Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho revealed he warned his players that Derby County had the belief they could cause an upset in third round Carabao Cup fixture.
The Red Devils lost 7-8 on penalties after a 2-2 draw in regular time and they had to salvage a draw late on with 10 men after Sergio Romero was handed a red card for handling the ball outside the box. Manchester United were leading at halftime courtesy of an early Juan Mata strike but in the recent past, Mourinho’s men have knackered a habit of conceding and not seeing off games.
Mourinho revealed that he used the same halftime pep talk as in the game against Wolves, “We didn’t score when we could and we could in the first-half to kill it. We didn’t. At half-time, I repeated the words I said in the last match. Their dressing room is a dressing room with belief and we need to go and kill the game which we didn’t.”
The Portuguese admitted that the red card affected the game, “We hit the post, we created more chances, but then came the red card and then we were in more trouble. They scored the goal, we had a reaction of pride, of desire of trying and even with one less player we got an equaliser and then the penalty shootout is a lottery and we missed one.”
The former Chelsea boss had a feeling that they would lose the match after seven penalty takers had elapsed, “We knew that if we go past the seventh we were going to be in trouble with Jones, with Eric [Bailly], with Lee [Grant] – not good penalty takers – but we took it all well and we missed one.”