Mourinho defends Fellaini substitution after Everton slip-up

12/05/2016

Manchester United manager Mourinho has said that the reason for introducing Marouane Fellaini was an 'obvious' one despite the midfielder's clumsy challenge leading to Everton's equalizer. Mourinho also felt that his team is unable to get the wins they deserve for playing good football.

Manchester United looked destined for a 1-0 win at Goodison Park on Sunday, following Zlatan Ibrahimovich's first-half goal. But they had to settle for a draw when Marouane Fellaini's challenge on Idrissa Gueye led to a penalty for Everton. Jose Mourinho had decided to bring on the midfielder in the final minutes of the game only to regret it. Leighton Baines scored from the spot to hand the hosts a 1-1 draw. When asked if this decision was right, Mourinho responded sarcastically by saying, "I thought you would know more about football than you do," in a post-match news conference.

"Everton is not a passing team any more like they were in the past. Everton is a team that plays direct: goalkeeper direct, Ashley Williams direct, Ramiro Funes Mori direct. Everything direct.

"When you have on the bench a player with two metres [in height] you play the player in front of the defensive line to help the team to win the match," Mourinho explained his decision to replace Henrikh Mkhitaryan with Fellaini.

The Portuguese also rued the recent string of poor results saying that his team are unable to get the victories they deserve.

"We are not getting the results we deserve," he said. "We are getting draws but deserving victory. Opposition are leaving the stadium super happy with points they don't deserve and we are leaving the stadium with a feeling we deserved more," the United boss said.

The 53-year old then went on to criticize the media's portrayal of his style of pragmatic football.

"When my teams are playing pragmatic football and winning matches and winning titles you say that is not nice and not right. Then my team play very well - and is a huge change to the last two or three years [at United] - now you say what matters is to get the result no matter what.

"In this moment we have teams getting results that defend with 11, kick ball and attack the space on the counter-attack... it is phenomenal, it's beautiful. You have to make a decision," he added.

Mourinho was in no mood to discuss controversial incidents at Goodison Park after Marcos Rojo escaped a red card for a studs-on challenge on Idrissa Gueye. Asked if the challenge could easily have led to the Argentine being sent off, the Portuguese twice answered: "I didn't see it."

When asked about the decision on Everton's penalty, he said: "No thoughts. No comment. We were the best team on the pitch by far and it is a result that doesn't reflect the difference of the performances of both teams."

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