This is not a good look.
Jose Mourinho is known to throw his players under the bus on occasions. He has done it at various points throughout his career at pretty much every club he has managed. Whether it’s a way of pressuring them into improving, or (more likely) to alleviate blame from himself, it’s not pretty and it’s certainly not clever.
That said, at least he generally tends to apportion blame after the final whistle. That’s no excuse, but at least when it’s after the event, it has no tangible effect on the performances of his charges on the night. Except, on Tuesday night, he lowered the bar further by blaming a player during a game. And a watching Gary Lineker wasn’t happy.
Marcus Rashford did everything but score with a chance in the first half. It was a poor finish, but credit to the Old Trafford crowd, they didn’t jump on the back of the 21-year-old. But Mourinho did. He turned from the game and made a derogatory gesture to the fans in the stands. A sort of ‘how did he miss that’ motion.
At half-time, Lineker strongly chastised the Portuguese, admitting he’d be ‘livid’ if a manager reacted like that to a chance he missed. United legend Rio Ferdinand agreed wholeheartedly. What he out of order, we’ll let you be the judge of that…
"If I saw my manager react like that, I would be absolutely livid."@GaryLineker gives his verdict on Jose Mourinho's reaction to a Marcus Rashford miss… pic.twitter.com/AwtiIA3Krv
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) November 27, 2018
