Football
Rob Dawson, Correspondent 7y

Jose Mourinho: Man United players must learn to be at 'highest level'

Jose Mourinho has warned members of his Manchester United squad who do not show the same mentality as him that he cannot be "attracted" to them as players, in an interview with Rio Ferdinand on BT Sport.

Mourinho ended his first season at Old Trafford with the Community Shield, the EFL Cup and the Europa League, as well as a place in next season's Champions League, but the campaign was not without its controversial moments.

The United manager criticised both Anthony Martial and Luke Shaw, telling the pair to "work harder," and he encouraged defenders Chris Smalling and Phil Jones to show a "crazy mentality" and play through the pain to ease an injury crisis.

There are doubts about the long-term futures of all four ahead of the summer transfer window, and Mourinho has said he struggles to understand players who do not show the same fight as he does.

"As players, you have to have that responsibility every day and it's something my boys have to learn," he told former United defender Ferdinand.

"Some of them, they can win a big match. What I think they can't do is win it and win it and win it and cope with that intensity, especially that mental intensity, the focus, the concentration, the responsibility, the determination.

"This is something you only learn when you are at the highest level.

"For example, what I love about this kid Marcus [Rashford] is he copes with the pressure. I can press him, I can be very demanding with him, he's the kind of kid that when the training session finishes it doesn't finish for him. He wants more. He lives for football.

"He was a tornado when he arrived last season without pressure. No responsibility. And this season when the pressure was on him, when he was not scoring goals for one, two, three, four months, he coped with that pressure. This is the kind of character I like. I like to squeeze the player and the player to cope with it and react to it.

"For me what's more difficult is the fragile mentality. I think it's probably my weakness as a manager; that it's difficult for me to understand people with a different mentality to what I have. It's difficult to understand so it takes me time to understand and sometimes I'm not able to feel attracted again [to that player].

"Sometimes I ask my assistants to help me on that because maybe they have a different profile to me. Because for me, I want to be in love with the player with this character, with this personality and that kid Marcus is the best example of it, especially in this club."

When United lifted the EFL Cup in February, Mourinho became the first United manager to win a trophy in his first season at the club.

Success in the Europa League for the first time means the club have also completed the set of domestic and European trophies. They have also become the fifth team to win each European competition at least once along with Ajax, Bayern Munich, Juventus and Chelsea.

Still, Mourinho says he has done "nothing" at Old Trafford compared to Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex Ferguson, although he says he has got 15 years left to catch up.

He added: "In this club it makes me feel that I did nothing. Especially because you have two legends -- many of them but two are legends in terms of titles and trophies. I feel that I am nobody.

"I always have [something] to prove. I just feel that what I did in this club is not enough to deserve to be here.

"Sometimes when I stop and look back I did a lot of things, I have things that nobody else has. No manager won in Spain, Italy, England. In these three countries I won all the competitions, not just the league.

"For example when we won against Anderlecht I was told that I equal the record of Sir Alex and Trapattoni of 10 European semifinals. They have finished. I still have a chance to get some more semifinals. So there are things that I'm really proud of.

"[If] I finish my career tomorrow I should be very happy with my experience but the problem is my career just reached the halfway stage. I have 15 more years."

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