Jose Mourinho has issued a message to the five players Manchester United have sent out on loan this season. All eyes have been on United’s incomings this summer, with Fred, Diogo Dalot and Lee Grant arriving from Shakhtar Donetsk, Porto and Stoke respectively.
But their departing players have gone under the radar, with more than £21m generated through the sales of Daley Blind, Sam Johnstone and Joe Riley.
Five other players have left the club on loan, with Axel Tuanzebe (Aston Villa), Dean Henderson (Sheffield United) and Cameron Borthwick-Jackson (Scunthorpe) hoping to impress in the Football League.
Matty Willock has also joined St Mirren for the season, while goalkeeper Joel Pereira was farmed out to Vitoria Setubal.
Mourinho wants each to focus only on playing, regardless of how well their club does.
“They have to play, that’s the most important thing,” he told the club’s official website.
“A good loan is a loan to play. Sometimes players and their entourages they make mistakes in the way they choose a club. They just have to play – it doesn’t matter if that team plays to be promoted, plays to not be relegated, plays in England, plays outside England.
“They have to play and that’s the most important thing, because for playing bits, playing minutes, to be on the bench, to be a squad player, they can be here.”
Jose Mourinho has hit out at the perceived negative coverage of his tenure at the helm of Manchester United, stating that he believes finishing runners-up in the Premier League last season is one of the best achievements of his career.
The Red Devils finished a distant second in England’s top flight as rivals Manchester City stormed to the title with a record 100-point haul.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/60146949/499824564.jpg.0.jpg)
A dispiriting Champions League exit against Sevilla in the last 16 also did little to engender a feelgood factor around Old Trafford, much like Mourinho’s regular gripes concerning player availability and post-World Cup scheduling since his squad began preparations for the 2018-19 campaign.
United start the Premier League season at home to Leicester City on Friday and Mourinho took the opportunity at his pre-match news conference to take a swipe at what he views as fatalistic commentary on his reign from the media, in contrast with praise awarded to unnamed counterparts who fail to lift major honours.
“My view is that it is difficult for me to believe that we finished second,” he said.
“When I listen, when I read – not much but sometimes I do – it is difficult to believe that we finished second because you [the media] are capable of making people who finished second look like they were relegated and capable of making people who win nothing and finish below us look like serial winners.
“It is difficult to believe that we finished second. I won eight championships and three Premier Leagues but I keep saying and thinking and feeling that second position last season was one of my biggest achievements in the game.”
Mourinho heads into the Leicester match with a hefty injury list, including key midfielders Nemanja Matic and Ander Herrera, while a host of other stars of only recently returned from their break after World Cup duty.
As such, he is standing by the complaints that soundtracked United’s pre-season fixtures.
“In pre-season it looked like I was saying something absolutely out of order, it looked like I was saying something crazy,” he added.
“I repeat, pre-season is difficult when you don’t have your players to work with.”