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Football

26th Feb 2018

Nemanja Matic “reveals” what was on the note that Jose Mourinho slipped to him

Matic got jokes

Darragh Murphy

Willian sure wanted to know all about what was on the note that was delivered to Nemanja Matic on Sunday afternoon.

Jose Mourinho sent on substitute Eric Bailly with a note for Matic and whatever it said, it worked because Manchester United saw out the 2-1 victory over Chelsea and returned to second place in the Premier League table.

Chelsea’s Willian, who is a former teammate of Matic’s, hilariously tried to get a sneak peek at what was written on the piece of paper but the United midfielder managed to shield the instructions.

And, on Monday, the Serbia international took to Instagram to “reveal” what his manager had told him to do.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfqVbeoHoia/

Matic jokingly suggested that he’d simply been told to take a few days off from training, with United not playing again until next Monday.

Mourinho praised both Matic and his midfield partner, Scott McTominay, after the final whistle for their ability to keep the Blues’ dangermen at bay for large portions of the game.

“We managers always want the perfection,” Mourinho said. “We are the best with the pen and the paper when we define our gameplan and define mode of play, we are all the best and everything is perfect.

“Then on the pitch things are a little bit different. Today we decide to play against them with four at the back, not five, and to play with four at the back the work of Scott and Matic was absolutely crucial in the control of Hazard and Willian positions and even so we are not perfect because they are phenomenal players.”