Jose Mourinho press conference LIVE - Jose Mourinho confirms team news ahead of facing Crystal Palace
Mourinho spoke to the media at United’s Carrington training ground on Friday
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Jose Mourinho issued the latest Manchester United team news ahead of Saturday's Premier League resumption against Crystal Palace, with good news for a number of their key players.
United welcome Roy Hodgson's side to Old Trafford, a fortnight on from their 3-1 derby defeat by Manchester City at the Etihad. The defeat ended United's three-match winning run in all competitions, after victories over Everton, Bournemouth and Juventus. However, they will go into the match with both Anthony Martial and Paul Pogba fit and available, while Romelu Lukaku and Marouane Fellaini also looking likely to feature.
Mourinho also insisted that he still believes United will finish inside the top four come the end of the season, even though his side currently sit eighth in the Premier League table, 12 points behind pace-setters City, after a difficult start to the campaign, and seven points off fourth-placed Tottenham Hotspur.But there was a frosty start to his press conference as he refused to discuss quotes that have been attributed to him regarding the "maturity" of some of his younger players in Marcus Rashford, Luke Shaw, Jesse Lingard and Martial. Read exactly what Mourinho had to say below...
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Welcome to The Independent's live coverage of Jose Mourinho's press conference to preview Manchester United's meeting with Crystal Palace.
Mourinho will speak to journalists on Friday lunchtime, almost a fortnight on from the 3-1 derby defeat to Manchester City.
The United manager will be speaking from 1.30pm.
We'll have updates for you live from Carrington.
We're expecting Mourinho any minute now, ad as well as looking ahead to tomorrow's match, he'll likely be quizzed over some rather unusual comments that emerged overnight. The United manager was accused of claiming that four players in particular - Luke Shaw, Anthony Martial, Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard - lacked "maturity", although the accuracy of these claims is yet to be proven.
Hopefully, Mourinho will clear the situation up...
On the claims about the maturity of players in his squad:
"I don't play your game. I don't play the game of the take out of context and do what you want, I don't play your game and I have nothing to say.
"I don't lose my time playing that game. Next question this side please.
On the fans' support ahead of facing Palace:
"The supporters cannot do more than what they are doing, we went through a difficult period of results and the supporters were fantastic, they support the team and in some matches even push the team for different levels of where we were at the time and we cannot ask more from them.
"It's up to us to give to them and make them to go to an even better level."
On if his players can give more:
"For us. Team. And of course we need points, of course we need points, results, we need performances because we also like good performances on the top of points and good results so it is up to us.
On recovering from the City defeat:
"We were playing well and getting good results until the end of the last period, of course we lost the last match (against Manchester City) but I don't consider at all a bad performance and two weeks with a small group of players, waiting for news, good news, bad news in national teams, no time to work together but we were in a good moment, playing well, so why not stay the same?"
On what they need to do next?
"To improve and to get good results because of course we need now to get points to jump into the position we are in the Premier League and next week with the Champions League we need points against Young Boys."
On Anthony Martial's fitness:
"Anthony Martial stayed with us, he didn't go to the (France) national team, the national team was aware of his problems and with permission he stayed, he worked really hard on that. I like to call that a pre-injury, because problems in the muscles around it, they are a dangerous situation and he was in a pre-injury situation, he worked really hard, he's ready for tomorrow, he plays for tomorrow.
"Is he ready to play three in a row in the same week? I don't know but the most important match is the next."
On Marouane Fellaini and other injury concerns:
"Marouane Fellaini also stayed, no national team, they (Belgium) also let him stay in spite of playing 90 mins against Manchester City, he needed to stay and prepare himself better after such an injury that he had before so Marouane is also good.
"And the boys in the national teams, Marcus Rashford came with a little problem but is ready, Romelu Lukaku is ready, I would say ready with a little bit of a risk but ready and Paul Pogba we knew with this break he would recover from that small muscular injury, so we don't have players I can say are out of the game tomorrow, we have a huge 23 group to choose for tomorrow."
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