Reporter:

Good morning and happy Christmas.

 

Jose Mourinho:

Same for you, thank you. For all of you.

 

Reporter:

You’re the third manager here to follow Sir Alex Ferguson. You’re obviously up against David Moyes who was the first manager. Has the process of sort of acclimatizing to being a Manchester United manager become easier and do you feel as though you’re acclimatized?

 

Jose Mourinho:

For me, was easy. Difficult job, but easy to feel at home. Easy to feel good in the club. Easy to feel that the club wants to progress, the people want to be happy again. And I felt good immediately. So, five or six months here but really feeling at home so for me was quite easy. Obviously, expectations high. Results, up and down. And, we are in a position that is not a position where we want to be. But in terms of passion for my work, passion for my new club - feeling really happy here. Yes.

 

Reporter:

I imagine you spoke to a lot of people before you decided to come here. Was David Moyes one of those people you maybe spoke to about it.

 

Jose Mourinho:

No. I didn’t speak to many people. And David was not also a person that I asked for. I think when you have Manchester United and you are in another club, maybe you think twice but when you have Manchester United and you don’t have another club, you are not working, I don’t think you have a lot to think about. I thought about the difficulty of the job, I tried to answer myself; why the club in the past three years was going, in terms of results, was going in a difficult direction. I tried to answer myself to that. But I couldn’t think much about coming to Manchester United so easy decision.

 

Reporter:

Jose, when Sir Alex left you were one of the people who were mentioned as a possible successor, at that time did you ever think how difficult it would be to follow, directly follow, Alex Ferguson?

 

Jose Mourinho:

Not really. Not really. I was in another club. When I am in a club I just think about the club and I don’t use my time thinking about other things. So not really, what I knew was the evolution of the Premier League. I know the direction, the new direction, of the Premier League, and I knew that periods of domination belong to the past. Because the premier League was going already in an incredible direction and it is what it is now.

 

Reporter:

As James [other reporter] was saying, Tony Pulis was saying this morning that he’s made a bid for Morgan Schneiderlin. You said this week that you wouldn’t keep anybody here if they didn’t want to be here. Has Morgan mentioned anything to you, has he said that he wants to leave?

 

Jose Mourinho:

Yeah. Yeahp. Great professional. Fantastic boy. Very honest, very open. And open his heart a couple of times. And my answer is simple. If he is playing regular with me I have the right to say no way. If he is not playing regular, I have no right to tell a player that wants to be happy. I have no right to say to a player you are nowhere. So my answer was, if the offer is right and our board think s that the offer is a good offer in relation to the quality of a very good player like Morgan, I would not stop him to go.

 

Reporter:

Jose, you’ve mentioned a few times there about settling into your role; how happy you are. Has it surprised you that you have found real happiness here. And how does it compare to maybe the first five, six months at other clubs that you’ve gone into.

 

Jose Mourinho:

I don’t like to compare. Honestly, I don’t like to compare. And I think you know me, you don’t listen to me many opinions, many stories. Even compare my previous clubs, when I leave clubs, I close the door, I close the chapter. I wish them good, and goodbye: Be happy and I try to be happy too. So, I don’t like to go in that direction. What I can say is that in here I felt people with open arms not just a very calm, a very calm, and intelligent board and owners; they know what they want. They have big experience already, and very calm, very pragmatic. Giving me good conditions to work. And in the players and the people that surround me, I felt some sadness because people that love football; obviously, they want to be successful and obviously, everybody tries to help to go in the same direction.

 

Reporter:

You’ve said before that you don’t mind who scores the goals. But Zlatan Ibrahimovic now is quite clearly your top goal scorer – I think he’s scored 9 more than anyone else. In terms of the pressure on him, would it help him if more people chipped in with more goals or are you quite happy that he can handle the pressure.

 

Jose Mourinho:

No, there’s no problem for me. No problem for me. I’m really happy for him because maybe some people could think top scorer, but not anymore with 35 years old, not anymore because the Premier League is not “La League”, but with 35, for him is the same as 25, in “La Ligue” it’s the same in the Premier League he scores goals, he plays well and I’m really happy for him because he will end his career in a high which is amazing. He is not ending his career in America or in China, he’s ending his career in the top of the top, so I’m really, really pleased with him. His record is good, he can improve. With no penalties, which is amazing too because normally the other guys that are top scorers in the world they score a lot of penalties. He had one penalty in 17 premier league matches so I couldn’t be happier with him.

 

Reporter:

The congestion, the fixture list now, you’re going to need all the bodies back. How are you standing with the likes of Bailly, Mkhitaryan, Shaw. How are they ahead of what is going to be a busy period now?

 

Jose Mourinho:

Well, the busy period is for some clubs, not for everyone. Because if you analyze the fixtures, there are clubs that there are not congestion for them. It seems like the fixtures are chosen to give rest for some, and to create problems to others. But we are used to it, because we are in the Europa league and the Europa league is the competition that creates more difficulties. We know that, Southampton knows that, Tottenham will know that later. It’s very difficult so for us it’s just more of the same. And it’s good for us to have everybody available, but Luke Shaw, and he’s not far. But central defender position we have now all of them. Smalling is back, Bailly is back, jones is fine, Rojo is fine, Blind is fine. So, a position where I think it’s important to have some stability, in the options. We were in a difficult position a couple of months ago but now we are safe. And we know that Bailly is going to the African cup in January. But for the next three matches we have him.

 

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source: https://youtu.be/RFc5xlrAn4k (Everything MUFC)