Manchester United slumped to their first Premier League loss of the season on Saturday when Huddersfield Town beat them 2-1 and manager Jose Mourinho was fuming at his players’ poor attitude at the John Smiths’ Stadium.
“When I lose matches, I like to lose matches because the opponents were better than us and had more quality than us,” Mourinho told MUTV after the match.
Despite enjoying close to 80 per cent of possession, United struggled to test Huddersfield keeper Jonas Lossl over the course of 90 minutes as the Terriers registered their first win over the Red Devils in 56 years.
“When you lose a match because of attitude, that’s really bad. I heard Ander Herrera in his flash interview saying the attitude and desire was poor,” the Portuguese fumed as he added, “Oh my God, when a player says that and feels that, I think they should all go to the press conference and explain why”.
Huddersfield raced into a two-goal lead with little over 30 minutes played and while Marcus Rashford pulled one back for the Red Devils, the Terriers weren’t to be denied a famous win.
“Of course, it concerns me. It happened today so why can’t it happen tomorrow. I think so honestly (it’s the first time I’ve seen that), I don’t even remember a friendly match when our attitude was so poor,” Mourinho admitted as he struggled to pinpoint the reason behind his side’s loss.
With the result, United now trail leaders and arch-rivals Manchester City by five points and while Mourinho would have settled for a point in the circumstances, he admitted it would have been an unfair result.
“They tried in the second half in difficult circumstances – the wind was tremendous. In the second half, we probably could have got a second goal but it would have been an undeserved goal and undeserved draw,” Mourinho conceded.