Former England manager Sam Allardyce has leapt to the defence of Jose Mourinho after Manchester United‘s 3-0 capitulation against Tottenham.
Mourinho, 55, suffered his heaviest home defeat as a manager on Monday night as Spurs breezed past the 13-time Premier League champions.
Defeat has now cast doubt on Mourinho’s ability to challenge for the title this season, though his position as manager is reportedly not under threat, despite the Red Devils losing two of their first three Premier League games for the first time since the 1992/93 season.
In the wake of United’s defeat, Mourinho defended his tactics, believing “from a strategic point of view, we didn’t lose,” and Sam Allardyce has backed the former Real Madrid manager’s assertion.
“The stats were 57 per cent possession, 23 shots, five on target, Tottenham 43 per cent possession, nine shots, and five on target,” Allardyce told talkSPORT.
“It’s only about Tottenham’s finishing that got them the victory, normally that result would never, never happen.
“So, is it a freak result, or not? When you’ve had 23 shots at your own place, and you’ve not scored, that’s not the manager’s fault as he’s set his team to go out and attack, they’ve gone and attacked, they’ve created enough chances to win comfortably, they’ve failed to take those chances and they ended up getting sucker-punched by what in the end was pretty poor defending.
“It’s alright saying it’s a disaster – yes it is, it’s 3-0, but if you’re a manager you’d say to your players at the end of the day ‘look, cut the silly mistakes out, keep getting this possession rating, keep getting this shot rating and we’ll win far more games than we’ll lose.’”
United made a positive start to the match, playing with an intensity and verve that had eluded them the week prior against Brighton, though it would quickly peter out after the restart as Spurs put three past David De Gea with goals from Harry Kane and a brace from Lucas Moura.
Mourinho’s side face Burnley next on Sunday at Turf Moor – they are unbeaten against the Clarets since 2009.