Jose’s verdict on Sheffield United

Jose Mourinho could only reflect on a tough night at Bramall Lane as Sheffield United ran out 3-1 winners on Thursday evening.

We actually played well in the first half, but found ourselves 1-0 down to Sander Berge’s strike on 31 minutes. We responded immediately through Harry Kane but were left to rue our luck as the goal was ruled out by VAR for hand-ball.

We continued to enjoy the majority of possession without creating clear-cut chances and the home side’s second goal through Lys Mousset on 69 minutes proved a decisive blow. Oli McBurnie made it 3-0 in the 84th minute and Harry’s reply in added time proved only a consolation.

“An awful result, I think a crucial result for the fight for Champions League,” said Jose, as the result left us nine points adrift of fourth and seven behind fifth place in the Premier League, with six matches remaining.

“We had an opportunity to close the gap and put pressure on, but with this result it’s very difficult to dream about Champions League, and it will be difficult, a big fight with other clubs like Sheffield United, Everton, and lots of clubs that are going to fight for Europa League spots.”

After Sheffield United scored their third, a glance at the match statistics saw us with more possession, more efforts at goal and six corners to one, yet trailing 3-0. We simply couldn’t break down Sheffield United’s defensive unit.

“Football is not about these stats,” said Jose. “Football is about how many goals you score and how many goals you concede. I have to be honest, it would be very easy to just speak about the decision (our disallowed equaliser), but I also want to be honest with myself, and I have also to say that with the very offensive team that we played, we had a lot of the ball, but we were not aggressive enough or intense enough in the last third to create more than we did.

“If you want to reach objectives, you have to be stable in performances and stable in results and stable mentally. I agree that in the first half, we were completely in control despite the goal we conceded, but that disallowed goal cannot kill us. It can hit us strong, it can be a big disappointment for us, but we had enough time to psychologically react as a team in a different way, and not die with that decision. That’s where I blame ourselves, because we have to be mentally stronger to cope with situations like that.”