Manchester Derby: Mourinho praises Man United's fighting spirit ahead of Man City showdown

Posted Thursday, April 27, 2017 by Express.co.uk

JOSE MOURINHO admits that while Manchester United are running on empty, they are not short of fighting spirit.

And he reckons long-time rival Pep Guardiola is too astute to think that because of the absence of six key players Manchester United will be there for the taking in tonight’s Manchester derby.

Paul Pogba, who has muscular fatigue after making 47 appearances this season, has joined an injury list that already included leading scorer Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Marcos Rojo, Juan Mata, Chris Smalling and Phil Jones.

It leaves Mourinho with only 15 fit senior outfield players and needing to include youngsters Tim Fosu-Mensah, Axel Tuanzebe and Matthew Willock to make up the numbers in his squad.

But he says the positive spin-off of the fixtures overload – tonight will be the 55th game of a marathon season that could stretch to 64 – and the untimely batch of injuries is an “all-hands-to-the-pump” spirit in the players who have stepped into the breach.

While he was again critical of Smalling and Jones for failing to answer his call to arms and play through the pain barrier, Mourinho pointed to the example of Wayne Rooney and Antony Martial, who came in at Burnley on Sunday, put any resentment to one side and scored the goals that put United just a point short of their fourth-placed neighbours and raised the stakes for tonight’s game.

Manchester Derby: Mourinho praises Man United's fighting spirit ahead of Man City showdown
Jose Mourinho praised Anthony Martial and Wayne Rooney after their Burnley heroics

"The boys that are available have a great feeling,” he said. “They know that they are important, that they can be important.

"Let’s follow the example of Wayne and Martial. They came into to a game that we need really to win and they gave more than expected. I didn’t think it was possible for Wayne to go for 90 minutes but he did.

"The fact that we are fighting for important things still is a good motivation to keep people together, to prompt people to make an extra effort.

"The training session started at 3pm today but when I arrived here at 10.30am some players were already here, taking care of little details, taking care of their recovery, going to the swimming pool and taking care of their body. That is motivation.

"Maybe some opponents look at us with different eyes because we don’t have Zlatan, Paul, Marcos, Mata, Jones and Smalling. But they are not stupid, they are not naïve and they know that we are going to give them a fight.

Manchester Derby: Mourinho praises Man United's fighting spirit ahead of Man City showdown
Jose Mourinho has praised the fighting spirit of his Manchester United squad

"Pep is very intelligent. I know their players are experienced, and I also know they know it will not be easy.

"Is it a danger we could soon be running on empty? Exactly. We have played 18 more matches than Liverpool and a lot more than Chelsea.

"The accumulation of matches is really hard – the effects it has on recovering, travelling, injury, psychological pressure and the number of training sessions you can have. But after the match no one will hear me speaking about no Pogba or Zlatan or no this or that.

"We go with what we have, we fight with what we have. I trust the boys and we go with everything we have until the last second of the season we hope. We are fighters, the boys are fighters and we go.”

Manchester Derby: Mourinho praises Man United's fighting spirit ahead of Man City showdown
Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba will both be missing for Manchester United

Mourinho was less complimentary about centre-back pair Smalling and Jones, who have declared themselves not fit to play from their respective knee and toe injuries. Mourinho suggested it is symptomatic of the caution in the modern game over injuries.

It wasn’t clear if he was being critical of his predecessor Louis Van Gaal, who was notoriously cautious over injuries, talked frequently of players being in the ‘red zone’ and insisted they always had a run-out or two in the reserves before making a first-team comeback.

Many would say that is the sensible approach but at this point in the season, and with so much at stake, Mourinho is clearly in the mood to take no prisoners. Remember, John Terry, his captain colussus at Chelsea, rarely missed a game, injured or not.

"It’s not just about them,” he said. “It’s about the philosophy and mentality around them, a cautious approach. It’s a profile, it’s the philosophy of work.”

Mourinho is a bit like legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly. If you are not fit to play, you are no good to him. So you can be sure those wearing red tonight will step on to the Etihad pitch feeling 10 feet tall.