Mourinho refuses to point finger at Lindelof or Mata
Jose Mourinho chose not to single out Victor Lindelof or Juan Mata for blame after Manchester United lost their first game of the season.
United slumped to a 2-1 defeat to Huddersfield on Saturday, with goals from Aaron Mooy and Laurent Depoitre cancelling out Marcus Rashford’s strike.
Both Huddersfield goals came about due to individual errors, first from Mata and then from substitute Lindelof.
But Mourinho insisted such errors were “in the context of the overall performance”, which was lacklustre from the visitors.
“It’s not fair to say that the mistakes were responsible for the defeat, because the mistakes were in the context of the overall performance,” he said.
“If we are playing amazingly well and then we lose because of an individual mistake, then we can say ‘okay we lost because of an individual mistake’.
“But no, since the first minute, the game was poor for us. We paid the price and I think deservedly.
“It was a surprise, of course, but it happened so, for me, it’s quite easy and simple to say the team that deserved to win won.
“I know you like that [singling out Lindelof] – if it is the correct word, individualisation, of the mistake and the defeat. I think it’s very unfair as the mistake was him in the second goal and [Juan] Mata for the first goal but they were in the context of the game.
“If we had an amazing game, you point the finger and say we lost undeservedly due to an individual mistake but it was not the case.
“I was waiting for that mistake. It was Mata and Victor but it could have been another one as the attitude was really poor. So they beat us on attitude.”