It was a bit weird.
Following Sunday’s 1-0 win against Manchester United, Newcastle United manager and former waiter Rafa Benitez has admitted that Jose Mourinho was humble in defeat – somewhat surprising behaviour for a man whose past reactions to losses have, at times, involved toys, prams and throwing the former out of the latter.
The Portuguese manager publicly described the Newcastle team as having “fought like animals” after Matt Ritchie’s second-half goal gave the Tyneside club a much needed win, moving them two points clear of the relegation zone.
Image credit: GettyJose has long been an expert at deflecting criticism away from his United players, unless they are Luke Shaw or Henrikh Mkhitaryan (who has since joined Arsenal), but the defeat leaves them 16 points behind their rivals Manchester City and with little to no chance of claiming the title.
He must have been hurting.
Nevertheless the United boss sucked it up and described it as a “beautiful thing” watching the opposition defend for their lives for the final 15 minutes, praise presumably stemming from Mourinho’s deep-rooted passion for complex bus-parking manoeuvres.
After the game, Benitez told reporters that Jose did have some kind words for him personally on the touchline.
“He said ‘congratulations and you did well’, more or less what he said before that,” said Benitez. “The team was working so hard. They had chances, and he could have been thinking that they would score, but the way that we were working, we were doing really well.”
Image credit GettyWell, they’re not that kind. Just accurate really. But this is Jose we’re talking about – he is hardly going to tell Rafa how trim he is looking.
The Spaniard also insisted that he wasn’t thinking about the fact that he had just beaten Mourinho, with whom he shared quite an intense rivalry whilst they were managing Liverpool and Chelsea respectively.
Which is just a lie. A blatant, blatant lie.
