Jose Mourinho hasn’t mentioned Jurgen Klopp by name, but the Portuguese isn’t very good at subtlety, and we think it’s blindingly obvious he was referring to our manager today.
The Manchester United boss was discussing his side’s FA Cup tie this weekend, and chose to criticise the foreign managers who’ve disrespected the competition so far…
Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City are still in the FA Cup, and with Liverpool crashing out to Wolves in the Fourth Round, after two irritating contests versus Plymouth, Klopp’s Liverpool are the obvious reference.
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“Maybe we don’t have as many managers in England with that culture as we should,” Mourinho told the Star.
“Maybe we foreign managers, not everybody studies and understands the culture of this country. It’s because of attitude. Because you think it’s easy – and it’s not easy.
“With Chelsea, I lost against a League One or League Two team, but I never threw it away. We lost because we lost.
“So I always try to go serious. I like Wembley. I like the FA Cup. So I have to try to get the second one.”
This one’s difficult… We do think Klopp should have put more effort into the FA Cup and it would be great if we were preparing for a fixture this weekend with the prospect of the latter stages coming up, but our January schedule was simply ridiculous.
We played ten matches, most of them very poorly, in truth. Klopp decided to pick strong sides in the EFL Cup semis, which made sense as we were one step from Wembley rather than five – but sadly – we were dismal against Southampton and are now just competing in the Premier League.
If we miss out on the top four, it’ll look a grave mistake, but qualification for the Champions League will make up for it.