao Cup third-round tie to Derby County. After a 2-2 draw after 90 minutes, United lost on penalties.
United have lost twice and drawn twice at Old Trafford since their opening-day victory over Leicester but Mourinho perversely tried to claim his side had lost just once at home.
Asked about the need to win at Old Trafford, Mourinho said: “Yes, that’s true. Only one defeat at home all season, only one defeat in the last seven matches but not victories at home in the past three matches, three draws, not the feeling of the defeat but not the happiness of the victory so, yes, it is important for us to try to win this match on Saturday.”
Mourinho expressed confidence that the Premier League table would look different before long – United are currently in 10th position – and suggested they would be in for a difficult game against Rafael Benitez’s Newcastle.
“I know we are in the beginning of October and we look to tables all around Europe and, in many of the leagues, the tables in September, October don’t reflect what is going to happen in a few months or even in the end of the season.
“But we are in a position that we can do much better than that and to do that we need points, points that we lost especially in the last two Premier League matches with one point out of six and we know that to improve that position we need to win these three points.
“But we know that our opposition for different reasons also need points. [Newcastle have a] very, very, very good coach, a team that is always very well organised, especially against the teams of the first part of the table where their manager is very bright on his analysis of the opponent’s qualities and to try to stop them.
“The results they had against the top teams didn’t get them points yet this season but gave them very, very close results and very difficult matches for the opposition. So we expect a difficult match.”