Jose Mourinho conducted another terse press conference on Friday as he put Manchester United’s struggles down to “many different reasons” but refused to expand on them.
United have gone four games without a win in all competitions and have made their joint-worst start to a Premier League season having taken just 10 points from their seven matches amid rumours of dressing room discontent.
Newcastle visit Old Trafford this weekend with United bidding to register their first home win since August 10 when they beat Leicester City.
The Portuguese’s pre-game press conference was held at 08:00 local time on Friday, in a departure from its usual early afternoon slot, yet Mourinho was not in a more talkative mood.
Asked why things were not working in the manner he wanted, Mourinho replied: “For many different reasons.”
When prompted to go into those, the Portuguese simply responded: “No.”
“We expect a difficult match [against Newcastle],” says the boss. “They are a team that is always very organised and their manager is always very well organised on his analysis of his opponents.” #MUFC
However, when asked to assure the fans he was doing all he could to remedy United’s problems, Mourinho did not reply.
He did offer a more detailed answer to a question about United’s home form this year and the importance of winning ahead of the international break.
“Only one defeat at home all season, only one defeat in the last seven matches,” he said.
“But not victories at home in the past three matches – three draws, not the feeling of the defeat but not the happiness of the victory, so yes it’s important for us to try to win this match on Saturday.”
United. currently 10th in the Premier League table, could be in the bottom half by the time they kick off against Newcastle.
“I know we are in the beginning of October and we look to tables all around Europe and in many of the leagues the tables in September, October, they don’t reflect what is going to happen a few months later or even in the end of the season,” Mourinho said.
“But we are in a position that we can do much better than that and to do that we need points.”