Jose Mourinho makes tongue-in-cheek comment over City case ahead of his reunion with Manchester United in the Europa League.
Jose Mourinho is no stranger to the verbal barbs that are part and parcel of his management regime.
So it was not a surprise to cheekily take a poke at Man City’s current battle with Premier League over the 115 charges levied on them.
For context, the current Fenerbahce boss was Manchester United manager for 2-and-a-half seasons. In that period, he had finished 2nd with the Red Devils in the 2017-18 season. It is a season that he still calls as “one of the best achievements of his career”.
In the pre-match press conference ahead of his side Fenerbahce’s meeting with Manchester United, Mourinho subtly spoke about still hoping for that Premier league medal for the 2017-18 season.
“As you know, we won the Europa League [in 2017] and we finished second in the Premier League [in 2018],” he said.
“I think we still have a chance to win that league because maybe they punish Man City with points and maybe we win that league and then they have to pay me the bonus and give me the medal.”
He commended United for sticking with current manager Erik ten Hag through the current challenging period. Mourinho was able to bring up his own firing in December 2018 after two and a half seasons in charge at the same time.
“I wish the best to Man United since the moment I left,” he said.
“I left with a good feeling to the club and with a good feeling to the fans. If things are not going amazingly well for them it’s not something that makes me happy.
“It doesn’t make sense for me to be thinking about what happened and what didn’t happen.
“What happened for sure, because it’s very objective, is they keep faith in the coach, they support the coach, the coach is staying season after season and that means stability, it means trust, and they are giving him conditions to keep developing his job. That was different in relation to me.”
Mourinho claimed he was not aware that he had never lost to United at home before.
He suggested Fenerbahce would need the support of 35,000 home fans in the stadium to have any chance of winning, pointing out that his prior meetings with them had been against major teams.
“We are going to try and we can do it, but there is a gap,” Mourinho said.