Jose reacts to Brighton defeat

Jose Mourinho admitted Manchester United were punished for making too many mistakes during Sunday’s disappointing 3-2 defeat at Brighton & Hove Albion.

First-half strikes from Glenn Murray, Shane Duffy and Pascal Gross secured three points for the hosts at the Amex Stadium. Romelu Lukaku and Paul Pogba pulled goals back but the Reds were beaten in our first Premier League away game of the 2018/19 campaign.

Read the manager’s thoughts from his post-match interviews with Sky Sports and MUTV, as well as in his press conference...

UPDATE ON ALEXIS SANCHEZ
“I don’t know really. Let’s wait for the results of the studies, but I don’t think it’s a big thing. I think it will be one or two weeks maximum.”

WE MADE TOO MANY MISTAKES
“We made too many mistakes and we were punished by the mistakes. We were punished by every mistake we made and I think the third goal is too hard for the team [to come back]. We tried at half-time and the team tried in the second half, but I think from the mental point of view the accumulation of the mistakes and the punishing of those mistakes with goals step by step was giving happiness and confidence to a good team like Brighton. They took that confidence from us. Sometimes you make mistakes and you are not punished, sometimes the opponent doesn't take advantage of your gifts, doesn't take advantage of the mistakes you make. Sometimes they do it and this time it was almost three from three, so they were clinical with the gifts we gave them and, because of that, I think they deserve it.”

IT WAS DIFFICULT FOR THE PLAYERS
“It’s very difficult to win a match of this nature and it’s very difficult for the players to be mentally strong enough to cope with the result of these mistakes and to keep being in the match to fight for a different result. It was not easy in the second half to bring the team up again and the second goal would have given us a boost and put them under pressure, but it arrived too late. The impact I wanted was to get to 3-3 at least, so it didn’t have that impact but at least we were trying but the goal wasn’t coming. We didn’t have many chances but they [Brighton] fought really hard. Psychologically, Brighton were the happy side and always had the advantage.”

I WON’T CRITICISE MY PLAYERS
“When I speak about individual performances and sometimes when I’m critical of my players, you [the media] just don’t accept it. The press and the pundits are normally critical of me when I go in that direction, so please don’t ask me to go in this direction because it’s not good for me. I will be very happy to analyse my players’ performances when the performances are very good. It’s a great thing for me to come in front of the cameras and say players A, B and C had fantastic performances – it’s amazing for me. When I cannot do that, don’t push me to the other side because I don’t want to go to the other side.”

IT’S NORMAL FOR UNFANCIED TEAMS TO RAISE THEIR GAME
“I think it's normal that a team with different ambitions when they face the top teams they have different levels of motivation which they [Brighton] showed, but sometimes it can be a fake feeling. I think that what makes the big difference is the happiness, the confidence and, without nothing, they are winning 2-0 and obviously that gives a big boost and that pushes mentally the losing side down.“

WE LOST OUR CONFIDENCE AND DIRECTION
“Obviously I wasn’t expecting big mistakes because we’re not speaking about small mistakes – we made big mistakes and we were punished by these big mistakes. Of course, when you lose your confidence, there is a normal tendency to lose a little bit the direction of the game plan. We came here with a certain intention and suddenly you are losing 2-0. You score the first goal [to make it 2-1] and you think ‘okay, let’s go in the second half with the 2-1 and on a high from the mental point of view’. Then suddenly you make that mistake and concede that goal [to make it 3-1] and you go to half-time in the situation where the players were really, really down and obviously Brighton were the happy side. In the second half, one goal could change things again, like it looked like it was going to change after the first goal. But our second goal was too late and it gave us not even a chance of a next ball and it's quite strange, because for example against Leicester, the match ended with a corner against us and Schmeichel having 15 seconds to arrive from his box to our box and the referee waiting for that Leicester opportunity which was after the added time that he gave. Today the situation wasn’t even a corner, but was similar in a sense. We had one last ball and he [referee Kevin Friend] stopped the game when the ball was in the air. But they [Brighton] deserved [to win]. Congratulations to Chris [Hughton] and to them. They deserved it.”