Jose Mourinho has produced an ability to dance around his own past statements that had something of the Trump about it at his press conference in preparation for tomorrow evening’s game against Arsenal at Old Trafford.
The beleaguered Portuguese told the Brazilian channel RedeTV in the aftermath of last weekend’s 2-2 draw with Southampton that his side’s mission for the rest of the season was to: “Try to win as many points as possible and try [to achieve] almost the miracle of finishing fourth.”
But like that other master of disinformation across the Atlantic, he’s muddied the waters about his use of the term miracle in reference to the chances of his side getting into the Champions League places from their current berth in seventh.
“I what? Nah,” he said of the ‘miracle’ quotes. “Is not, I don’t know if I say or if I didn’t but if I used that word is not what I feel at all. We have like eight or nine points from fourth something like that, I don’t think we need a miracle at all. We need a good run of results, not waste points we shouldn’t waste.”
In a familiar story at the club reports of a “soured” dressing room have come hand-in-hand with poor performances on the pitch and malcontent among fans off it in recent weeks, but the United manager claims he hasn’t been made aware of the fans’ views on the club’s struggles.
“My life is not a life of very public life, I’m not a person that is all the time in the street or in contract with the fans, not really.”
It’s not a life, either, of “playing the suggest”, in the sometimes inscrutable words of the Reds’ manager, as he refused to comment on reports that he described the French midfielder Paul Pogba as a “virus” in the dressing room.
War is peace, then, in the continuingly bizarre world of Mourinho’s United.
