Manchester United manager José Mourinho was satisfied with his side’s performance today, as the Reds got their pre-season off to a solid start with a victory against Wigan at the DW Stadium.
Goals from Will Keane and Andreas Pereira in the second half sealed a comfortable win against the recently promoted Championship side, and the Portuguese manager was delighted with his side’s performance after the match.
Speaking to MUTV, he said:
I am very happy. The result is obviously not the most important thing, but it is always important.
I’m happy because there were things we tried in training around some principles of our play defensively and offensively and I could see them. They were not in a perfect way of course because the conditions are not the best with only 10 days of training, accumulation of fatigue and no sharpness, so it takes times.
But I could see things that showed they were starting to think in the way I think about football. That pleased me. Everybody played the match and everyone had a positive performance.
Mourinho also reserved praise for new signings Henrik Mkhitaryan and Eric Bailly, who both made their debuts for United today:
[Henrikh] Mkhitaryan is a top-class player and currently at the best stage for a footballer – 27/28 years old. He is magnificent the way he thinks about football, he thinks very quickly and it’s so sweet how he touches the ball. He can play in different positions behind the striker. He doesn’t have the sharpness yet but he is performance was very positive.
With Eric [Bailly] the way the fans showed how much they liked his performance when I changed him is enough. Of course he is a very young boy coming from a very different environment, but you could see what he is at this moment. I will give him everything to try to make him better and better like I did with other central defenders I’ve had in my hands. He has showed the potential we saw when we decided to buy him.
Finally, Mourinho also highlighted the performances of youngsters Axel Tuanzebe and Andreas Pereira, who were the pick of the bunch out of the Under-21 players that were given a run-out:
With Axel [Tuanzebe] – 10 minutes is enough! [Laughs] The potential is there, you could see it immediately. You know him better than me of course as you’ve known for a few years and I’ve known him for a couple of weeks, but if anyone sees him for the first time then 10 minutes is enough to see the potential.
Andreas [Pereira] has lots of talent. He has incredible vision and an incredible technique. That’s just talking about two players but the reality is the kids, without pressure and in a calm environment and not in the fire but in a cool situation for them, were very good. And it was very good for me to see what they can do.
