Jose Mourinho has admitted he failed in his attempts to resolve Manchester United‘s ‘deep problems’ and boot out the bad eggs in the squad.
The Portuguese was manager at Old Trafford between 2016 and 2018 but was unable to take them back to Premier League glory.
Mourinho won the EFL Cup and the UEFA Europa League in his first season at United before leading them to a second-place Premier League finish in 2017-18.
But his tenure quickly unravelled during his third season with poor results and a fall-out with several prominent players – including £89m Paul Pogba – led to his sacking on December 18.
Speaking to former United defender Rio Ferdinand, Mourinho said his efforts to ‘clean the house’ at United fell short.
‘Do you buy new furniture units before cleaning the house? I was more about cleaning the house than buying new furniture [signings],’ Mourinho, global ambassador for Football.com, said.
‘We didn’t clean it the way we wanted. I wanted to clean from the second season and we couldn’t for different reasons.
‘I cannot say that I was asking for A, B, C or D in the third season because that was not right. I just knew clearly by the third season what I didn’t want there.
‘In terms of the individuals, in terms of the profiles, I knew clearly what I didn’t want, but it didn’t happen. Sometimes in football, you have to accept that.
‘I tried my best but I knew exactly the deep, deep problems that we had there. In my third season, the manifestation of these problems was more and more clear.’
In 2017-18, United finished second to Manchester City by a distant 19 points but Mourinho joked that a points deduction resulting from City’s 115 charges for breaching financial rules could yet hand them the title.
‘If Man City is caught breaching the Financial Fair Play, breaking the rules, maybe they’ll lose a few points in the title!’
‘But joking apart, we did the best we could do.’
Source: dailymail.co.uk
