MANCHESTER, United Kingdom, Nov 2, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Jose Mourinho believes
Manchester United can still secure a top-four finish in the Premier League,
saying an unkind fixture list is partly to blame for their early season
struggles.
United are languishing in eighth place in the table, five points from a
Champions League qualification position, as they prepare to visit Bournemouth
on Saturday.
But the manager believes his team have been hindered by a series of
difficult back-to-back away fixtures, citing the fact they must travel to
Manchester City in the Premier League on November 11, four days after a
Champions League trip to Juventus, and that they visit Liverpool in December
after a European away game against Valencia.
He did not mention that United have also had back-to-back home games three
times across all competitions already this season and have only played two of
the current top six in their opening 10 league games.
Mourinho, in his pre-match press conference, said he believed the picture
at Old Trafford would be rosier at the beginning of the New Year.
“I always say that in the end of the season you play 19 matches at home
and away and it doesn’t matter when but the reality is that the way the
fixtures are coming, sometimes they have an influence in the moment.
“We had a double fixture away in September (at Burnley and Watford). Now
we have a double away league fixture at Bournemouth and Manchester City.
“We will have Juventus away before we go to Manchester City, and we will
have Valencia away before Liverpool.
“In this part of the season, we play away against possibly the three
biggest candidates for the title, in Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City,
so the calendar was not nice to us.
“But I think by the end of December, which is the end of the first half of
the Premier League season, we are not going to be in the position we are now.
We will be in a better position.”
– Title challenge? –
Mourinho has refused to rule out a challenge for the title but says the
first priority must be to climb into the top four.
“When you are outside the top four I don’t think you should speak about
the title,” he said. “When you are in the top four, which I believe we are
going to be, you can look up, see the distance, look to the fixtures, to the
calendar.”
He declined to reveal whether striker Romelu Lukaku would be recalled at
Bournemouth, having been dropped after going eight games without scoring.
The manager also said he was “100 percent not guilty” of using foul
language after being cleared by an independent panel of a Football
Association charge.
Mourinho was accused of improper conduct for remarks he allegedly made in
Portuguese after their 3-2 Premier League win over Newcastle on October 6.
He has avoided a touchline ban after the charge was found “not proven”,
although it is understood that the FA is considering an appeal.
However, Mourinho said that the reason United went to such lengths to
contest the charge, putting forward detailed linguistic analysis and citing
precedents of other football figures swearing during matches, was because he
was convinced of his innocence. “You know the reason why I ask the club and
lawyers to appeal was because I was 100 percent sure that I was not guilty of
these charges but you never know how it ends,” he said.