Jose Mourinho on Saturday night has praised his players’ performance despite Manchester United losing 1-0 to Chelsea in the FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium.
Chelsea won the FA Cup final with a penalty from Eden Hazard in the 21st minute. He had himself caused the fault in the box. Despite many opportunities especially in the second half, United has never managed to equalise.
But for the Red Devils, it is a rare season without a trophy despite finishing at second place in the Premier League standings this season
“My opinion on the performance is that every defeat hurts but for me personally the ones that hurt less is when you give everything and go without any regrets,” Mourinho told in a press conference.
“So I prefer to lose like today than to lose like we did, for example at Newcastle. I leave my players happy with them, very happy with them. For me that’s really important.
“Our team did a fantastic defensive job without defending. We controlled the positions really well, we controlled the transitions really well.
“The only played long balls to [Oliver] Giroud to flick and then Hazard to get second balls in individual actions. So when you play against a team so predictable it is quite easy to adapt to it.
“I thought we wouldn’t concede any goal in this match, but of course Hazard is a very good player and he created the penalty.” Mourinho added.
Chelsea win the FA Cup final after Eden Hazard’s first half penalty. (Source:www.thenational.ae)
United’s Romelu Lukaku played for the last twenty minutes of this match. The Belgian has missed three weeks with an ankle injury and Mourinho claimed that his striker was not fully fit.
“It was not my decision, it was his decision not to start the game from the bench. When a player tells you he isn’t ready to play, when he tells you that he is not ready to start the game, the question is ‘how many minutes do you think you can?’
“I knew the opponent I was going to play against. I knew they have a compact low block with lots of physicality where they try to close everything. I knew without a target man it would be difficult for us.” the Portuguese added.
