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Mourinho makes desperate plea to Pogba & Lukaku after Liverpool thrashing

Published

6 years ago

July 29, 2018

Jose Mourinho has urged Paul Pogba, Romelu Lukaku and the rest of Manchester United’s World Cup stars to end their holidays early in the wake of the club’s heavy loss to Liverpool.

The Red Devils succumbed to a 4-1 defeat in Michigan in the fourth leg of their pre-season tour of the United States, with the Portuguese coach claiming it was ‘Liverpool’s first team against Manchester United’s kids’.

United’s threadbare squad is already being stretched to breaking point, and Mourinho has revealed that Marcus Rashford and Phil Jones have offered to return early to ease the burden.

Jose Mourinho makes desperate plea to Paul Pogba & Romelu Lukaku after Liverpool thrashing

But United had seven players involved in the latter stages of the World Cup, and Mourinho hopes Pogba, Lukaku, Ashley Young, Jesse Lingard and Marouane Fellaini will answer the call to arms too.

He told MUTV: ‘Now we have Real Madrid. And after that we have Bayern Munich. And that’s our start.

‘I just hope that the boys that are on deserved holidays, they take care about themselves a little bit.

‘And I hope somebody wants to do what Rashford and Phil Jones decide to do, which is to be back a little bit earlier to try to help the team because for the start of the season we are going to be a little bit in trouble.’

Jose Mourinho makes desperate plea to Paul Pogba & Romelu Lukaku after Liverpool thrashing

Of United’s performance against Liverpool, Mourinho added: ‘While we had gasoline we competed. At 1-1, after an hour, or 65 minutes, 70, something like that, gasoline is gone.

‘Liverpool is not only about having all their players, it’s also about in previous matches they rotate players. 45 minutes Salah, 45 minutes Shaqiri, then 45 minutes Fabinho, 45 minutes another one.

‘But for Herrera, Mata, Alexis, Darmian, these boys we have, they are like this [motions hand cutting throat]. They cannot give more. So this match was for nothing. Honestly, it was for nothing.’