Mourinho Slams Referee Despite Admitting United Deserved To Lose

Mourinho Slams Referee Despite Admitting United Deserved To Lose

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho has admitted that his side deserved to lose their Premier League clash with Brighton on Sunday, but has taken a sly dig at referee Kevin Friend in the process.

United were completely embarrassed by the Seagulls in the first half, and found themselves 3-1 down for the majority of the game before a late penalty, scored by Man United captain Paul Pogba, pegged the score back to 3-2.

It gave the Reds a glimmer of hope about scraping a draw at the Amex Stadium, but Friend blew his referee’s whistle midway through their next attack – damning them to a deserved defeat.


And Mourinho has hit out at Friend for his decision to call time on the game early, making a point of how fellow referee Andre Marriner allowed time on for United’s opening-day victory over Leicester.

“In the second half, our goal was too late and gave us not even the chance of a next ball,” Mourinho told his post-match press conference.

“It’s quite strange because against Leicester the match ended with a corner against us and [Kasper] Schmeichel had 15 seconds to arrive from his box to our box.

“The referee waiting for that Leicester opportunity when it was after the extra time he gave.

“Today the situation was not even a corner but was similar in the sense we had one last ball and the referee stopped the game when the ball was in the air.

“But Brighton deserved [to win], congratulations to them.”

Kevin Friend took charge of three United games last season, and the Reds won all three of those fixtures which Jose Mourinho is likely more than aware of. On the other hand, Brighton failed to win any of the four games referee Friend took charge of them for last season.

Clearly Kevin Friend meets the fitness levels that Keith Hackett former chief of the PGMOL (the body maintain refereeing standards in the Premier League, EFL and FA) feels are so important to being a modern day official even though he ended the game prematurely according the United boss. You can read how the PGMOL tries to make sure refereeing is of the highest quality in this authoritative blog about what it takes to be Premier League referee detailing just how stringent the requirements are.

In the 18 United games Friend has refereed, the Red Devils have come away with just two defeats against Stoke and Brighton.

Friend was also the centre of controversy when United played Bournemouth in 2017, with Zlatan Ibrahimovic elbowing Tyrone Mings and the latter stamping on the Swede moments later – both players were not sent off.