Mourinho Blames Ill-Luck, Injury Crises For Manchester United’s Woes

Manchester United battled to a 0-0 draw against Southampton on Saturday at Old Trafford – their third successive Premier League draw – and manager Jose Mourinho feels the team has simply been unlucky in recent matches.

United have slipped to third in the table, a point behind Chelsea and 15 adrift of runaway league leaders Manchester City and the Portuguese tactician also lamented injuries and decisions not going his side’s way.

“I feel unlucky, but when unlucky in football, you have to chase, which is what we try to do,” Mourinho said.

“When I speak about three big decisions, three penalties in matches where a penalty and a possible goal makes a huge difference, I want to say unlucky because it’s what I feel.

“I could be here now with a bias theory but I’m not at all because honestly I’m happy with the referees’ performances in these matches. These were just unlucky decisions.

“You have to be biased against us to say that the penalty against City, against Leicester and [against Southampton] were not penalties.”

Adding to United’s injury woes, strikers Romelu Lukaku and Zlatan Ibrahimovic are set to miss matches, with the latter ruled out for a month.

Mourinho said it was tough to manage his squad through the busy festive period due to the injuries.

“The boys are trying, but we have lots of problems in the team and we lost Lukaku and Ibrahimovic for a month,” he said.

“That means Ibra stops his run to recovery, his running for many, many months in a period when he needs to play and to have minutes, but now we lose him for a month and then we lose Lukaku, but I don’t know for how long.

“Marouane Fellaini, I don’t remember the last time he played. It was a long time ago that I don’t even remember – it was a match at home against Brighton? I don’t remember, but it is a long, long time ago.

“Michael Carrick, it was in pre-season and I don’t remember him playing during the season so we have problems. We have difficulty to rotate players.”