Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has claimed that the squad became closer following their difficult spell earlier in the season.
Having won the first three Premier League games of Mourinho’s tenure, United then won just two of their next eleven league fixtures.
Now, however, Manchester United are indeed united – they have won their last eight games across all competitions, a sequence that continued with a victory over Reading in the FA Cup yesterday.
As reported by the Telegraph, Mourinho said: “I think it’s quicker [to form a bond] when you win.
“This is different than other places because it’s a place where it took more time to go into a winning period. We built that relationship based not on good results but bad results and this is the big difference.
“When you have at the beginning a run of two or three months winning, it’s paradise. Everybody is friendly with everybody, everybody hugs, everybody kisses. But when you have bad results there is normally a tendency for that to be delayed and sometimes things even degenerate and there is no way back. But we were calm, we were positive, nobody was against anybody. I was trusting the players and the players were trusting me.
“Everything was based on a difficult moment, of bad results and looking at other teams being miles away from us. So I think this [relationship] can last a long time because it wasn’t based on good results, it was based on what we saw day to day.
The style of play was coming and the players were very keen for that. We were very patient and stable, we were not in hell and, in this moment, we are stable again, we are not in heaven but we keep working.
“I had lots of winning teams [before], we won in every club but we didn’t have many teams playing so well as my Man United team does. My teams normally are pragmatic and they win matches when it is hard to be dominated, but the relation between the way we want to play and the way the fans want the team to play is very important
.”
One of the most significant problems for United in the early stages of the season was that Mourinho appeared rather uncertain as to what his first- choice starting line-up should be.
Since then the Portuguese has settled on a midfield trio of Michael Carrick, Ander Herrera and Paul Pogba, which provides the perfect blend of resilience and creativity.
United’s struggles earlier in the campaign are likely to mean that they won’t win the Premier League title, but it does appear that Mourinho’s side have a good chance of at least securing a top four finish.
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