Mourinho: Win Is For The Fans

Jose Mourinho is "especially pleased" for the Manchester United players and fans following Wednesday night's tense 1-0 win over local rivals City in the EFL Cup fourth round.

The manager spoke to MUTV following the final whistle and, although he only answered three questions, he spoke with passion for five minutes about the performance and rewarding the club's supporters...

THOUGHTS ON THE RESULT
"It is an important result because this is a knockout competition: if you lose you are out and if you win you are in. It is especially important because it was a way to create a better feeling for the absolutely wonderful fans that I have never seen before in my life. After the defeat at Chelsea, to have this support is incredible. The love that these people have for the club is bigger than the result, it is bigger than the success and the trophies. It is real love and it is real passion. I am very happy for them, I don’t care about myself. I am not happy because it is important for me, I am happy for the fans. I am happy for the players because they have absolutely everything. The performance was good, it was not phenomenal, but it was good. What was phenomenal was the spirit, the effort and the solidarity. This is the minimum that we can give to the fans."

AN IMPROVED SECOND HALF
"We found a better way to press them and to recover the ball. Step by step we were feeling more confident. We are used to playing with Bailly and Smalling, but we have lost both. We had to play with two left-footed central defenders and Marcos had not played for a while but he played phenomenal today. We were getting confident step by step, we were starting to trust our defensive organisation and then in the second half, especially Herrera, Carrick and Pogba, they increased the tempo. They started pressing higher. I thought Ander brought the team to different levels of intensity and pressing. Then we started recovering balls and being dangerous. Before the goal Pogba had a big chance. After the goal, Zlatan and Rashford had another big chance so we could have scored a second goal and killed the game. But I think it was better like this because it was a way for the players to go to the limit, to give everything, and for the fans to have that feeling. I know we have a game in two days and I know that the players had this this run of Liverpool, Fenerbahce, Chelsea, City all within two days in between. But I think the fans deserved this from us and I am really happy for them and for the players."

THE FEELING OF SUPPORT FROM THE FANS
"It is real passion that doesn’t depend on results or the moments. It is easy to be a Man United fan when you win the Treble, when you win five titles in seven years. But it is not so easy when you lose 4-0 and this is incredible. The only thing I can say is that I couldn’t be prouder than I am to be Man United manager. Like I wrote in my [programme] notes, after such a bad result the only way I know is to fight. We are going to fight and the players did that for the fans. The fans did that for the fans too because they also played this game. This was not the Champions League final. It is just the League Cup last 16, but it was against City and it was after a big defeat so it was very important for us."