Why Critical Einsteins Frustrated Mourinho

Jose Mourinho is not upset with criticism of himself, but he is frustrated that he cannot always protect his Manchester United players from the “Einsteins” who question performances.

The boss felt there was an overreaction to the Reds’ consecutive defeats against Manchester City, Feyenoord and Watford earlier this month. That led him to hit back at the “football Einsteins” in his post-match interview with MUTV following the midweek win at Northampton Town in the EFL Cup.

United are currently preparing to face Leicester City at Old Trafford on Saturday and, during the pre-match press conference at the Aon Training Complex, Mourinho was asked if he has been irritated this week - but rather than concentrating on himself, he quickly leapt to the defence of his players.

“I’m not upset with anything,” Jose said. “I’m such a lucky guy that I can’t be upset with anything. I’m upset with nothing. The only thing that upsets me a little bit is the kind of criticism to my players as my players are my players. I should protect them, I love to protect them and from you I can’t.

“It is something that is completely out of my control and that doesn’t upset me, it just gives me a feeling that it is hard you know, like when you want to protect people and you can’t. You know it is a feeling of frustration but with me it is fine and with the Einsteins it is fine. 

"The Einsteins need money to live, they can’t coach, they can’t sit on the bench, they can’t win matches, they can speak, they can write, they can criticize the work of other people. But I am a man of good will, I do lots of charity, I help so many people, so why not feed also the Einsteins? That’s fine.”

Mourinho was also asked about Wayne Rooney’s form - which the striker discussed with MUTV on Thursday night - and the manager defended his captain by pointing to the team’s performances as a whole.

“Wayne Rooney’s form is like Man United’s form,” Mourinho told reporters. “We are a team, we are not Wayne Rooney, we are a team and we all started well. We all won four matches and we all lost three matches in the week, so that’s not Wayne Rooney and to be honest he didn’t play against Feyenoord so he was directly involved in two of these three matches. But the way we think in the group is that everybody is involved in every match, even the ones that are not playing.

“We had a very good start and we were guilty of raising the expectations from the people and then we lost three matches in a week. Three matches where we were not consistent, didn’t play well for 90 minutes and were punished by the fact that we played well for moments, for periods, and not for the whole of the game. In football you have to be consistent during the 90 minutes and that’s life.”