Mourinho: Champions League Football Vital

Mourinho: Champions League Football Vital

United manager Jose Mourinho says that it is vital his team are in the Champions League next season, but warns the Premier League fixtures make it very difficult to be successful in the Europa League.

United play Feyenoord on Thursday in their Europa League opener and Mourinho will hope to start the campaign with nothing less than a win. Despite losing to their bitter rivals Manchester City on Saturday, the mood is still very positive at the United camp and there is still a huge sense that Mourinho can deliver success back to Old Trafford.

Mourinho says he feels home at United, but the 53-year-old Portuguese revealed there is one crucial thing missing this season – Champions League football.


He said: “The Champions League without Manchester United is not the Champions League and Manchester United without the Champions League is not Manchester United. So this is the first big step. But to get back to the Champions League we need to do well in the Premier League, so the first step is to recover the self-esteem, which I think we are doing.”

Mourinho also said he had a hard time convincing Pogba to join Manchester United. The French star arrived at Old Trafford in a £90million deal from Juventus, but that was after weeks of hard graft from Mourinho.

In an interview with Goal.com he explained: “Oh! It was hard to convince him. I had many [conversations] on the phone, lots of SMS.”

“I think he was getting one in the morning from the manager from another big club and one in the afternoon from myself. I had to try hard to convince him to choose us instead of the other one.”

[Quotes sourced from The Mirror]